Posted By Dan Greenfield on Jul 3, 2025 | 2 comments

REEL RETRO CINEMA: New looks at old flicks and their comics adaptations…

By ROB KELLY

Marking the first time a Marvel Comics creation got its own feature film, Red Sonja hit theaters July 3, 1985. Despite featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger at the peak of his powers, moviegoers flocked to a different sci-fi/fantasy movie that weekend — Back To The Future.

Starring Brigitte Nielsen as the title character (her film debut), Red Sonja unfolds pretty much like you’d expect from a movie of this type — the evil Queen Gedren (Sandahl Bergman, Valeria in Conan The Barbarian) murders Sonja’s parents and brother after Sonja rejected her sexual advances, which sets our hero off on a quest for revenge.

On the way, Sonja meets a female spirit who bestows upon her heightened sword-fighting skills — but only if she never sleeps with a man, unless that man defeats her in combat (an element from the comics they could have left behind). She befriends a warrior named Kalidor (Schwarzenegger), as well as an annoying boy prince (Ernie Reyes, Jr.) and his loyal manservant (Paul Smith, who played another comic-strip character, Bluto, in 1980’s Popeye).

None of this is terribly original. Neither was the first Conan movie (whose plot beats this film copies), but that entry was told with such high style and energy that it didn’t really matter. Unfortunately, director Richard Fleischer, fresh off the very silly Conan The Destroyer, also helmed Red Sonja. Fleischer has some genuinely terrific films on his resume (20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, The Narrow Margin, Compulsion, Fantastic Voyage, Soylent Green), but by the 1980s he had a string of turkeys that would test the mettle of any moviegoer (The Jazz Singer remake, Amityville 3-D, the aforementioned Conan The Destroyer). Whether those films were the result of Fleischer having lost his touch, or just bad luck, I don’t know, but Red Sonja is so dull and lifeless that he bears a lot of the blame.

Part of that, of course, is the casting of Nielsen as Red Sonja. When I was a kid reading her comics, the main takeaway was how much of a take-no-prisoners ass-kicker Sonja was. A lot of that was undoubtedly due to the artwork by Frank Thorne, whose panels were filled to the edges with detail and bits of business, with the absurdly gorgeous Sonja hacking and slashing her way through bad guys and assorted monsters. Fifty years later, those late 1970s Red Sonja comics pop off the page. In contrast, Nielsen says every line in a flat, rote manner—to be fair, this was her first film, and asking someone like that to carry an entire movie is unfair. It also doesn’t help that the costumers saddled Nielsen with a headband (which, to my knowledge, Sonja never wore in the comics), giving the character a hemmed in, stiff look, when she should be a she-devil with a sword! (Like in these 13 COVERS!)

Similarly tepid is Schwarzenegger as the Dollar Store Conan, Kalidor. He did the film, originally conceived as little more than a cameo, as a favor to Dino De Laurentiis, producer of the two Conans. He was supposed to be Conan here, too, but when the producers couldn’t secure the rights to the character, they made a none-too-convincing switch. They also kept adding scenes for Schwarzenegger, turning the cameo into a full-fledged co-lead. Understandable on the part of the filmmakers, but it undercuts Red Sonja as the actual star of her own movie.

The one actor who really seems to understand the movie he’s in is Ronald Lacey as Gedren’s henchmen Ikol, who brings the same weird energy he did to Toht in Raiders of the Lost Ark. He makes little grunts and noises as he flitters about the frame, and he’s so fun to watch. But he’s only in a handful of scenes.

It’s too bad, because Red Sonja was produced with all the muscle that a big-time studio film can muster. The sets, by production designer Danilo Donati (a frequent collaborator with Fredrico Fellini) are beautifully absurd in the best Conan manner—I particularly loved Queen Gedren’s chamber decked out with something like a thousand candles. The monsters, too (as brief as they are) are really cool—Gedren’s creepy giant spider, which skitters around, and the metal sea serpent that Sonja and Kalidor battle is fearsome. If only there had been more of this kind of stuff, it might have helped Red Sonja come to life. Instead, Prince Tarn’s “meh” reaction to Sonja and Kalidor having another boring swordfight, leading to a passionless kiss, pretty much sums it all up.

Red Sonja, as a character, was definitely something that could have been turned into a fun, lusty fantasy adventure film. But like with Supergirl, Red Sonja was trying to expand a franchise immediately following a less-than-successful installment of the main series, poisoning the waters for such an effort. Of course, the fact that both these films starred women only further convinced Hollywood that female-led sci-fi/action/fantasy films don’t work at the box office.

Of course, Marvel had a regular Red Sonja comics series running at the time, and the movie was given all the requisite exploitation by the House of Ideas. Not only did they do a separate two-issue movie adaptation (published concurrently with the main book), but they also devoted an entire issue of Marvel Super Special to it.

Written by Louise Simonson and Mary Wilshire, with pencils by Wilshire — the regular comic’s creative team — this version sidelines Kalidor a bit more, giving Sonja more action scenes and dialogue. It also ends differently, eliminating Sonja and Kalidor’s final swordfight and kiss, resulting in this feeling more like a Red Sonja adventure. But thanks to Vince Colletta’s indifferent inks and weird Day-Glo colors, Red Sonja the adaptation is a pretty forgettable effort — although the pin-up gallery was quite nice!

It’s too bad Red Sonja wasn’t produced immediately after Conan the Barbarian, when the iron was still hot, both with audiences and the filmmakers. Instead, it was a tired final installment in a series (and characters) that deserved better, by Crom!

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MORE

— 13 RED SONJA COVERS Because the Movie Came Out 40 Years Ago. Click here.

— That Time RED SONJA Slashed Her Way Into the Hyrkania PLAYBOY CLUB. Click here.

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ROB KELLY is a podcaster, writer, illustrator, and film commentator. You can find his work at robkellycreative.com.