Gladiator Eroticus vs War Goddess

[Kester Pelagius]

It's really fascinating to see the difference in production values in these low budget 'epics'.  It really demonstrates how filmmaking, in the right hands, is an art form.  One movie is an embaressment the other would make Cecil B. DeMille green with envy.

To be fair there are movies that embrace their low budget origins and make the best of what they have, even if all they have are cardboard boxes, shipping pallets, and a warehouse to use as sound stage. Despite the obvious flaws you can see the effort put into movies made by people who have a real love of cinema but who may have lacked the technical skill or funds to execute their vision.

Then there are movies like. .

Gladiator Eroticus is a tongue-in-cheek 'sex comedy' (and this week's new movie review at Mise-en-Scene Crypt) that's neither funny nor very sexy.  It's the sort of move you'll either love or hate.  There's very little room for middle ground.  In fact you may think this is just plain junk, especially when compared to low budget movies produced in the 70s and 80s.  Movies like. .

War Goddess is an unusual movie. Unusual not because it was a joint production of three different countries, had a budget for real costumes, and appears to have had twice again as many theatrical/ video versions but because it pulls no punches where nudity or blatant Sapphic overtones are concerned.  That's perhaps not unusual in exploitation films, especially from the seventies, but when viewed today it's quite shocking to see how matter-of-fact the nudity is.  It becomes part of the background like a tapestry.

However most shocking of all is the fact War Goddess has a plot.  Surprising in the way The Arena, despite it's low budget, manages to be a more a interesting movie than Gladiator.  Granted Pam Grier may have had something to do with that.  ;)

We've probably all made fun of the Sci-Fi channel's "original movies" at some point, desperately trying to articulate our consternation, but looking at these two low budget sword-and-sandal flicks it's plain to see the level of effort put into the end product is just not the same.  It may not be entirely fair to compare Gladiator Eroticus, a chinsy T&A skinemax flick, to War Goddess, a low budget epic, but the more I think about it the more I find myself wondering if the problem isn't that filmmakers don't care like they used to?

[Captain Tars Tarkas]

Part of the problem with Seduction Cinema in general is 90% of their movies are pure crap.  The scripts are about 3 pages long, there is two minutes of dialogue, then the characters have lesbian sex for 7 minutes, repeat for 60 minutes and you got a movie.  Several of their films are just patchjobs of old unused footage, which is why the 2005 film Bikini Girls on Dinosaur Planet had actresses that had retired from Seduction Cinema for years.  Misty Mundae is in a vast amount of their output, but she left them to do more mainstream stuff.  The solution is just to use all the old shots of her that are lying around somewhere.  However, even with the horrible stuff they do some creative crap.  Playmate of the Apes, Lords of the G-String, and a few others are way more elaborate, and they even fill up their DVDs with extra movies (some of which are among the worst movies ever) when the main title is lacking.  From the three Seduction Cinema movies I have done on my site, I learned that I could get bored with lesbian sex.  It has become tradition to mention how long the sex scenes are, especially since the films rarely clock in at over an hour.  One in That 70's Girl went on for 10 minutes!  And it wasn't sexy.

The old 1870's sexploitation movies like Erotic Adventures of Zorro are just incredibly better, both in scale of production and in attractiveness of the women.  Plus they can actually get erotic at times.

[Kester Pelagius]

The Erotic Adventures of Zorro was a real movie, that's why it seems better.  The stuff put out by Seduction Cinema is sub cable access quality.

Though, to be fair, the first movies put out by this label I saw were Femalien, Vamps: Deadly Dream Girls, and Exotic House of Wax.  Movies which were actually not too bad for what they were, however it seems like their later output is, like you say, utter crap.  One look at Gladiator Eroticus and it's cheap bargain bin halloween props and you know that this was shot over a weekend.  Worse the budget, if there was one, probably went into beer and drugs.  At least I would hope no sober person would film such utter drek unless they were heavily medicated to the point of having lost all self-respect.    

OTOH you do have to hand it to the guys involved with this.  They not only had the balls to try to film something but managed to get their cheezy home video escapdes edited by someone willing to insert bargain basement CGI and then get it released to DVD and onto retail stores shelves.  It's just it looks so ludicrous!  But what I found amazing, and made me decide to write a review, is I found there are numerous reviews out there praising these skinflicks because, well, they have nude women in them.

That's it.  They have nude women in them so the reviewers don't dwell on the faults.  And I have a real problem with that because if nudity is being used as the sole criteria for a passing grade. . .

Let's not forget War Goddess, Battle of the Amazons, Amazons, Sorceress (1982), Deathstalker, Conquest, and half a dozen other S&S titles (that are real films) I could name all have naked women in them.  Gladiator Eroticus, at best, looks like something you'd shoot with friends as a guerrilla film in someone's backyard on a weekend.

[CoreyHeldpen]

Man, that Gladiator Eroticus flick looks cheap beyond words. Ancient Roman porch swing!