Perhaps it's best to describe "LADY TERMINATOR" as one of the whacked-out weirdest, most inept and certainly howl-worthy junk creations to come along since, well, since as long as one can remember.
What starts as a plodding and confusing back story of the curse of a South Seas dragon lady quickly machine-guns, backflips and explodes into a slapdash riff/ripoff/homage on 1984's "THE TERMINATOR" with a dash of voodoo black magic for good measure.
The story? A sultry vacationing anthropologist (actress AND the film's makeup artist Barbara Ann Constable) takes a dip in the sea and comes up for air both possessed AND nude - and ready to blow the hell out of Indonesia. Rendered invulnerable by the said watery witch, our new Lady Terminator is determined to avenge the ages-old curse by gun or by sex, and rack up an impressive (and awfully bloody) body count that puts Arnie's sci-fi original to absolute shame.
The paint-by-number script is lousy in a so-bad-it's-awful way in its collision of actual Indonesian legend and slavish mimicry of James Cameron's breakout action hit. The film's direction is chaotically messy and disjointed, and the performances are awe-inspiringly amateur. To make matters worse (or better) everyone in the film - even the Caucasian actors sprinkled in for a "international" flare - are all dubbed incredibly badly, making it one of the best "Mystery Science Theater 3000" episodes never made.
I'll give the film this - it clicks right along. There's not a lot of time for character development because there's gratuitous nudity and so many more explosions to squeeze in. For that you get your Rupiah's worth.
Completely bizarre and laughably incompetent, this is the stuff cult films are made of. It will make any pasty-skinned midnight movie lover very, very happy.
If you loved "OUT OF Africa", see "LADY TERMINATOR".
