Britain: a group of peaceful druids are carrying out a ritual when who should pop up to ruin their fun but the Romans, who proceed to kill the unarmed pagans, the only exception being blonde priestess Bodicia (Margaret Markov), who is taken captive because she is hot.
Africa: busty Nubian babe Mamawi (Pam Grier) is getting down to some groovy jungle beats when those pesky Romans turn up to ruin her fun, killing her bongo-bashing pals and taking her captive... because she is hot.
Bodicia and Mamawi are put on sale in a Roman slave market with two other unfortunates, Deidre (Lucretia Love) and Livia (Marie Louise Sinclair), who are also hot. All four are bought by flaming homosexual Priscium (Silvio Laurenzi), and put to work in the home of Timarchus (Daniele Vargas) and his wife Cornelia (Rosalba Neri), who preside over gladiatorial battles in their arena. When the crowds begin to get bored by the predictable hack-and-slash entertainment, Timarchus decides to switch things up a bit by having his slave-girls fight to the death in the arena.
A peplum-style adventure with a big dose of drive-in goodness, The Arena was produced by B-movie legend Roger Corman, while its director Steve Carver was purportedly given a helping hand by his cinematographer Aristide Massaccesi (AKA Joe D'amato), the man behind many an Italian trash classic. The Corman influence is extremely evident, from the excess of T&A, to the daft 'catfight in the kitchen' scene, to the cheesy gladiatorial battles between its sexy women, but sadly D'amato's contributions are less obvious, the sleaze quotient and level of graphic gore surprisingly low considering his reputation - a shame, because that's precisely what this film is crying out for.
As it stands, the film is a moderately entertaining piece of exploitation, but had the battle scenes been more gruesome and the sexy bits more salacious, this could have been something special indeed, especially with such stunning leads in Grier, Markov and Neri. All of the women get naked, with an early scene providing full frontal nudity, and poor Bodicia is raped by a Roman, but the whole thing still feels very restrained, especially the combat scenes, which fail to deliver the gory goods. Even 'The Beast in Heat' himself, Salvatore Baccaro, doesn't get anything memorable to do. One thing is for sure... if D'amato had had total control, there would have been a lot more to talk about.
6.5/10, rounded down to 6/10 for the extremely silly faux-feminist girl-power uprising at the end, the women gladiators somehow sneaking female archers into the arena to kill the guards, with Grier and Markov slaughtering numerous Roman soldiers with ease before escaping into the catacombs and to freedom.
Africa: busty Nubian babe Mamawi (Pam Grier) is getting down to some groovy jungle beats when those pesky Romans turn up to ruin her fun, killing her bongo-bashing pals and taking her captive... because she is hot.
Bodicia and Mamawi are put on sale in a Roman slave market with two other unfortunates, Deidre (Lucretia Love) and Livia (Marie Louise Sinclair), who are also hot. All four are bought by flaming homosexual Priscium (Silvio Laurenzi), and put to work in the home of Timarchus (Daniele Vargas) and his wife Cornelia (Rosalba Neri), who preside over gladiatorial battles in their arena. When the crowds begin to get bored by the predictable hack-and-slash entertainment, Timarchus decides to switch things up a bit by having his slave-girls fight to the death in the arena.
A peplum-style adventure with a big dose of drive-in goodness, The Arena was produced by B-movie legend Roger Corman, while its director Steve Carver was purportedly given a helping hand by his cinematographer Aristide Massaccesi (AKA Joe D'amato), the man behind many an Italian trash classic. The Corman influence is extremely evident, from the excess of T&A, to the daft 'catfight in the kitchen' scene, to the cheesy gladiatorial battles between its sexy women, but sadly D'amato's contributions are less obvious, the sleaze quotient and level of graphic gore surprisingly low considering his reputation - a shame, because that's precisely what this film is crying out for.
As it stands, the film is a moderately entertaining piece of exploitation, but had the battle scenes been more gruesome and the sexy bits more salacious, this could have been something special indeed, especially with such stunning leads in Grier, Markov and Neri. All of the women get naked, with an early scene providing full frontal nudity, and poor Bodicia is raped by a Roman, but the whole thing still feels very restrained, especially the combat scenes, which fail to deliver the gory goods. Even 'The Beast in Heat' himself, Salvatore Baccaro, doesn't get anything memorable to do. One thing is for sure... if D'amato had had total control, there would have been a lot more to talk about.
6.5/10, rounded down to 6/10 for the extremely silly faux-feminist girl-power uprising at the end, the women gladiators somehow sneaking female archers into the arena to kill the guards, with Grier and Markov slaughtering numerous Roman soldiers with ease before escaping into the catacombs and to freedom.