| This week, Video Vulture looks at two films from Indonesian director H. Tjut Djalil, the madman who brought us the indescribable flying-head movie Mystics in Bali (1981). Be warned: children and squeamish prudes should stop reading now.
· Lady Terminator (a.k.a. Nasty Hunter, a.k.a. Revenge of the South Seas Queen) (1988) – yes, as the title suggests, this is a shot-for-shot remake of the Arnold Schwarzenegger hit with added nudity. But before it gets to that, there’s quite a bit of weird Indonesian folklore the likes of which you’ve never seen. We begin in the enchanted seaside bedchamber of the evil Queen of the South Seas, who apparently has a carnivorous snake or eel or something living inside her. You know – up there. It takes us a while to figure this out – all we know for sure is that whenever she makes love to some unsuspecting schmuck, there’s a chomping noise and the guy dies screaming. "Is there any man who can satisfy me?" kvetches the Queen, as her handmaidens drag away the corpse of her latest lover. On cue, the doors swing open and a hunky blonde stud strolls in, amidst lots of dry ice fog and tinny theme music from a discount Casio keyboard. Hanky panky duly ensues, and Blondie manages not only to ring the Queen’s bell, but to yank out her eel and turn it into a magical dagger. Then he says "You are my wife now! I want you to stop the killings!"
As it turns out, stealing the Queen’s pussy snake is not the best way to get into her good books. She points accusingly at the presumptuous snake charmer and snarls "Bastard! You tricked me! In one hundred years I’ll have my revenge on your great-granddaughter!" which has got to be one of the greatest nonsensical curses of all time. I almost hope it’ll catch on and become part of our daily language:
My Editor: "Damn it John, your copy is late again! In 100 years I’ll have my revenge on your great-granddaughter!"
Me: "What? Seriously? Oh come on. Don’t."
Anyhoo, all of this is before the opening credits. Then we flash forward to today, where we meet a sexy brunette (Barbara Anne Constable) who constantly assures us that "I’m not a lady, I’m an anthropologist!" While researching the legend of the South Seas Queen, the non-lady anthropologist puts on a tiny black bikini and dives into the ocean waves. Moments later she appears tied to the Queen’s bed, where she becomes the dwelling place for another cursed snake. Then she rises naked onto the beach as an unstoppable killing machine possessed by the South Seas Queen, and goes searching for the great-granddaughter, who’s some sort of teen pop idol or something. A few more fatal sexual encounters provide Lady Terminator with a leather jacket and a gun, and away she goes. It’s more or less at this point that the movie morphs into a Terminator clone, only cheaper, sleazier and hilarious. Everything’s here, including the spectacular police station massacre, the do-it-yourself eye surgery, and even a handsome stranger who saves the pop idol and says "Come with me if you want to live!" Dialogue is pretty much entirely replaced by gunfire at this point, which is not a bad thing.
Mondo Macabro’s excellent Lady Terminator DVD comes with a satisfying selection of extras, including background information on folklore regarding the South Seas Queen and alternate scenes in which the women wear more clothing. These latter scenes were apparently filmed to make the movie more palatable in certain markets, although it’s hard to imagine any version of Lady Terminator that doesn’t stink of sleaze.
In some shots, even in the finished version, the Lady Terminator’s naughty bits are covered up by glowing blue electricity effects. You can almost hear the filmmakers making their case to the censors, "See? She’s not naked! She’s wearing boob lightning! Give it a PG!"
Speaking of "boob lightning," there’s an awful lot of it in H. Tjut Djalil’s next major flick, Dangerous Seductress (1992). The script calls for a possessed woman with an insatiable sexual appetite who seduces and murders dozens of men and drinks their blood. However, the permissive era that brought about Lady Terminator apparently ended halfway through production, and the finished film contains no actual nudity at all! There are still plenty of naked scenes, but the unclothed seductresses in them are always covered up by either lingerie or boob lightning. No matter how disappointed horndogs might be by this news, you’ve got to admit that’s pretty cool. After all, there are thousands of movies featuring naked women, but only a few that have boob lightning.
· Dangerous Seductress begins with one of the cheapest, silliest car chase/gunfight scenes ever filmed. After the inevitable fiery wreck, the only survivor is one of the bad guy’s fingers. That’s right – a finger. It stands up (!) and sort of hops/glides across the ground (!!) before crawling into an unattended piece of jewelry. This resurrects some sort of evil witch, played by Playboy model and WWE diva Amy Weber. The resurrection scene is absolutely unforgettable, with Amy’s body assembling itself piece by piece, while her boob lightning shimmers in the darkness. The rest of the flick is a bit of a snore, frankly, but fans of deviant cinema won’t want to miss the first two scenes.
Dangerous Seductress and Lady Terminator are both available from Mondo Macabro (www.mondomacabrodvd.com) either separately, or as the "Asian Action Deadly Dolls" two-disc set. After Mystics in Bali and The Devil’s Sword, these DVDs offer further proof that Mondo Macabro has no equal in releasing insane Indonesian trash cinema to the English language market. |
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