The Sisterhood (1988)

not horrible nor great

A Major Disappointment

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

The acting in this movie is really good.

The Sisterhood (1988) * (out of 4) Low-budget movie set in 2021 in a world where women have become slaves to an army of men who use them for you know what. The only the not enslaved are a gang of women known as The Sisterhood and they set out to try and destroy the male gang and set the women free.Director Cirio H. Santiago wasn't hired to make an Oscar-winning picture. No, he was given a very limited budget and asked to create something that would appeal to action fans back in the days when VHS rentals were the most popular thing around. The film wasn't meant to be any special and in all honesty it isn't. It's a pretty bad and bland picture that really doesn't have too much going for it.As you'd expect, the entire film looks rather cheap and we're given some rather weak performances and bland dialogue. With that said, you really could argue that those things really don't matter in a picture like this and I'd agree with that. The problem with this movie is that it's deadly dull from the start to the finish. There's really no excitement to the action scenes and the story itself just isn't very compelling.These post-Apocalyptic films were all a rip-off of MAD MAX and at the very least you hoped for some minor entertainment. The only real entertainment comes from some of the fight scenes but that's certainly not enough to save THE SISTERHOOD.

In this goofy, female empowerment, post-holocaust tale from director Cirio H. Santiago ("Equalizer 2000"), it's the future year of 2021. In the deserts of Earth, men hold all the power and have enslaved many women. It's up to the nomadic ladies known as "The Sisterhood" to restore some sense of equality. Two such Sisters that we meet are Alee (Rebecca Holden) and Vera (Barbara Patrick, the wife of Robert P.). They take under their wing a teen aged girl named Marya (Lynn-Holly Johnson of "Ice Castles" and "For Your Eyes Only"), whose kid brother (Tom McNeeley) was killed by one of the male antagonists, a warrior named Mikal (Chuck Wagner, "America 3000")."The Sisterhood" is good, light entertainment for sci-fi lovers who favor the cheesy and silly side of post-holocaust cinema. It does earn some points for portraying its women as strong and independent, but not invulnerable. It also gives Alee and Vera special powers - Vera is telekinetic and Alee has healing abilities. Our three heroines generate sufficient rooting interest, and all of our grunting pig villains are appropriately odious. Mikal is an exception, proving to be more than one-dimensional.Fine use is made of locations. The sets, costumes, and vehicles look decent enough for whatever minimal budget "The Sisterhood" had. The music score by Jun Latonio is variable: sometimes it's passable, and at other times it is just *awful*. It's all pleasantly cheesy, with a little bit of gore (there's a few close ups of sword wounds) and a fair amount of action. The performances are actually not too bad - Robert Dryer, the main baddie in "Savage Streets", as the creepy Lord Barak, Anthony East as Lord Jak. The female cast is very attractive, and there are adequate doses of bare flesh throughout.Watching this one is a harmless enough way to kill a little over an hour and a half.Seven out of 10.

2021. Women have become enslaved by a savage army of men after the world gets reduced to a barbarous state in the wake of a nuclear holocaust. It's up to a group of nomadic female warriors called the Sisterhood to set things right.Director Cirio H. Santiago keeps the enjoyable story moving along at a steady pace, stages the rough'n'tumble action scenes with scrappy aplomb, maintains a gritty tone throughout, makes nice use of the desolate desert locations, blows lots of stuff up real good (of course!), and sprinkles in a little tasty gratuitous distaff nudity for extra trashy good measure. Moreover, the women are attractive and impressive: Rebecca Holden as the feisty Alee, Lynn-Holly Johnson as sweet and perky teenager Marya, and Barbara Patrick as the fierce Vera. Chuck Wagner lends sturdy support as the formidable Mikal while Robert Dryer contributes a nicely slimy turn as the ruthless Lord Barak. Thomas McKelvey Cheever's compact script draws the characters with some depth and humanity. Both the tacky (not so) special effects and Jun Latonia's cheesy synthesizer score possess a certain lovably rinky-dink charm. A fun B-flick.

It's hard to figure out which scene elicits the moost laughter in this post-apocalyptic stinker: Lynn-Holly Johnson (cutsey, blonde former figure skater) fighting with a sword; Lynn-Holly Johnson cracking peoples' necks; Lynn-Holly Johnson firing from a Bradley Fighting Vehicle; Lynn-Holly Johnson attempting to act; etc, etc... Lynn-Holly Johnson looks moore like a Valley Girl shopping for over-priced shoes in some pretentious Rodeo Drive boudoir, instead of vicious amazon firing m-16As. She is one of the least cowvincing actresses the MooCow has seen in many mooons. She's part of an all-female band of fighters who each have a special "gift", none of which seems to be acting. They beat the stuffing out of a faceless group of chauvanistic, bone-headed men. As fer the rest of The Sisterhood, the least said the better - it is set in one of those cowfusing Midieval/Post-Apocalyptic wastlands, part Mad Max, part Hercules, where people fight with swords and rocket launchers, and no one know quite sure why they're fighting at all. The shields and armor are plastic, the swords aluminum, the "costumes" include shoulder pads, fatigues, and bits and pieces left over from a Xena get-up. The fight scenes are stagy and poorly timed. Lynn-Holly Johnson can talk to birds and horses, who are probably telling her that she stinks as an actress. This cow says ignore the Boris Vallejo-inspired video box and drop The Sisterhood like a hot cow flop! :=8P