Some bored rich people indulge in their hobby of kidnapping women of the lower classes and making them fight to the death for their entertainment. Off screen, 46 of the 49 "competitors" have already been eliminated from this years games, leaving the final 6 to bitchslap each other into oblivion in return for the last woman standing being allowed to go free.
Yeah, er, not exactly an original story, as it ends up being pretty much the same as any "fighting tournament" type film youve ever seen, and the twist of having it be an all female fighting tournament doesn't really add much new stuff, other than making the "not-fighting" scenes include lots and lots of fee-fee related stuff.
The evil rich people are straight out of a comic book, being OTT in their wickedness, the successful female fighters form the stock characters of "the virtuous hero", "the bloodthirsty baddie", "the sweet innocent type" and so on and so forth, lots of violent (and somewhat physically impossible for the average person) finishing moves and the films ending, which involves yet another plot twist, is fairly predictable.
I dunno, for a bit of no brainer time wasting blood and guts action, its not a bad film, but as a groundbreaking piece of cinematic action, it falls over several hurdles before it limps over the finishing line.
Overall - 6/10
Many thousands of years ago, the evil witch-queen, Tera, was drugged into a state of suspended animation by a group of priests while she lay in her sarcophagus, practicing her evil magiks. The tomb was sealed and her right hand, after being severed from her body, is thrown to the jackals to prevent her from dying and entering the afterlife. Unfortunately for the priests, the hand is still alive, and manages to escape.
In the present day, a group of archaeologists unearth the tomb. Breaking its seals, they enter and speak the name of the queen, whose name has been purged from history, save for one forgotten carving on the tomb wall, which had not been scrubbed off by some incompetant scribe. They open the sarcophagus, only to find Teras perfectly preserved body inside, still breathing and with blood flowing from the stump of her right wrist.
Years later, the lead archaeologists daughter has grown to become the spitting image of Queen Tera, and she finds she is involved in a plot to ressurect the queen, but for good or evil?.
This is pretty much your standard Hammer Horror type film, but not to the standards of either the Dracula, Frankenstein or even Hammers own "Mummy" films. The extremely attractive Valerie Leon plays a dual role as Tera and Margaret, and genuinely pulls off her role very well.
The story is a little "ho-hum" though, but not by any means boring.
Overall - 8/10
Following on from the BBC TV series of the same name, "Doomwatch" recieves its own feature film (a common practice at the time).
Dr. Del Shaw from the "Department for the observation and measurement of scientific work", better known as "Doomwatch", arrives in the remote island community of Balfe.
Originally tasked with compiling a report on the enviromental damage sustained in the area following a recent oil spillage, Dr. Shaw becomes suspicious when he sees severely deformed people in the otherwise quiet and somewhat backward village, and locals explanations about inbreeding stop being convincing after a few incidences of people becoming violent and irrational, also doesn't help their case when some dead bodies start turning up.
Could an old military waste dumping ground out at sea hold the key?......maybe.
This is a pretty run of the mill "science gone wrong" type of story, but what makes this films premise different is that it doesnt feel the need to go OTT with special effects and science fiction explanations as to why things are happenning, althouh I'd wager if the film makers had a larger budget they'd probably have liked to jazz the film up a bit (NOTE - the original TV series was notorious for having bargain basement special effects, as were numerous BBC programs at the time).
That said, this films very simple cinematograhy and easy to understand mystery/thriller type plot makes for good viewing, even if it looks dated in the modern age of lens flare and CGI explosions.
Overall - 8/10
