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Review

The Mondo Macabro label - a DVD outfit began by British writer Pete Tombs, an acknowledged expert on worldwide cinematic weirdness - has unleashed some mind-blowing genre cinema oddities in the past year or so, from the Pakistani vampire musical The Living Corpse to the surrealist Mexican horror film Alucarda, but they have likely surpassed even their own high standards with this DVD of the positively jaw-dropping Lady Terminator, a crazed 1988 Indonesian science fiction/action film that is guaranteed to leave even the most jaded exploitation film buff both speechless, and pained from the abdominal effects of constant laughter.

Created as a low-budget ripoff of the 1984 Schwarzenegger/Cameron hit, this wild schlock classic retains many of the same action setpieces as its American inspiration (the nightclub shoot-out, the police station siege, even the impromptu self-inflicted eyeball surgery from the film's eponymous antagonist), but -- in addition to gender -- changes the story's central premise: rather than a robotic assassin sent back in time, Lady Terminator's unstoppable murderous force is the spirit of the legendary "Queen of the South Sea," possessing the body of a young female anthropologist on a diving expedition ("I'm not a lady! I'm an anthropologist!"). Rising naked from the sea, this seductive villainess stalks the great- granddaughter of the lover who removed the magical snake from the Queen's vagina a century ago (yes, you read that correctly), imprisoning her deep within the sea until the aforementioned diver unleashed the curse.

In addition to mowing down adversaries en masse with assault weapons, our Lady Terminator (or "Nasty Hunter," as the film is titled in the U.K. theatrical trailer available on this DVD) also has the ability to shred male sexual organs with her own genitalia during the act of intercourse (since magic snakes that transform into daggers can also be drawn forth from this body cavity, this really isn't too great a leap in logic to make, really...), though this doesn't get to figure in the film's explosive climax, which involves everything from rocket launchers, helicopters, car chases, you name it. Director Jalil Jackson (a.k.a. H. Tjut Djalil) is one of Indonesia's premier genre/exploitation helmers, with such other shockers as Mystics at Bali (released on Mondo Macabro's U.K. division, though not here in the States, alas) and Dangerous Seductress (forthcoming from this same label) to his credit, but the astonishing Lady Terminator -- a grindhouse classic on par with such outre mind-blowers as Fight for Your Life and Let Me Die A Woman -- is his most outlandish and entertaining achievement.

Filled with abundant nudity, absurd special effects, endlessly quotable dubbed dialogue, and a manic need to provide constant jolts and lurid thrills to its audience, Lady Terminator is much like dying and going to exploitation movie heaven. Highest recommendation for adventurous genre film buffs.

Travis Crawford