While peplum films had their share of gorgeous damsels, they were almost always in supporting roles as noble princesses in need of saving or evil princesses in need of slaying. Only Colossus and the Amazon Queen featured women who not only looked great, but kicked ass while doing it. By the time sword and sorcery movies were all the rage, women had come a long way, sort of. Just as the screens were clogged with dozens of guys looking to bask in the glow of Conan, so too did the Valeria character have more than her fair share of pale imitations. Sword and sorcery films often featured damsels in distress, but even more often they featured women who were grade A ass-kickers every bit as capable as their male counterparts. The trend started with Valeria in Conan the Barbarian, and many of the movies that came afterward featured a character modeled after her. Strong, independent, skilled with a sword or a bow. They were a long way from their sisters in the sixties, while at the same time even worse off than before.

Just as sword and sorcery films elevated and empowered women via the bad-ass warrioress characters that were so common, it exploited them in negative ways just as much. Rare were the sword and sorcery films without breast shots, and just as rare were entries that didn't feature rape. It somewhat shocking a decade or more removed to see how off-handed these and other films of the time treated rape. It was something that was expected to happen. While it could be argued that this is not historically inaccurate, that rape was quite common throughout the Dark Ages or whatever ages it is in which these films are set, it would be naive on a colossal scale to think that these scenes were put in as anything more than titillation, a cheap and easy excuse to show one more breast shot. At their best, the scenes were used to explain the fighting motivation of a woman (as in Red Sonja). At their sleaziest – or more directly, as they are presented in films like Barbarian Queen, they are completely inconsequential and serve no purpose other than to flash nudity.

Nudity is fun stuff, but there is something undeniably unsettling and callous in the way some of the barbarian films use rape as something no more or less important than a quick glimpse of nipple. It says something positive, I suppose, that this sort of whimsical treatment of the act has all but disappeared from modern entertainment and is looked at as something rather shameful in the entertainment of the past. At best, then, the barbarian woman movies were a mixed bag that wanted to appeal to female fantasy film fans but also wanted to make sure the lucrative young male demographic kept coming back for more cheap thrills.

The highest profile of the barbarian woman movies was Red Sonja, brought to us by the same production company that brought us the two Conan movies, and boasting production values that, while not quite achieving the grandeur of Conan the Barbarian certainly rival those that would be displayed in Conan the Destroyer and completely bury the production value of just about any of the other sword and sorcery films. Directed by Richard Fleisher, Red Sonja is a pulp adaptation of another Robert Howard creation starring a then unknown Bridgette Nielsen as the fiery warrior woman Red Sonja. While the film does start off with the rape scene that would be all too common in the barbarian women films, it's at least not played for cheap jollies and gratuitous nudity. It's also an impetus for the story, as Sonja's violation drives her to become a mighty fighter while instilling in her an intense distrust of all things male. Unfortunately, where as the claims to great swordsmanship in Conan were backed up by top notch skills displayed by the actors, we have to take the movie's word that Sonja is good, because tall, skinny Nielsen is no Sandahl Bergman.

When Sonja's sister, part of a religious order that guards a sacred orb chocked full o' power, is murdered along with the entire sect, Sonja is approached by a warrior named Kalidor (Arnold Schwarzenegger), who wants to help her avenge her sister and recover the stolen orb before it is used by the evil queen Gedren, who coincidentally is a Sandahl Bergman, what with her being played by Sandahl Bergman and all. Although the intent was to have Arnold reprise his popular role of Conan (Conan the Destroyer had just been released the year before) since Sonja had originally been introduced in one of Howard's Conan pulps, licensing problems prevented them from actually referring to the character as Conan. Thus he becomes Kalidor, a man very much like the Conan we last saw in Conan the Destroyer, who incidentally was very much unlike the Conan we saw in Conan the Barbarian. Having just appeared in another successful Conan film, not to mention the surprise mega-hit The Terminator, Schwarzenegger's place as a rising superstar was quickly being cemented. As such, the action sticks primarily with the unknown Nielsen and the two goofball sidekicks she meets -- the intensely annoying child prince Tarn (Ernie Reyes Jr.) and his rotund, abused manservant Falkon (Paul Smith).

Working in the film's favor is a passable no-nonsense plot, a decent amount of action, and some fairly lavish sets. Working against the movie, however, is the obvious greenness of Nielsen as a lead. Sandahl Bergman set the standard pretty high as Valeria, and her achievements as a first-time actress in that role were never matched by any of the women who came in her wake, at least until Lucy Lawless donned the leather miniskirt and started calling herself Xena. Perhaps this movie would have been more successful if they'd cast Nielsen as the evil queen and let Bergman shine as Sonja. No such luck, though.