'Let the games begin.'
Welcome back to my Dark Corner of this Sick World.
‘Very nice.’
We’re looking at Warrior Queen.
To be specific, we’re looking at the 69 minute version of Warrior Queen,
which means there is nudity, but the more adult stuff has been cut.
‘Accept apologies from my miserable wife, Philomena.’
Now it may seem like we’ve stepped over the soft-core threshold here but the film features such cult figures as Sybil Danning,
and Donald Pleasence.
‘Silence, I want some silence!'
Acting his toga off as Clodius, consul of the ancient Roman city of Pompeii.
‘I know we cannot hope to compare with the marvels of Rome.’
He’s not wrong. Rome wasn’t built in a day but I bet this was.
Danning meanwhile plays bad ass Berenice.
'Your money, come on!'
Who has come to Pompeii to check out the local upside down sex slave market,
'Haha, we can do better than that.'
'fifty sesterces.'
'One Hundred and twenty-five.'
She fails to get the girl she wants and leaves in a huff.
We also meet gladiator/charioteer Marcus,
and you know he’s the hero from what a complete jackass he is.
‘You loved me once’
'I’ve loved many women once.’
But the story really follows Vespa, the girl that Berenice was after.
‘This is from your tribe of Palestine.’
Sold to a brothel, she is now prepared for her duties.
Well one of you must have a line,
see, that would have been an opportunity to speak,
If someone spoke they could tell me what the hell that was.
Although the scene does become less ambiguous.
Well they certainly captured the reality of that situation.
Her first night ‘on duty’ Vespa meets some of the other girls.
'You should know eh Veneria.'
Veneria doesn’t get much business.
‘Then why does she stay?’
She spoke! For the first 25 minutes I thought Vespa was mute.
And she might as well be, she is the lead character and in the entire movie has 6 lines, including.
‘But…’
For all I know she was really chatty in the sex scenes but I can almost hear the director saying
‘Trust me, it’s better if you don’t speak’.
And you have to wonder how bad she was when you see everyone else.
‘This is the woman I choose for tonight’
Vespa winds up with bad guy Goliath,
but is saved by Marcus.
Furious to find out that people are paying for sex in this brothel, whereas he came in to, uh… use the bathroom, yeah that it’s it.
‘She’s mine.’
Goliath takes out his rage in the amphitheatre during a game of Gladiatorial Frizbee.
Incidentally, don’t heckle the gladiators.
Through careful use of footage borrowed from the Last Days of Pompeii,
these scenes create an illusion of scale.
Then piss it away.
Maybe this arena’s not as big as it looks.
Marcus now takes Vespa on a date, by which I mean...
‘Marcus wants to purchase you for an outing.’
So many love stories start with the word ‘purchase.
Without going into detail it ends in kidnap, assault, and beheading.
But the good guys win out.
Nobody speak, you’re all terrible.
If you’re trying to follow the plot, don’t it’s a series of encounters between one dimensional people,
like Clodius’s wife who was once Marcus’s girl but,
‘You’ve become a pathetic old whore.’
and I prefer mine young. Someone explain to me why this guy in the hero.
‘Listen to him.'
Now, as this is set in Pompeii.
Last Days of Pompeii again.
In fact, for the last ten minutes, I’d guess you’re watching more of the 1959 film than the 1987 one- 1987, seriously?
These pillars get lighter as you lift them.
Anyway Clodius is trampled,
the slave trader is nailed in the back by Berenice
and Vespa...
She can’t even panic convincingly, just carry her out of the movie.
Most of the good guys make it and outside the city they meet to take stock.
Well I guess at times like this there’s nothing to say.
On the hills beyond Pompeii they share an emotional farewell.
How bad was the acting that every time someone opened their mouth the director just went...
‘No, no, cut’.
Also… Where did the city go?
Maybe the sex scenes had some important plot in them that got cut out.
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We haven’t reviewed a lot of films set in Roman times, what are we missing? Let us know in the comments below.