Barbarian Queen (1985)

The basic moral of this story is "never rape a woman." And why should we men learn this lesson? No, not because raping women is wrong, or because it is hurtful to the woman, or even that it may cause unwanted progeny. No, a man should not rape a woman because if he does, the woman will hunt him down and kill him and all of his friends too.

The plot of this movie consists of evil men killing people and raping women, and the surviving women killing the evil men. In the opening scene we see a village preparing for a marriage between two young people. Troops from the nearby city ride through and kill most everybody (but of course they stop to rape all the women first), leaving only the quick thinking would-be bride left. She rides out to avenge her village, teams up with four other women along the way, and ends up at the city.

Once there, they meet up with the eternally unready leader of the existing rebel movement. What exactly the people in the city are rebelling against is a mystery -- they seem to live pretty good lives.

In the city the women meet up with some pretty interesting characters. One is The World's Greatest Salesman. His character is inconsequential to the plot, but he is nonetheless memorable. His sales technique consists of rushing his patron, shoving his wares into his or her face, and saying such things as "C'mon! Buy it!" and "Buy this dress!" He not only doesn't sell anything, but he has the gall to complain about his lack of sales as well.

A bunch of the women get captured, which leads to their meeting with the next inconsequential yet memorable character. This is the nameless brothel leader, an effeminate eunuch with two daggers of hair for a mustache. It has but one memorable line, but the character was probably the most intriguing of the whole movie.

The third and final memorable yet inconsequential character is the city's official torturer. He gets to torture the lead female and does so in memorable fashion. His torture equipment consists of a rack that couldn't possibly be painful for the person on it -- the woman's arms are not ramrod straight as they ought to be but bent almost ninety degrees. When the torturer cranks up the rack a few turns, her arms unbend about an inch, and she screams in pain. Huh? Dangling down in front of the rack is a silver hand. It just hangs there and never comes into play at all. What its purpose was is anyone's guess. The torturer meets his end by falling in a conveniently placed human-sized vat of acid, thus ending my interest in this movie.

There isn't nearly enough to laugh at in this movie to offset all the groaning I did. If the mood of this movie had been a little lighter, I might have liked it better. As it was, it tried to be so deadly serious that I ended up trying to take it seriously as well -- a painful and costly mistake.

Scene to watch for: Fun on the rack.

Best line: "Too tight!"

Things that make you go "Huh?": The dangling hand.