1982′s Conan the Barbarian starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and written and directed by John Milius is a moody, gritty film punctuated by extreme violence and graphic sex. From crucifixions to orgies, from gladiator cannibals to witches to shape-shifting sorcerers, this film covers quite a bit of ground. I’ve never been able to decide whether it’s genius or tasteless.
While the fight scenes may be the most memorable, the film is dripping with sex.
Bred to the finest stock
After his village is razed and his family murdered, Conan spends his childhood enslaved, turning a huge mill wheel. Then he is sold to a Hyborian Age lanista and dropped into a pit fight with a cannibal. Winning repeatedly on the gladiator circuit, he becomes famous and valuable, and like a prize horse is bred to slave girls to make more baby barbarians.
How the slave girls felt about being tossed into a cage with a Cimmerian who’s primary skill is murder we’ll never know.
There’s a price barbarian
Freed from captivity, our hero stumbles on an isolated hut inhabited by a leggy brunette who claims to see the future. She offers information but only if Conan pays her with a roll in the animal skins. Her prognostic powers only operate when she’s being penetrated by barbarian beef apparently.
Relying on his extensive experience raping slave girls, Conan gets the job done a little too well. The witch turns into a monster as she nears orgasm and tries to tear out his throat. And our barbarian learns the first rule of civilization: Don’t stick your dick in crazy.
A mere night’s pleasure
Finally, there’s the love interest, Valeria, warrior woman and thief. Suddenly wealthy after raiding one of Thulsa Doom’s snake towers, the pair montage through a relationship that mostly involves drinking, eating, and sweaty sex in a tent.
Valeria ruins our hulking barbarian for all other women. His player days are over once he hooks up with this blond minx.
Well, mostly. There’s also this:
Even the Hyborian Age wasn’t immune from creepy priests it seems.
