Sometimes you can actually see the wheels falling off. After Conan the Destroyer made money, although few decent reviews, the de Laurentiis group decided to rush another film out. Rather than telling another Conan tale, they decided to focus on the first Marvel spin-off of the property, Red Sonja.
Howard's character; who first appeared in "the Shadows of the Vulture" (1934), wasn't a contemporary of Conan, however. She was a sword for hire with the name 'Red' Sonya of Rogatino who battled the armies of Suleiman the Magnificent during the 1529 Siege of Vienna. Roy Thomas and Barry Smith took the character and transported her into the Hyborian Age, as well as changing most of her back-story.
That last point was (and still is) a sore point with a few Howard scholars. The film treated Sonja much like Conan, but problems still persisted.
We open with things being pretty bad. Red Sonja (Brigitte Nielsen) is laying battered in a field after being raped by the men of Queen Gedran (Sandahl Bergman) and watching her parents and brother being slaughtered. A divine voice calls to the injured woman, promising her power to gain her revenge, but the voice notes there will be a price.
Sonja has spent most of the time since then training, becoming a fair hand with a sword. Her only remaining family has also been busy. Varna (Janet Agren) is a priestess. Her particular order has been tasked to protect the mysterious Talisman, a strange glowing orb that can lay waste to the world if it fell into the wrong hands. That last point has brought it to the attention of Queen Gedran and her aide Ikol (Ronald Lacey). Her forces slaughter the order and steal the Talisman. Varna flees, but in the end she is slain. Before she dies, she tasks the visiting Lord Kalidor (Arnold Schwarzenegger) to inform Sonja and pass her responsibility on to her. Sonja doesn't take the news terribly well and refuses Kalidor's offer of partnership.
While riding, Sonja passes through the ruined kingdom of Hablock. It wasn't ruined until recently though, but mostly as the result of the ruler Prince Tarn (Ernie Reyes, Jr.) refusing to ally himself with Gedran's forces. In fact the only two people left in the entire blasted mud pit are Tarn and his only remaining servant Falkon (Paul L. Smith). Sonja rescues the prince from some of said mud. Grateful, the prince allow her the honor of serving as the cook in the army he will raise to crush Gedran. Sonja declines, but she does learn that the queen is building her forces in Berkubane, Land of Eternal Night.
Going to the land involves fighting Lord Brytag (Pat Roach). Kalidor makes his return, fighting Brytag's men and allowing Sonja to press forward. Sonja runs into Tarn and Falkon again, as the pair have been captured by bandits.At this point they decide to honor Sonja with their presence. The queen, spying on the party, orders them to be brought to her alive. To do this, she decides to summon a storm, forcing them to take shelter in a cave.
Once there, Falkon accidentally triggers a booby trap and ends up both flooding the cave and unleashing a Icthyan Killing Machine. Kaildor reappears and slays the metal monster. We also finally get Kaildor's background, namely that his people who were the ones who entrusted the Talisman to Varna's order. The party finally manages to sneak inside the castle for the final confrontation with the queen.
After watching, I couldn't help but wonder if they shouldn't have retitled it Lord Kalidor, as Arnold manages to save Red Sonja from almost every trap and generally pushes the plot forward more than her. If he hadn't bothered to honor her dying sister's request, he probably could have completed the quest without bringing her into it.
Speaking of the quest, they make a great deal of the Talisman being powered by sunlight. So why would the queen take it to the Land of Eternal Night? Also, since Kalidor's people had it and knew it was dangerous, why give it away in the first place? Bergman as the queen was good, but I can't help but wish she was the lead. Nielsen is acceptable, but her default expression seems stuck on scowling. And if the queen wanted her brought back alive, why force her into a cave loaded with traps?
Disappointing; I think that about sums it all up, as the makers moved away from the camp that was in Conan the Destroyer, but instead replaced it with a rehash of Conan the Barbarian. So disappointing, in fact, it would be over ten years before another film would be made about a Howard character.
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