The Barbarians (part 2): Barbarian Queen 1 & 2

Let me get two things out of the way immediately. First, Barbarian Queen sucks. Second, Barbarian Queen II sucks. I hope I haven't offended any prepubescent genre lovers out there, but there is little to find of worth in this pairing. They are however, completely hilarious. One of the only redeeming parts is the endearing performances by the late Lana Clarkson, yes the Lana Clarkson that Phil Spector murdered. She stars in both, though she plays different characters in each, and neither are related in any way unless you count Clarkson, swords, boobs and Clarkson's sword wielding boobs. It may be the downer of knowing her fate that make's these hard to watch because she's so young and anxious looking here. It's unfortunate her career never took off, though her acting isn't the best truthfully, she really is the best thing about the movies.

screen from mcbeardo.com

The second best thing about them are the quotables, for just one example, "My stomach...it feels like there's bears in it." Typing it now doesn't do it justice, context is key I guess. Ok, plots in 20 seconds: First Clarkson's sister is kidnapped by horny Roman dudes, she fights back! Second time around Clarkson's emperor dad dies and evil dudes wanna take his magic sceptre, she fights back!



I think, if you were to hold my feet over a vat of boiling pig fat (or you were flickchart) and make me choose a favorite of the two, I'd have to go with part 2, if only for the more hilarious plot involving the magic sceptre and prissy young princess who, via magic and wishing, ages to be a woman and is then killed by her father. Oh, spoiler alert.

Here's a funny clip

All this being said, as I usually do, I recommend these as a double feature at least one viewing. Get some friends, some booze, and a sense of humor, and you'll be a-okay. And the posters are amazing, everyone remember Boris Vallejo? He lives in Allentown! Who knew?

Buy Both Barbarian Queen 1 & 2 as a double feature

The Barbarians (part 1): The Soundtracks

Ok so remember waaaaaaay back when we first started this mess known as Camp Movie Camp, and we began the Barbarian series? We haven't forgotten, and as a show of good faith that there is much more magic and muscle ahead, we thought we'd bring you the way out of print soundtracks for both our first movies in that series.


Ok we admit it, It was kind of a tease to only offer you the butt-rock anthem "Yor's World" last time, but thanks to the power of community, and whoever the original source for this might be, you can now get epic with the whole damned score.

Yor: The Hunter From the Future (1983) Soundtrack

Remember the Fulci mind scramble that was Conquest? Well then your mind obviously wasn't scrambled enough, let this score by Claudio Simonetti of Goblin finish the job.

Conquest (1983) Soundtrack

The Barbarians (part 1)

Before Asylum films, the world had Italy and Turkey, whose film industries in the ‘70s and ‘80s in large part consisted of popular hollywood copycat films. We’ve previously mentioned the ‘80s “Barbarian” craze that Conan started, but today’s features from Italy really...uh...shine...

Yor (1983)

I know what youre thinking “I love Conan the Barbarian and Star Wars and Wayne’s World, and can’t pick which one is my favorite!” Now you dont have to! Let me explain. The movie opens with Yor doing some kind of aerobic runs through the highlands. Barbarian, check. In the end, yes, Yor realizes he’s a hunter, from the future, and him and the barbarians he lives with become expert laser marksmen against the foes from the future. Lasers, check.

Just prior to the credits (and the epic outro music), the knowing voiceover reveals that Yor now has a chance to change the past, “Yor returns to the primitive tribes on the mainland, he is determined to use his superior knowledge to prevent them from making the same mistakes as his forefathers, will he succeed?“ I always appreciate a sequel set-up, but, uh, we've got to be talking at least 300,000 years of history and, unless I missed something, he’s not “Yor, the Immortal Hunter from the Future.”

Yor, Hunter from the Future kind of gives away huge plot details just in its title and poster but it’s still really fun to watch, espceially because Yor looks like a muscley Garth. Check.





Check out the whole thing on YouTube

Or buy it on VHS

And, as one extra added bonus of sweet magic, here’s a piece from the now out of print epic soundtrack!

Guido and Maurizio De Angelis - Yor’s World (from Yor, Hunter from the Future)

Conquest (1983)

Goddam Lucio Fulcio knows how to make a movie! Also released in 1983 Conquest has the most banging opening 10 minutes evar: exposed brains, lots of boobs, talking werewolves, a lady being ripped in half, cannibalism and serpentine-eroticism. Fulci is the Italian grandaddy of gory-epic-awesome who also made other great films such as Zombie 2 and the New York Ripper. This film is totally weird, set in an unknown ancient land, has a sexy Destro villain with trippy monsters and lasers and lots and lots of fog. See for yourself below.



Buy Conquest

Or rent it from Netflix

Stay tuned for more absurd barbarianism in future posts.