Director: Matt Cimber
Writers: John F. Goff and Matt Cimber
From: Sci-Fi Invasion
The last survivor of an all-female tribe must go out into the world to rebuild her nation. However, she’ll face many challenges from the men of the surrounding cultures.
A barbarian fantasy flick where Hundra is a warrior in an all-female tribe. A narrator tells us that the tribe has expelled all men and struck out on their own to create a life more pleasing to them. They have everything they need except the ability to “plant the seed from which to create new life.” So members periodically go out to get pregnant. The movie opens with one member giving birth, unfortunately, to a boy. The child will be handed off to someone somewhere and the woman will try again.
Hundra is preparing to go hunting and gets teased for not having tried to get pregnant yet. She says no sword or man will ever pierce her and goes on her way. Of course, a gang of raiders from an opposing tribe is surrounding the camp and attacks just as she leaves. She returns to find her tribe wiped out and she, in turn, kills all the tribesmen that attacked her camp. She goes to see the matriarch of her tribe who tells her to seek out a man to get pregnant and thus continue the people.
Which is the first misstep in the film for me. With the film being made in 1983 and being about an all-female tribe (and being in these box sets), there was a better-than-even chance it was going to descend into farce or some terrible gender-essentialist nonsense. Hell, there was a better-than-even chance that it was going to use its setting as an excuse for lots of rape-tinged nudity. To the movie’s credit, it doesn’t do that, mostly. Hence the misstep here.
The more interesting plot, to my mind, is Hundra rebuilding her nation by being a leader and converting women (and men) to her way of thinking. That plot would be doubly interesting because the story eventually takes Hundra into a city ruled by a High Priest and his lackeys who kidnap women from the town, train them to be sex slaves, and then sell them off to the chieftains of the surrounding clans. If the movie had a more explicit agenda, that setup would be a pretty didactic condemnation of patriarchy. Not only is it exploitative and inherently corrupt, no one is benefiting from it. The movie has presented a setting begging for a revolution.
Instead, Hundra needs a man to knock her up. I mean, if this was a Conan movie and he were the last member of his people, he wouldn’t be tasked with finding a wife, he’d set out to conquer an empire and turn that into his people. Considering my concerns about the movie, to see it doing all right and then make this move was disappointing.
Anyway, back in the city, she fights the priests a bit, falls through a roof into a doctor’s home, and falls in love with him. She then decides to allow herself to be taken to the temple because she believes she’ll get pregnant there. The expected, “we’ll break your will,” “you’ll never break me” stuff happens and Hundra makes a deal with the woman who’s supposed to teach her to be feminine: Hundra will learn the lessons to get one over on their oppressors in exchange for teaching her teacher how to fight.
Once feminine, Hundra returns to the doctor, becomes pregnant, and gives birth to their daughter. She decides to leave the day that the chieftains expect her to submit, but her teacher betrays her/gets caught (happens off-screen so unclear), and the high priest has kidnapped her daughter. Hundra bows to the chieftains, but her teacher has slipped away and saved the baby. When Hundra sees her child and the doctor throws her her sword, she massacres all the chieftains. The High Priest tries to murder the baby, but gets attacked by Hundra’s dog (who’s been a coward throughout the movie as a running gag, but saves the day here. It’s a whole thing). The High Priest is then attacked by all the women in the temple. They dogpile him and sit on his face until he suffocates.
Did I mention the High Priest was a neat freak? So that’s part of his death. I’m saying it’s not 100% “are we seeing someone’s fetish here?” It’s 97-98% "we're seeing someone's fetish here."
So, temple falls, Hundra leaves with baby, everything happy. THE END.
I mean, it’s all right. It’s not great, not terrible, and does slightly better than I expected it to. Even before we get into the gender stuff, the movie faces the challenges all fantasy movies face and that’s world-building. The joy of fantasy novels is how expansive, strange, and fantastic their settings and events can be. This is shot in the hills of Spain. The cast are people running around in animal skins. I’m saying it doesn’t grab the imagination.
Then there’s the gender stuff. As I mentioned above, I was really worried and the movie largely side-steps my concerns. What nudity there is is fleeting, the violent sexual situations get shut down real quick, and the attack on the village at the beginning could have gone either way. The women fight back and kick a lot of ass. Nowhere, besides the dialogue of the obvious villains, is the idea floated that women can’t take care of things for themselves.
Which is what makes the direction of the rest of the film a little odd. Rather than seek revenge or lead a revolution, Hundra is sent out to fulfill her destiny as a woman and get pregnant. Rather than train all the women in the temple and ultimately lead a slave revolt, she only teaches the one. It feels like the movie imagines itself as more progressive than it is, which only serves to highlight how it falls short.
The acting is bad, but not hilariously so and there are attempts at humor that fall real flat. I mentioned the dog above, but there are others. Before Hundra gets to the town, she finds a guy who’s keeping 4-5 women as slaves. The sound design around him, and throughout the movie, is pretty atrocious. His belches and farts are amplified to the level of low roars and I’m left going, wait, is this movie doing fart jokes?
The movie is what it is. I’m not recommending it, but not saying to avoid it either. You might get some fun out of riffing it if you’re so inclined, but it didn't seem to be lending itself to jokes. It avoids some pitfalls and does some things well, however, IMDB rates this a 4.6/10 at the moment and that seems about right. The movie’s pulling a C- in my estimation, but I may be feeling generous after the slog that was Burnout. I at least liked some of the characters in this.
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