Review: She

In some kind of post-apocalyptic landscape, David Goss and Harrison Muller are trying to rescue their pretty friend who was kidnapped by evil Gordon Mitchell. Eventually recruited into the rescue mission is Amazon warrior queen She (Sandahl Bergman), as the encounter bizarre flesh-eating werewolves, a psychic cult faction (headed by Gregory Snegoff), a crazed scientist, and mutants among other assorted creatures.

 

I wasn’t a great fan of the 1960s Hammer version of the H. Rider Haggard novel, but this 1984 uber low-budget version from writer-director Avi Nesher (who went on to make “Timebomb” with Michael Biehn and “Doppelganger” with Drew Barrymore) is about a thousand times worse. Mostly playing like an inexplicable Italian-made “Mad Max II” rip-off (one of seemingly a thousand), Nesher isn’t even trying to make a “She” film here. He’s just trying to make a quick, cheap buck with Kellogg’s Corn Flakes product placement and Motorhead on the soundtrack. “Escape From New York” is clearly another big influence on this. The problem is, based on all evidence here Nesher is a terrible filmmaker. The editing in particular is absolutely atrocious from a narrative coherency standpoint. 10 minutes in and you wouldn’t know that the focus was meant to be on Sandahl Bergman’s title character who is at this point barely glimpsed. Sadly, it’s very much indicative of what’s to come as instead of being a front-and-centre medieval-style female warrior, she’s basically one of a group of ragtag heroes. 25 minutes in and I only had the vaguest of clues as to who any of these people were, She included. Look, I haven’t read Haggard’s work so I don’t know for certain, but I’d be shocked if what is presented here is in any way related to the original source. It’s certainly nothing like the plot of the Hammer version, where Ursula Andress’ title character was far more prominent. In the title role we have former dancer Sandahl Bergman, who isn’t exactly much of an actress but is actually pretty decent here under trying circumstances. She certainly looks the part and I can’t think of anyone else of the same vintage who would’ve been any better.

 

That’s all the nice things I have to say about this film, unfortunately. Every now and then it gets weird enough to be the right kind of bad movie, but it’s fleeting and…well, even then it’s still bad, right? Even Bergman isn’t entirely great, as she no-sells that torture rack like she thinks she’s The Undertaker being slammed into a steel cage. The other actors are either forgettable, terrible, or in the case of American-born character actor Gordon Mitchell (a frequent presence in Italian exploitation films), horribly underused. He’s the best actor in the film by a mile but is barely even a presence. His helmet is awesome, though. Bringing up the rear acting-wise are the woefully inadequate double-act of Gregory Snegoff (who found plenty of work as a voice-over artist) and Mary D’Antin as a cult leader and his off-sider. The former is dreadfully miscast and lacking presence, the latter just flat-out can’t act to save herself. She’s one of the worst actresses I’ve ever seen…and think about what that means within this cast. The absolute nadir of the film is a woefully unfunny ‘comedic’ scene at the 80 minute mark involving a bizarre race of clone-esque weirdos in military regalia doing bad Groucho Marx impressions for god knows what reason. I will say I did chuckle at an earlier scene where a mutant gets his arm comically torn off. Even then, why is this thing all over the shop in tone, style, and genre? It’s schizo. Even the settings/locales are varied to the point of not really gelling with one another. A set-piece involving a faux-Ancient Rome villa doesn’t belong anywhere near anything else here, and why are their balloons there? Nesher doesn’t care, he’s just throwing out all kinds of shit he thinks is popular/trendy in the hopes of making money off it. That includes a lame Hard Rock soundtrack featuring Motorhead on seemingly a very off day. Nesher quickly gets bored and turns the faux-Romans into flesh-eating werewolves or some shit like he’s got ADHD and can’t stick to anything for very long. Like I said, some of it actually is dumb/weird enough to be sort-of amusing in an Ed Wood-ian kind of way, but not nearly enough of it. Mostly, this is just tedious. What pisses me off is that there’s potential in a female warrior film. Nesher could’ve done something entertaining and interesting with that. Instead he’s not even trying at all. The action climax is surprisingly fun, but that’s maybe 10 minutes of fun in about 100 minutes of film. The film definitely could’ve used more sex, nudity, and violence. It’s not for kids, but it’s pretty damn tame.

 

The hero is distressingly underused, the film is a horribly edited pastiche of various popular culture things none of it coming together cohesively. Occasionally there’s a brief amusement or weirdness, but you have to wade through far too much tedium. This is dreadfully unfocussed and cheap. Bergman isn’t bad, nor is the action climax. But it’s not worth it. Terrible.

 

Rating: D-