“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” may be a universally well-known phrase, but there are limits. I’ve often written about my admiration for gone-too-soon writer/director William Girdler (Abby, Grizzly), one of the premier “knockoff kings” of the 70’s. While Girdler’s work wasn’t necessarily respected due to the objectively sleazy nature of their inceptions, his films at least showed some decorum by not blatantly copying their more successful counterparts. Sure, the framework and characterizations of Grizzly are absolutely Jaws-inspired, but no matter what, that film is not about a shark in the ocean. It’s about a bear in the woods. The difference between knockoff and rip-off gets murkier the deeper you choose to wallow in the depths of straight-to-video junk piles.
I grew up in the 90’s and early 2000’s, so I’m a Blockbuster kid. You’d better believe that every Tuesday, I’d see shelves full of The Asylum’s latest opuses: Transmorphers, Snakes on a Train, Paranormal Entity, and especially War of the Worlds. Credit where credit is due; the schlockmeisters of that dubious organization would at least use the big-budget releases they were aping as a jumping off point rather than copy the material outright. Clearly, this was in their best interest anyway due to the legality issues they’d face if they’d attempted something more flagrant, like “Transformerz” or “Pacific Rimm.” These films are also known as “mockbusters”; made by a sub-section of filmmakers whose questionable actions ended up gaining a major victory in the early 90’s by defeating the almighty Disney in a lawsuit filed against GoodTimes Entertainment’s Aladdin home video release. The words ‘knockoff’ and ‘rip-off’ even have different tones. While I find ‘knockoff’ to be a gently amusing term which can result in derisive laughter, ‘rip-off’ sounds more aggressive, and therefore deserves a bit more scorn. If someone dares to accuse Girdler of being a “rip-off director,” I can point to any number of films, both domestic and especially international, whose transparent efforts at duplicating another film’s success are adorably inept at best and overtly illegal at worst. Indonesia’s own Lady Terminator (1988, aka Nasty Hunter, the fuck kind of title is that?!) starts off with a surprising level of originality before diving headfirst, complete with rockin’ mullets and giant 80’s hair, into the waters of rip-off territory.
If it weren’t for the fact that the plot, before it directly and glaringly copies scenes from James Cameron’s breakthrough 1984 sci-fi classic, revolves around the legend of the South Sea Queen, a water spirit who can steal the soul of anyone she pleases (often handsome, young men), then I’d complain about the brutally lengthy and seemingly endless shots of the ocean which open the film. Actually, that isn’t entirely accurate, as there’s a Wiseau-level grandeur to the production company’s logo; P.T. Soraya Intercine Films rocketing through space before zapping into existence amongst the stars.
Beginning a film with a sex scene has paid off before, just look at Alfonso Cuaron’s Y Tu Mama Tambien, but I admit that I have a question or two. As the Queen of the South Sea (Fortunella) rides a man who is about to climax, she’s clearly less-than satisfied, so what’s a gal to do? Well, my initial thought was that she ‘kegeled’ the fast-finisher to death. Not so, as it turns out there’s a snake/eel inside her vagina which gobbles the poor guy’s dick off. This ain’t her first rodeo. In fact, her slithery little friend has done this almost a hundred times. After she hops off, her fancy see-through duds clearly show her wearing underwear, and to make things weirder, the blood-splattered victim has on black underwear. Were they just dry humping? No wonder she was unsatisfied! Her hand maidens hastily carry the man off as she munches on grapes and mutters, “Is there any man who can satisfy me?” We’ve all been there, honey! ...wait.
A studly dude in white (in the US version), glides in like he’s God’s gift to women and proceeds to give her an expert rogering. The snake/eel wriggles out of her nether regions (did he jangle something loose?) and he snatches it up, after which it transforms into a gnarled dagger. She’s pissed and wants it back, to which he replies (in wooden dubbing), “You are my wife now! I want you to stop the killings!” Just like Gromflomite assassin Krombopulos Michael, she just “loves killing,” so she makes a very specific vow. “In 100 years, I’ll have my revenge on your great-granddaughter!” She disappears, literally, and we next see her standing on the beach while a helpful voice-over lets us know her intentions. “I will go to the bottom of the sea and join the forces of evil.” So, like...Ursula?
We get our titles, which have a multitude of hilarious problems. There appears to be plenty of room to list the full credits for each member of the crew, yet whoever was the title editor decided to abbreviate the word ‘assistant,’ which unfortunately means that the crew includes an ‘ass director’ and even an ‘ass cameraman,’ who must’ve wandered over from a porn set. This would be merely amusing if it weren’t for the fact that the ‘ass producer’ is listed as the ‘associate producer,’ throwing a hilarious level of inept inconsistency into the proceedings. Despite the presence of rudimentary English-language title cards, the actual title shot is pretty amazing: ‘Lady’ is printed out elegantly while ‘Terminator’ appears one letter at a time as gunshots are heard, a target laid over the ‘O’ for good measure.
Fast forward 100 years, of course, and we assume the attractive young American anthropological student Tania (the badass Barbara Ann Constable) is the granddaughter in question, but not so! She is, in fact, our lady terminator, although she doesn’t know it yet. Constable’s involvement in the film happened purely by chance; she was in Hong Kong as part of a year-long modeling contract for Irene’s Models and Models International. She’d often audition as either a dancer or model for commercials and print work, so the opportunity to try out for a feature film was certainly an intriguing notion. Shocked that she was given the title role, she was initially hesitant about playing the part due to the “weird” script (no shit!), but was assured that the film would be a “local” Indonesian film, only to be played in-country. While her early scenes are dubbed by an L.A.-based actress, her eventual transition from inquisitive student to unstoppable killing machine is all her. Constable performed most of her own stunts, very nearly getting seriously injured (and in one case actually getting her right leg impaled by a huge shard of glass due to a botched effect sequence and nearly falling down a well), and she plays quite an impressive villain. Equally seductive and dangerous, her performance is very enjoyable. Granted, she’s not being asked to do much besides be sexy and mow people down with machine guns and an AK-47, but her confidence and sneering demeanor as she unloads clip after clip into unlucky citizens and police officers is a boatload of fun. Speaking of boats...
Tania enters an extremely dramatic and smoky bookstore run by a gremlin-looking owner who looks like he’s about to offer her a cursed frogurt with potassium benzoate toppings, which are also cursed. Overly dramatic musical cues punctuate the scene as he warns her about delving too deep into the legend of the Queen of the South Sea, but she pays him no mind, throws on a bikini, and charters a boat, captained by a salty sea dog and his first mate, aptly named Popeye. While Popeye remains mute, not even having the common courtesy to sing his trademark song (which this film wouldn’t’ve paid for anyways), El Capitan claims the legend is “a whole lotta shit” despite the fact that people go missing whenever they try to look into it. Tiana demands to be taken seriously: “I’m not a lady! I’m an anthropologist, HUH?!” Like James Brown, when she ends a sentence with “HUH?!,” she meant that shit. As she scuba dives, the captain sees some weird shit, like his rope turning into a snake, before he gets a looooooonng final look at a tidal wave which destroys his ship in a brief but still pretty bad superimposition effect. A green-tinted fantasy sequence in which she’s strapped to a huge bed by the Queen’s green scarves follows and the infamous snake/eel slithers inside her, completing the rapey transformation.
She emerges from the ocean fully nude and with a steely look. Two drunk douchebags are giggling like maniacs while one of them pisses an unholy amount of urine into the air before they spy Tania approaching them. IMDB has a fun section for movie ‘Goofs,’ but there’s only one goof listed under Lady Terminator’s page. I didn’t need the internet for this one, though. Despite being shot in a wide angle, even a blind person can see that she’s suddenly wearing white underwear. Doesn’t really matter to these tools since one of them says “Go on, you’re not gonna catch AIDS!” We know what’s going to happen next, and she fucks both of them to death; blood spurting into their faces as the python in her pants bites their cocks off.
She randomly wanders into a hotel and lets herself into a room through some magical shit. There, she kneels in front of a portrait of the Queen, which I assume is in every room at the hotel, and the room shakes while electricity pulses all around her. A relatively normal security guard goes over to investigate, but they don’t fuck around in Indonesia since he lifts his previously unseen arm and he’s got a fucking Uzi! Like, dude! What kind of hotel needs guards with machine guns?! Is this a Holiday Inn Express? He’s killed, in case you’re wondering.
We’re about a third of the way in and so far, the plot has remained commendably separate from Cameron’s tech-noir. In fact, one might even assume the film is just piggybacking off name-recognition and the actual content is an original story. Hang on...
We finally meet the great-granddaughter alluded to earlier, an aspiring pop star named Erica (Claudia Angelique Rademaker) as well as depressed widower cop Max (Christopher J. Hart, an expat living in Jakarta), whose good looks are matched only by his willingness to beat the shit out of punks who deserve it. The rest of his crew includes some hard-hitting bros, including Snake, who sports an epic rocker mullet and comes off as a reject from Wyld Stallyns. There’s a ton of jocularity between the cops, like referring to the fates of Tiana’s victims as “the ultimate blow job” and some bullshit about hot dogs.
Tiana, or LT for short, goes on the hunt for Erica since, you know, revenge, and blows away anyone who gets in her way, including a salesman for a very prominently featured Sony store. The only way the possessed LT can identify Erica is through her green necklace, which acts as a bit of a “Sarah Connor” misdirect since she targets her best friend, who can only afford a cheap (and ironic) knockoff because “AMEX is after my blood again. All my checks are bouncing like yo-yo's.” Just as in the original Terminator, our titular antagonist, who is very much not a robot, tracks Erica down into a night club, but unlike this film, we didn’t get to see Linda Hamilton belt out a rockin’ tune. Seriously, she sings the whole goddamn song, which includes bizarre lyrics like “we assist those in power.” LT shows up and jams her hands on her hips, totally ready to annihilate. Fortunately for Erica, Max and the cops are hanging out, one of which questions Max’s sexuality, which he can’t address since all hell breaks loose. Incredibly, Max utters the famous line: “Come with me if you want to live!” to Erica as they pump round after round into Tania, with little to no effect.
LT chases after Max and Erica in an impressively-shot scene considering they’re running full-out while many American films feature characters evading captors by lightly jogging, at best. A car chase follows which was clearly shot guerilla-style and Max is a real wild man. He yells, “I’m gonna have some fun!” as he fires a big-ass gun at the pursuing Tania. She crashes, but disappears. Several of Max’s friends got killed and those deaths really matter, considering the subsequent exchange: “Jack bought it.” “I know.” “Ehhhhh...I’m sorry.” Whoa. Powerful stuff.
While she doesn’t get to spout the infamous “I’ll be back,” LT crashes through the lobby of the militarized police station and goes on an amazing killing spree just like the original. It’s absolutely brutal and I’d go so far as to say she’s actually more ruthless than Arnold’s Model 101, because she continues to pump bullets into bodies long after they’ve stopped breathing. She even specifically shoots guys in the balls. At one point, the shoulder of Constable’s leather jacket catches fire, but she just keeps on coming. Compared to her glass shard accident, the fact that she sustained minor burns from all of the squibs she had to wear proves how awesome she is.
Erica’s uncle, a shaman played by the film’s director H. Tjut Djalil (credited as Jalil Jackson), shows up to give her the twisted dagger and uses the green stone to battle Tania. It’s a crazy-ass scene, with the shaman finally damaging Tania by shooting some green laser shit into her eyes. For a moment, it appears the shaman can defeat her, but LT goes for her director’s nuts and she’s definitely not shooting blanks. Max and Erica manage to escape, shoving past an idiot named Betty who apparently wasn’t aware that World War III was happening downstairs. Idiot.
The film gets way too dark by having Kyle Reese, er, I mean Max recount his wife’s tragic rape and murder before banging Erica because, why not? Meanwhile, in the film’s most pointless lift from Terminator, Tania pops out her eye using a scalpel and it drops into the sink. I assumed she’d then don some black sunglasses since Arnold couldn’t actually repair his busted eye in the original, but I guess there’s nothing a little Indonesian tap water can’t fix. Rinsing the eye like it’s a toothbrush or a pacifier, there’s a bit of electricity and she pops the eye back in like Sandy Dennis, good as new. Oh, and she does more meditating in front of the picture, topless of course, before vagina-chomping the dick off an overly eager room service attendant. By the way, though invulnerable, those bullets do leave marks. She’s got maybe 10 or 15, tops. I call bullshit on that. She’s taken an unbelievable amount of trauma, especially to her torso. Those immaculate breasts would be long gone.
We get to our explosive final sequence in which Max’s boys finally rear their 80’s metal band heads and unleash an absolute barrage of carnage upon Tania, whose car is a goddamn miracle of modern technology considering it survives multiple explosions. There’s even a little Commando-reference as much-less muscley arms come together and they shout, “Let’s kick ass!” Kick ass they do, as a helicopter fires multiple rockets at Tanya while Snake drives a Panzer tank right into LT’s car, pinning her down. Snake’s lines are the best here. “Fuckin’ A!” and “Eat it, bitch!” A literal Bazooka Joe, as in he has a bazooka and his name is Joe, blows the ever-loving fuck out of her. I assume they didn’t have the technology for her to stumble out of the burning wreckage like in the original’s fiery climax, but having her look like a horribly scarred, deformed version of David Lo Pan who can shoot red lasers out of her eyes is certainly one way to go. Her eye beams destroy the helicopter and Joe hilariously deadpans: “Tom...my buddy.” Fuck my thigh, man.
Everybody but Max and Erica get zapped and Max somehow manages not to have his head literally ripped off each time he tries to battle LT. Erica even gets a nasty wound when Tania grabs her ankle and leaves a bloody stain behind. The great-granddaughter herself conveniently remembers the twisted dagger and stabs Tania, causing her to explode and the dagger to hilariously zoom off into the night sky. The ending feels tired as a seemingly endless number of stretchers pass by Erica and Max, who should have a broken back, but instead only sustained a broken arm. A silly voice over mentions some bullshit about “the struggle within our souls” and this glorious rip-off comes to an end.
While Karr Kruinowz receives the sole writing credit, this is very much an H. Tjut Djalil film. While not in the same league as the father of Indonesian cinema, Usmar Ismail, Djalil directed his first feature only a few years after the film pioneer died and proved himself adept at creating some unforgettable world cinema. It’s no surprise that three Mondo Macabro releases were helmed by him. There’s LT, of course, but also the black magic-inspired Mystics in Bali (1981) and the (sort-of) Hellraiser/vampire-inspired horror Dangerous Seductress (1992). Many Indonesian films, including the incredible Final Score (1986), often revolved around a revenge plot and/or black magic or some kind of mysticism. The sorcery angle often allowed indulgences into ridiculous situations and the world is all the more fortunate for that. While the egregious amount of intellectual property thievery is shameless, Lady Terminator, while containing crude effects and sketchy edits, is absolutely essential viewing for anyone interested in action movies that retain the deafening bangs and booms, but go about it in a completely unique way.
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