• Directed by Ruggero Deodato
• Written by James R. Silke
• Starring
  • Peter Paul
  • David Paul
  • Richard Lynch
  • Eva La Rue
  • Virginia Bryant
• Produced by Toram Globus and Menahem Golan

This is one of those movies that manages, by a fluke of the universe, to bask in the spotty sunshine (or at least, the brightish haze) of my favor. In large degree, that’s because I know just how bad a barbarian movie can be and usually is. Thus, when an example of a bottom-scraping genre manages to keep its belly off the bedrock, I’m inclined to forgiveness.

The Barbarian Brothers, twin bodybuilders named Peter and David Paul, probably jumped at this chance of a starring vehicle; after all, if a movie about one barbarian could jumpstart the career of Arnold Schwarzenegger, then a movie about two barbarians should be twice as successful! Right? It’s thinking like that which has probably kept the Barbarian Brothers from becoming household names (in most households, anyway), despite their obvious superiorities over Ahnuld’s portrayal of Conan, such as a native command of the English language and… well, there’s that, anyway.

This is why I don’t carpool.

Our stage is set by a pseudo-mythic voiceover (missing only “Know, O prince…” and “…beneath his sandaled feet” at either end), which informs us that a time of long ago and far away, the tribe of Ragniks (yes, giggle all you want) were the minstrels of the age, possessing a certain magical ruby that bestows upon them mastery of the arts and song and all that frou-frou stuff. No sooner do we know this, than the Ragnik caravan is pursued and attacked by the EE-vil warriors of Kadar (Richard Lynch, looking pretty frou-frou himself). The queen of the Ragniks, Canary (Virginia Bryant), has one of her lieutenants slips away from the caravan with the ruby, so that it won’t fall into Kadar’s hands. What no one explains, or even alludes to, is why an evil overlord would be so hot for a magic gem that’s all about sweetness’n'light’n'flowers’n'things. It’s like Darth Vader setting his heart on all of the My Little Pony collectibles on eBay. On the other hand, given Kadar’s wardrobe, maybe he just had to have it because it would absolutely go with this cutest little outfit he has…

Kadar surrounds them, terrorizes them while laughing maniacally (as per Evil Overlord Union requirements), and makes the mistake of tousling the heads of twin boys Kutchek and Gore (Pasquale and Luigi Bellazecca), whom the caravan had picked up as orphans a ways back. One of them promptly bites off two of Kadar’s fingers. He’s ready to strike them dead, but Canary pleads for them and promises to do all of those hideous, perverse things that Kadar usually has to pay for in exchange for their lives. (She doesn’t seem much devoted to the rest of the tribe in the same sense, I must note.)

Richard Lynch, feeling pretty.

Canary, the twins, and the better looking Ragnik girls are dragged back to Kadar’s capitol; the women are given to Kadar’s men, Canary is sent to his harem, and the twins are dragged off to The Pit, the brutal rock-quarry prison run by the Dirtmaster (Michael Berryman), though Kadar’s pet sorceress China (Sheeba Alahani) advises him to do them in. (Sorceresses. Evil overlords go to the trouble of having them on the payroll, only to ignore them completely.) He did make a promise, after all. But he has a plan.

The twins grow up in bondage, eventually turning into the Paul brothers. Each is kept separate from the other, and each is ritually whipped and tortured — one by a man in a black mask, one by a man in a golden helmet. Then, when Kadar is eventually tired of how Canary won’t luv him or tell him where the ruby is (how much time has gone by, anyway? the twins are fully grown, but naturally, no one else has aged a day), he arranges for the brothers to fight each other in a public spectacle — one wearing a golden mask, the other in a black mask. Why, they’ll kill each other! Yet Kadar will have kept to his vow! That’s ingenious! No wonder Kadar runs things!

Has there ever been a vidcap which needed a caption less?

Except that he never thought to put chin straps on the helmets, so they soon get knocked off, and the brothers band together. He also never thought to have the battle-to-the-death in an arena strong enough to keep the twins from escaping by pushing the wall down. Off they ride, to find the Ragniks and come back to rescue Canary.

The Ragniks have lost their old joys, and their caravan is now parked permanently in the woods (sort of a Hyperborean trailer park). They’ve got no weapons of their own, but they do have a captured thief-girl, Ismene (Eva La Rue), who agrees to help the twins get some weapons and rescue Canary in return for her freedom. (You may notice, by the way, that I’m not even trying to differentiate Kutchek and Gore. There’s a reason for that. I mean, they’re twins barbarians. They’ve got different belt-buckles, and there are passing indications that one of them is meant to be the marginally smarter one, but since I never picked up on which one that was supposed to be, it doesn’t matter.)

“Do as I’m doing, Follow follow me…”

The path to Canary’s freedom is fraught with bar brawls and loose women, naturally, and to really do the job right, they have to find the magical armor of the Ragnik king who originally acquired the ruby, then use it to fight the goofy-ass dragon who guards it where it was hidden. And they have to outrun the sorceress China, who’s finally figured out where to look for it.

If I tell you that the third act got disappointingly stupid, you might take that to mean that the movie up to that point had been intelligent. Far from it, but it was at least consistently and knowingly stupid. The twins, after all, are slavery-raised sides of beef. They’re not bright, they’re not subtle, and they bray like donkeys when they’r enjoying themselves. In that regard, they’re pretty believable portrayals of muscle-bound barbarians (aside from the idea that The Pit has a waxing salon). There’s some wit to the writing about these witless oafs — not enough to turn it into a spoof or an out-and-out comedy, but enough to keep things more lighthearted than the standard ponderous-beyond-all-proportion-of-quality barbarian movie. (Writer James Silke is, among other things, the screenwriter of Revenge of the Ninja and Ninja 3: The Domination, but he’s also the writer of the Frank Frazetta’s Death Dealer paperback novels, which are probably the closest thing to thoughtful sword & sorcery books out there.) At its worst, most of this movie comes across as smart people making a knowingly stupid film.

“So where do you want her? The coffeetable? The mantlepiece? Where?”

By the end, though, we’re given plenty of stupid planning and “surprise” revelations that make absolutely no sense. And the ruby itself… It’s referred to a couple of times as the “Bellystone,” and we finally find out why: It will only fit and stay in the navel (!!) of the Ragnik girl it has chosen as the next queen. Makes our last presidential election look positively rational, doesn’t it?

But again, by the standards of an undemanding genre, it still ranks in the top half. The sets and costumes, whily corny, never show themselves to be impoverished. The Barbarian Brothers don’t embarrass themselves with their undemanding lines (boy, that native grasp of English sure comes in handy sometimes). And we do get to see Michael Berryman doing his impression of the Grinch’s dog Max, which is something you don’t get to see every day. As long as you placate your brain, you might enjoy it — otherwise you’ll end up asking questions like, “Would barbarian warriors really shave their armpits?”

Some Notable Totables:

• body count: 23
• breasts: 4
• explosions: 1
• ominous thunderstorms: 1
• actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek: 2
  • Richard Lynch (Kadar) played “Arctus Baran” in the TNG two-parter “Gambit”
  • Michael Berryman (the Dirtmaster) played “Starfleet Display Officer” (under tons of latex) in Star Trek 4, and “Captain Rixx” (under blue makeup) in the TNG episode “Conspiracy”