The Lost Empire (1985)
When a film is as comprehensively bad as The Lost Empire, a sexploitation revenge fantasy in the vein of Russ Meyer, where does one begin when trying to review it? With the plot? The acting? The special effects? The casting? The dialogue? The visuals? The stereotyping? The set and costume designs? Everything about this movie is so painfully awful that any Worst Movies Ever Made list without it is incomplete – and this is coming from the guy who has seen Manos: The Hands of Fate, Village of the Giants, Plan 9 from Outer Space, and Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, to say nothing of The Story of Mankind. Like most such movies, The Lost Empire provides gigantic laughs when it isn’t supposed to be funny, no laughs at all when it is, and the general sense that precious hours of one’s life are gone forever.
In terms of casting, there were only two apparent requirements: (1) To have little to no previous acting experience; (2) for all the women to have a minimum bust size of double-D. This is made clear as early as the very first shot, in which a James Bond-style circle roams around a black screen before settling on a woman’s very deep cleavage. The circle then expands to fill the entire frame, revealing a woman at a Chinatown jewelry store purchasing a very expensive diamond necklace. Though not part of the story, this woman does effectively inform us of exactly what’s on the mind of first-time director Jim Wynorski, whose background as a protege of Roger Corman should have tipped me off, but didn’t.
It would be pointless to say that the plot is incompetent and inane, since that was obviously the intention. The point is that it’s incompetent and inane in a way that isn’t fun to watch – a B movie that’s merely bad, not so bad that it’s good. Combining female exploitation with Chinese mysticism and just a touch of science fiction, it tells the story of three smoking-hot women who infiltrate a heavily-fortified Star Trek-esque island off the coast of Los Angeles. There, scores of other smoking-hot women are forced into gladiatorial matches by an apparently immortal cult leader (Angus Scrimm) who has, not surprisingly, a diabolical plan to take over the world. This plan involves fabled glowing-red jewels. Their significance is discussed, but only in expository scenes so hastily rattled off that none of the information has time to sink in.
The three women are: An LAPD motorcycle cop (Melanie Vincz) who doesn’t play by the rules and wants revenge for the death of her brother, also a cop; a ditzy prison inmate (Angela Aames) who, for reasons never given, is granted an early release and spends most of the film chewing bubblegum; and a Native American (Raven De La Croix) who, I guess because she’s Native American, continuously uses the Tonto phrase “Kemo sabe.” I wouldn’t be surprised if the latter character sparks outrage amongst indigenous peoples of any nation, not only because she’s a broadly-drawn and inauthentic Indian stereotype, but also because she’s a scantily-clad sex object whose costume – designed by De La Croix, incidentally – makes her look like her next gig will be a parody of Cher’s “Half Breed” music video.
To be fair, every woman in this film is a scantily-clad sex object. Filmmakers like Russ Meyer and David F. Freeman may be first in line to see this, but I doubt anyone else will be. The women in this film are all Amazonian masturbatory fantasies, obviously chosen for their ample feminine assets and willingness to engage in catfights rather than their ability to act. And boy, does it show; to say the performances are amateurish would be an insult to amateurs. Similarly, to say that Wynorski’s screenplay is a hack job would be an insult to hacks. There isn’t a good line of dialogue to be heard in any of the film’s eighty-three minutes, but certain lines are so awkward, so incompetently written, that I repeatedly asked myself, “Did they say what I think they just said?” I’ll bet the cast walked around on set asking the same question. I’ll also bet De La Croix asked Wynorski, “Do I really have to get into a fistfight with a gorilla, and then kick him where it hurts?”
There are men in this movie (Scrimm’s immortal cult leader has already been mentioned), and while they’re not physically exploited as the women are, their characters are each about as deep as a wading pool. Most consist of the cult leader’s kung fu henchmen; given the women’s ability to sneak into virtually every corner of the leader’s island compound, these have to be the worst henchmen ever. There’s also a rival cop (Blackie Dammett) that hates Vincz on general principles, and Vincz’s boyfriend, a Federal Agent (Paul Coufos), who ultimately contributes nothing to the story, save for at one point being in possession of Vincz’s purse. This in turn makes him a target for two very flamboyant gay stereotypes who are mercifully given roughly three seconds of screen time. The film is called The Lost Empire. Lost is exactly what it needs to get.
