romay holiday.

Just picked this up (the way one would a particularly vile STD) and felt I had to share (ditto).


Les Amazones du Temple D'or (AKA Golden Temple Amazons, Amazons in the Temple of Gold. 1986).
Dir: Alain (yes, you did read that right) Payet or maybe James Gartner (yet credited to good old Jesus Franco overseas, reckon he did the scuzzy stuff).
Cast: Analía Ivars, William Berger, Antonio Mayans, Stanley Kapoul, Olivier Mathot, Eva León and Lina Romay.

“ I'm Rena and I will enjoy playing with you!”

Somewhere in the steaming hot jungles of the Amazon (or more likely the park behind the directors house), Tom Godly, your average sweaty missionary who's having a hard time trying to convert the heathens is surprised to find a secret cave hidden in the mysterious Blue Mountains (not the ones from that Laurel and Hardy film) that is filled to bursting with large quantities of gold.

He quickly returns to his jungle pad as fast as his skinny Christian legs can carry him with a dozen or so Ferrero Rocher sized nuggets and excitedly tells his fright haired wife Linda (or Godly 'Ell as we like to call her) that that because they are now rich that they can give up this Holy lark and retire to Ibiza.

"Always believe in your soul".

What he hasn't realized, however is that the cave is in fact a holy golden temple belonging to the local tribe of topless, gold pant wearing Amazon warriors, feared amongst the locals and ruled with a rod of iron by their scary leader Stan Uruk (Berger from The Winds of War).

Well, it's an easy mistake to make.

These bewigged and busty warrior women, discovering that they've been robbed, follow Tom back home, demanding that he give them back the booty or else.

Justifying his actions with religion (as is the way of these types), it's not too surprising when a few days later him and Godly are killed in a hail of poison arrows and slow motion yelling, leaving their young daughter Liana (fish lipped and cod eyed Franco regular Ivars) to fend for herself in this hostile tropical hell.

Luckily a friendly monkey and a local tribe take pity on her and help her out which is sweet in a kinda Disney way.

"Fiona! where's mah lunch?"

Jump forward a few years and the church have finally decided to send a new missionary (who is the spitting image of Father Ted) to discover what happened to Tom and Linda.

Arriving at their dilapidated cabin he's surprised (there's a lot of it in this movie) to find Liana still living there, all grown up with a faintly embarrassing bubble perm and dressed in skimpy animal skins but still resembling a startled haddock.

Despite being nubile and (half) naked, the missionary has no interest in Liana (well, she's not a wee boy) so he decides to read her fathers diary to her, which as luck (or really atrocious plotting) would have it, conveniently explains all about the gold and her parents subsequent murder.

Which really begs the question as to why, after being run thru' with loads of arrows, he decided to write about it rather than raid the medicine drawer for aspirin or at very least a plaster.

"My dad told me about those cults.
People dressing up in black
and saying Our Lord's going to
come back and save us all".
"No, Liana, that's us. That's Catholicism".
"Oh right".

Upon hearing of her parents fate (she must have been busy when it happened, either that or she has the memory of a fish as well as the looks) Liana vows to have her revenge upon the evil Amazon women (and scary Stan) and immediately sets off towards the Blue Mountains, accompanied by her faithful pet chimp Rocky (himself) and a funny tribesman named Koukou
(Kapoul from the Andrea - Nights of Terror - Bianchi classic Maniac Killer).

Cue an endless nightmare of stock footage animals, Liana's breasts bouncing in slow motion and random shots of a monkey grinning like a loon for what seems like days before our terrific trio come across (wait for it....not literally, tho' in this case it might have been fun to see) a group of explorers out searching for the Golden Temple.

How's that for a(nother) bizarre coincidence?

Or is it just the shite script writing again?

Your mum and dad last night. In your bed.

Anyway, it won't spoil the movie for those who've yet to see it by telling you that they get to the cave unharmed (and with nay hair out of place or slips of nipples) only to be rendered unconscious by Stan's eggy fart gas and imprisoned by the Amazon women, ready to be used as slave labour in Uruk's gold mines.

Or was that The Chuckle Brothers secret lemonade factory?

None of these questions will be answered however because before the viewer can get too bored with watching random scenes of topless ladies in tiny gold pants sword fighting Jess Franco's missis turns up (the rabbit faced vixen of Eurohorror Romay – like I needed to remind you of that) to parade around like a leather clad, shaggy boobed and dead eyed grandmother licking her lips and making lewd comments to anyone who'll listen.

It seems that she wants Liana out of the way just in case there's any chance of (the by now rat-arsed) Uruk chosing her as his successor before quickly heading home to her day job.

Which we all know is smearing blood on her (by now southbound) breasts whilst licking soot off various stoned wannabe starlets.

Which is nice work if you can get it.

Or just deeply tragic for a woman of her age.

Anyway, will our heroes escape?

And does anyone (except the investors) really care?

It's pants.

Aaah, you can't beat a wee bit of Jess Franco, the pensioner perv of Eurotrash has been making the same style of sleazy exploitation cinema since about 1864 and seems to show no signs of stopping.

Which is a nice thought, frankly because in this scary world of change it's nice to know that you can rely on at least one person to deliver the goods, sexy European birds writhing around on sofa beds whilst his other half licks tomato sauce of their thighs, golden showers, slightly scummy ladies running around beaches naked whilst camp as pants, long haired Frenchmen giggle and wave handkerchiefs around to an awful jazz fusion score.....

Well, not this time.

Golden Temple Amazons has none of these things, which seems to make some sense of the fact that those in the know claim that Franco only directed certain bits of the movie.

Most probably the scene with Lina Romay in it.

But why? was he just passing by the studio with his shopping one day or on holiday near the shoot?

So, who is really to blame for this cinematic abortion?

Stand up Alain Payet (not literally seeing as he's been dead for a few years), infamous Nazi porn chic fan and maker of such classics as Bangkok Connection, Peep Show Fantasy and my kids favourite movie Captive Women 5: Mistresses of the 3rd Reich. But if this is true why does the whole thing look like a nursery school version of Raiders of The Lost Ark? albeit with loads of wobbly breasts and some sporadic scenes of mindless violence.

Mumbled dubbing, a tinny synth score, a human/cod hybrid in a fur bikini and overlong slo-mo shots of topless women on horseback all add up to the celluloid equivalent of anal warts, just slightly more embarrassing to admit to having let alone enjoying.

I should start a support group.