Lady Terminator
By Chris Hyde
September 7, 2004
An indestructible she-devil rises from the South Seas to wreak havoc on the modern world in Lady Terminator.
Regular readers of this space will surely be familiar with the output of Mondo Macabro, a DVD company that has specialized in bringing to light neglected bits of weirdness from all over the planet. After a brief hiatus in their release schedule caused by a switch to distributor Ryko, they’ve now returned with this 1988 slice of madness from Indonesia. Maintaining their nearly perfect record thus in the digital domain, this guiltiest of pleasures delivers profuse amounts of sex and violence in a truly unique combination of legendary trappings and sci-fi ripoff.
The story of the film opens with some classic horror film scene setting, as we’re met a couple hundred years ago by a flimsily attired black widow of a woman who dispatches hapless husbands during the act of sex. The 100th potential victim has a bit more gumption than the rest and attempts to save himself by uncovering the snake demon that controls her. Thus revealed, the serpentine harridan must return to the depths of sea — but before doing so, she vows to come back in future years to torment the progeny of her male challenger.
Cue title sequence featuring multiple ominous waves, implying that even though we’ve fast-forwarded to the present, deep-sea danger still lurks below. Here we’re introduced to a diligent female anthropologist (Barbara Anne Constable) who’s working on her thesis, a study of the legend of the South Sea Queen — and I’m sure you won’t be surprised to find that this is the same figure from the film’s prologue. Like any good rational scientist, she haughtily ignores the superstitious warnings of the locals and goes scuba diving in search of evidence of the archaic snake goddess. Unfortunately for our American scholar, her dream of becoming the next Margaret Mead is cut short as she ends up violated by the object of her academic interest and thus becomes a vessel for the sea witch’s revenge.
Next up, we’re introduced to a young singer named Erica (Claudia Rademaker), whose inimitable sense of '80s fashion cannot disguise the fact that she’s the great granddaughter of the guy who tried to wax the snake queen a few generations back. This unsuspecting diva is going about her normal, everyday head-banded business, singing pop songs in a disco in a manner that seems sure to eventually lead to a lucrative gig as an aerobics instructor. But before that budding career can begin to take off, the possessed anthropologist shows up wielding an uzi to shoot up the nightclub with crazed abandon. Luckily for Erica, however, a blond American cop named Max (Christopher J. Hart) appears just in time to save her from the terminatrix - and the movie descends into all-out mayhem as the principals battle for their lives with this hideous denizen of the sea.
The pleasures that Lady Terminator contains are many, and the briskly paced piece clocks in well under the 90 minute length that’s generally ideal for genre pictures. There’s nearly nonstop action, and the film is packed with multiple moments thieved from the Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle that gave the movie its name. The titular character is the very essence of the deadly femme fatale, wielding her sex as dangerously as the semi-automatic she carries. Relentlessly pursuing her cursed victim through constant firestorms of bullets and wild vehicular chases that are wont to turn into fiery explosions, this villainess seems to be impossible to destroy. So can our innocent discotheque queen and her square-jawed police sidekick somehow find a way to escape the onslaught of the South Sea serpent goddess bent on destroying them both? You’ll have to tune in and experience the spectacular events yourself to find out.
As far as this film goes, yet again the folks at Mondo Macabro have plucked another real winner from out of the international marketplace of the past. There’s a lot of fun to be had here for willing fans, and while much is of the sort you’ll reproach yourself for later, there are also some interesting bits of filmmaking along the way. Especially captivating in this sense is the gloomy water imagery of director Jalil Jackson, which is at times almost surrealist in its foreboding execution. Some of the other highlights include the stilted acting whose otherworldly nature is enhanced by the remote voice dubbing; the captivating charms of leather clad Barbara Anne Constable as she makes mincemeat of the local constabulary; and the film’s relentless pace, which keeps things moving incessantly through constant shootouts and automobile chases. Also of note is the film’s sometimes bizarre editing style, which often walks a fine line between avant-garde and ineptitude and helps lend an off-kilter air to the entire outing.
With the main event such an entertaining bit of insanity, this film would be worth a pickup even in a cheapie version. But of course there’s much more than that here — beginning with the beautiful anamorphic transfer that was struck from the original negative. This Mondo Macabro version not only presents the film in its proper widescreen format, it additionally returns it to the original running time that it had at the time of its debut. Also included are a few alternate scenes, a trailer, a stills gallery and a solid page of historical notes on the production. One more fine extra included with this edition is an informative half hour documentary on Indonesian exploitation, which should do little but whet your appetite for some of the other mind-blowing films that were produced in this sprawling island nation.
Every time out, it seems, the releases from Mondo Macabro unveil some hitherto unseen or neglected slice of the world’s cinema spectrum. And perhaps you’re growing tired of reading little but unqualified raves for the company’s product in these pages, as it seems that every single time they issue a new movie to disk that it receives nothing but fannish babbling here. Given their quality control and nearly impeccable taste, however, this is simply what the outfit deserves thus far; I’m sure that someday they’ll stumble and put out something that I can’t get behind 100 percent. But until such a happenstance hits my mailbox, I’ll just happily continue to sing the praises of every bit of global arcana that they choose to uncover — and the current advent of the wildly amusing Lady Terminator is certainly cause for at least a chorus or two.
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