Barbarian Queen II: The Empress Strikes Back

Date: March 12th, 2015

Lovely Lana Clarkson returns in Barbarian Queen II: The Empress Strikes Back, though she plays a different character in a different setting. And she is not an empress, she's a princess, but let's not quibble about details. The plot is pretty standard: evil dude usurps the good king's throne; good king's daughter leads a band of peasants (mostly scantily clad women with nice hair) to fight against him; obligatory exposure of breasts ensues, and finally good triumphs over evil.

The cast includes Clarkson, who does a fine job as usual and manages to get topless with adequate frequency throughout the film. There are several sexy rebel chicks who run around in deerskin miniskirts and halter tops. Though they live out in the woods in tents, they manage to keep their hair shampooed and professionally styled at all times. Rebecca Wood, who briefly exhibited her finest assets in Friday the 13th, Part V, and Monica Steuer, who has had minor roles in a number of films and TV shows, are lovely but don't get naked here. Elizabeth Jaeger serves as the comic relief, clumsily fumbling with swords and spears. Veteran Latin American actor Roger Cudney excels as the henchman of the king.

But the real star of the cast is Cecilia Tijerina as Tamis, the teenage daughter of the evil king. Imdb.com gives her birth year as 1971, but Spanish Wikipedia has it as 1975, which puts her somewhere between 13 and 17 during the filming of the movie. She delivers some great lines and her character develops into a real wicked little bitchlet. Instead of just fast-forwarding to the nudity, you find yourself actually watching the movie in order to see what sort of nastiness Tamis will pull next.

There are a couple of highlights in the film. One of them comes early on, when Clarkson has escaped from the king and is trying to integrate with the rebels in the forest. She gets into a fight with Erigena (played by Obrietta Aguilar) and the first thing that happens is that they spill a barrel of water, thereby creating a large puddle of mud for them to roll around in. Clothing gets torn, breasts are exposed, and a mud wrestling exhibition ensues. The first Barbarian Queen movie is famous for its torture scene (at least among those viewers who are into that sort of thing), so the makers of this film wisely added a couple of scenes where Lana Clarkson is strapped down, topless, and tormented by the king's henchman. Even Tamis participates in the torture action.

The fight scenes are poor, even by B-movie standards. I was particularly distracted by the fact that when archers fire their weapons, they barely pull back on the bow, yet the arrows fly great distances and strike down their targets. The backdrops are OK. The movie was filmed in Mexico, and much of it takes place outdoors, in the forest, which saves money on set design. The dungeons are appropriately creepy, and they spent a modest amount of money on costumes. This film is the sole directorial effort of Joseph Finley, who has spent most of his Hollywood career as a colorist, recently working on Game of Thrones. Howard Cohen returns as writer. A versatile fellow, he is credited as a writer on such diverse works as Vampire Hookers and Emmanuelle V, as well as children's fare like The Care Bears Family.

Overall, moderately entertaining. I'd give this B-movie a "B-".

IMDB link. Rated R.

Lana Clarkson in Barbarian Queen 2
Rebecca Wood, Monica Steuer, Lana Clarkson, and Elizabeth Jaeger (left to right) showing off their 80's hair.

Lana Clarkson and Greg Wrangler in Barbarian Queen 2
Clarkson and soap opera hunk Greg Wrangler ("Aurion"). Lucky guy gets to motorboat her during their love scene.

Cecilia Tijerina as Tamis in Barbarian Queen 2
Teenage actress Cecilia Tijerina as Tamis. Cute but deadly.

Lana Clarkson on the rack
Nice rack! (I mean, the torture device). Athalia (Lana Clarkson) getting stretched on the rack by Hofrax (Roger Cudney) and Tamis (Cecilia Tijerina).

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