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Released by: Mondo Macabro
Released on: 9/28/2004
Director: H. Tjut Dalial
Cast: Barbara Anne Constable, Claudia Angelique Rademaker, Christopher J. Hart, Joseph P. McGlyn
Year: 1988
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The Movie:
Sometimes I wish I lived in Indonesia. Not very often, mind you, as I don't do well with giant insects and shit like that, but one those days where I'm able to sit back with a cold king can of PBR and a cheap cigar and take in a movie imported from the land of Nike's slave labor factories. Lady Terminator is one of those movies.
One night, while the evil South Sea Queen is in foxy human form and ripping off the John Thomas of some unlucky patsy, a guy who turns a snake into a knife and stabs her in the crotch takes her down for the count. As she dies, she swears her revenge upon his great granddaughter, but he doesn't really seem to care much as he'll be dead by then anyway.
Fast forward a century or so and meet a shapely female anthropologist (Barbara Anne Constable), studying anthropological things. She's on a mission to find the South Sea Queen's knife that she read about in a book, and when she gets there her boat gets KO'd and she ends up being whisked away to somewhere (I really don't know where she ends up, it never really tells you) where a snake gives her the old in out.
Once she'd done doing the dirty with the evil magic snake, she comes out of the sea in nothing but her birthday suit. She soon decides to put on a leather jacket and grab some firepower as she's on a mission to destroy an Indonesian dance music singer who is presumably the snake knife guy's great granddaughter (but again, we never really know) and kill anyone or anything that happens to get in her way while she does it.
By the end of the movie there's lasers and explosions and more jaw droppingly bad dialogue than you can shake a snake knife at. This movie is absolutely terrible from start to finish. It doesn't do anything well at all and even as a simple knock off of James Cameron's The Terminator it sucks. But I'll be hornswaggled if it wasn't one of the funniest movies I've seen in a long time. I fully realize it isn't supposed to be funny, but it is. It's also got some pretty wild set pieces in it and even if they're not very well executed, they're at least bizarre enough to keep your attention (just wait until you see Lady Terminator's seductive moves - they never end well for our gullible male bit part cast members - always thinking with their little heads, those guys!).
Video/Audio/Extras:
Mondo Macabro gives Lady Terminator a nice 1.78.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer. At times the image is a little soft and there is some mild print damage here and there but the transfer itself is nice, without any compression artifacts and only a slight hint of edge enhancement visible from time to time. Color reproduction is handled nicely (just check out the laser beams at the end of the movie) and skin tones look natural. The budgetary restraints do shine through in spades, but hey, that's part of the movie's charm anyway.
The Dolby Digital Stereo soundtrack supplied on the DVD is dubbed into English, making the movie all the more absurd because of it. While parts of it sound a tad tinned and a little flat, most of is does sound ok and there weren't any problems with dialogue or sound effects to speak of. The films Casio generated soundtrack comes through nice and clear and never overshadows the oh so poignant speeches and conversations that the characters deliver.
First up is a trailer with burned in subtitles that looks like it was taken from a VHS print. I'll let that slide though as I doubt trailers for Lady Terminator are easy to come by and to be quite honest, it was cool just to see it.
Mondo Macabro has also supplied alternate clothed scenes that were shot so that the film could be marketed to different countries where the censorship rules aren't quite as lax. Some of the changes are really subtle and not too noticeable but the scene where Lady Terminator arises out of the ocean depths is hilariously altered by the use of some handy dandy optical effects.
They've also included the great twenty-five minute documentary on the horror and exploitation films of Indonesia that was on their PAL release of Mystics In Bali. All sorts of actors and directors from the seventies and eighties are interviewed and it's nicely complimented with some great film clips from a handful of the films that are discussed. It's a highly entertaining and pretty informative piece and is a must see for those interested in learning a little more about the Indonesian film industry.
A nice still gallery, a promo reel for other Mondo Macabro release, an essay on the legend of the South Sea Queen, and a filmography for the director round out the extra features.
The Final Word:
Lady Terminator is a bad movie fan's dream come true. Gratuitous nudity, penile dismemberment, cyborg hotties all in the same poorly dubbed film? Count me in. Mondo Macabro has once again given great treatment to an obscure foreign oddity and fans of leather clad laser ladies would do well to snap this baby up pronto.