| Barbarian Queen | |
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Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Héctor Olivera |
| Produced by | Roger Corman Alejandro Sessa |
| Written by | Howard R. Cohen |
| Starring | Lana Clarkson Victor Bo Susanna Traverso |
| Music by | Christopher Young |
| Cinematography | Rodolfo Denevi Rudi Donovan |
| Editing by | Silvia Ripoll Leslie Rosenthal |
| Distributed by | Concorde Pictures |
| Release date(s) | December 1985 |
| Running time | 70 minutes |
| Country | Argentina United States |
| Language | English Spanish |
Barbarian Queen (also known as Queens of the Naked Steel) is a 1985 American-Argentine fantasy film directed by Héctor Olivera and written by Howard R. Cohen. The film premiered in December 1985 in the United States. It starred Lana Clarkson.[1][2]
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Set during the days of the Roman Empire, a simple village is preparing for the wedding of their king and queen. Suddenly, it is raided by Roman troops, and most of the people are whisked off to be slaves or killed. The queen (Lana Clarkson), and two of her best female warriors survive the attack and set off to liberate the queen's sister (Dawn Dunlap) (who had been raped in the raid and is set to become the Roman centurion's concubine) and king (who is sent to the gladiator arena).
Traveling a river, the band of women gradually catch up to slower-moving elements of the Roman raiding party, killing the soldiers. Searching the soldier's belongings, they find out where the raiding party was heading and follow, eventually arriving at the Roman city. Donning disguises, each woman searches on her own and is eventually captured.
One female warrior (Susana Traverso) is killed while trying to escape from the commander's dungeon. Another (Katt Shea) is raped and left for dead in an alley by Roman soldiers, and the queen (Clarkson) is captured and sent to a torture chamber. There, she is stripped topless and mercilessly tortured on a rack. The contraption simultaneously pierces her bare breast with a sharp metal glove while painfully stretching her whenever she moves. Eventually her torturer (Tony Middleton) rapes her, which results in Amathea turning the tables on him and escaping.
Rescued by the local rebel underground after her ordeal, Amathea and the only warrior woman not dead or captured decide to join the rebel movement, and together they seek vengeance for the citizens, and liberation of the slaves.
This movie benefitted from a surge in interest in the sword and sandal genre sparked by the success of the film adaptation of Conan The Barbarian.
Filmed in Argentina using an international cast of stock American and Argentinian character actors, the film received very little notice during production. Playing in discount movie theaters to a sparse crowd, Barbarian Queen was panned by the audience for its poor dialogue, bad scripting, and cheesy special effects. However, Lana Clarkson drew praise for her acting and her stunning beauty. Her performance as a strong-willed woman subjected to torture and rape by a smaller, weaker man became the film's signature scene with the followers of the genre, such that the movie is now considered a cult classic as a result.[3]
A follow-on film, Barbarian Queen II: The Empress Strikes Back was billed as a sequel, when in actuality neither the plot nor the characters had anything to do with the original Barbarian Queen film, other than casting Lana Clarkson in the title role and having multiple scenes in which she is bound naked to a rack and tortured in a nod to the original movies' impact scene.
Because there was no other big-ticket sword and sandal film to create buzz for the genre, that film went straight to video.
Despite grass-roots pressure to produce a third installment, another Barbarian Queen film would not be made due to a lack of financial backing and the untimely death of Lana Clarkson due to a fatal gunshot to the head in the home of Phil Spector.
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