This godawful nightmare goes down in my personal cinematic history as one of the worst films I have ever seen.
Sybil Danning is Queen Berenice, who according to the plot summary, moves amongst the royalty in ancient Pompeii, secretly helping slaves escape from their masters. She is kowtowed to by Clodius (Donald Pleasence, hamming it up for that sweet payday), but in all actuality she doesn't really "help" any of the slaves escape thanks to the local volcano and an absolute buttload of stock footage.
Coming from director Chuck Vincent, and featuring an adult film star (Samantha Fox, who gives an okay performance), a certain level of cheesiness could be expected, but the film makers don't take advantage of their Italian locations, and don't seem to be trying to make a coherent film. This is a shortened 69 minute version (which feels twice as long), and I don't want to hunt down the 79 minutes director's cut anytime soon. At one point, Danning is yawning at Pleasence's efforts to impress her, and I thought maybe she was viewing a rough cut of the film to get her somnambulist reaction. Like Pleasence, she shows up for the check, delivering a handful of lines and taking part in embarrassingly staged fights. Watch out for bouncing boulders and smoke machines...
Stats:
(1987) 69 min. (1/10)
-Directed by Chuck Vincent
-Screenplay by Rick Marx, Original Story by Harry Alan Towers
-Cast: Sybil Danning, Donald Pleasence, Samantha Fox, Rick Hill, Josephine Jacqueline Jones, Tally Chanel, Suzanna Smith, David Brandon, Mario Cruciani, Marco Tullio Cau
(R)
