Sci-Fi In July: Lady Terminator (1989)

The history of non-American countries ripping off Hollywood movies is long and weird. I’m not well versed enough in it to really discuss it here other than I am fascinated by it.

As you might guess Lady Terminator is a (sometimes shot by shot) Indonesian remake of the James Cameron classic The Terminator. As is their want it also throws some Asian mythology into the mix.

Sometime in the past, the Queen of the South Sea uses her sexy charms to seduce men. In the throws of passion, a snake that resides in her vagina bites the men’s penises off. One day some dude pulls out just in time and grabs the snake before it bites. It then turns into a dagger. The queen curses his would-be granddaughter and then dives into the sea.

All of this happens in just the first ten minutes!

Fast forward to the present and an anthropologist named Tania (Barbara Anne Constable) is researching the Queen of the South Sea for her university studies. She takes a boat out to where the Queen was supposed to have dived in all those years ago. She discovers the Queen’s resting place and is then tied to a bed while the snake enters her vagina turning her into the new Queen of the South Seas, or as we like to call her – Lady Terminator.

She then proceeds to have sex with a bunch of dudes, letting her vagina snake eat their cocks off. Sometimes she meditates while naked and listening to some jazzy New Wave music. But then she realizes some lady has an ancient piece of jewelry or something that she needs so she goes on a killing rampage (but with guns, not vagina snakes.)

At one point she utters the phrase “I’ll be back” and later she’ll walk into a police station and shoot the place up. There are lots of car chases and scenes where she fires hundreds of rounds into dudes crotches. She’s completely indestructible and we’ll be treated to numerous instances where she’s shot at, torched, and walks right through a dozen explosions.

The scrips is bad. A few choice bits of dialogue:

“I am not a lady, I’m an anthropologist.”

“We’ve seen more dead bodies than you’ve eaten hot dogs, so shut up and eat.”

The acting is wooden. The action scenes aren’t bad as long as you don’t compare it to the actual Terminator movie.

But it is so bizarre I just couldn’t look away. It is the very epitome of trash cinema. I kind of loved it. This is a film with a tag line that reads “She Mates and Then She Terminates.” How can you not have anything but love for something like that?