cult film freak: DONNA DENTON & REBECCA FERRATTI SHARING 'OUTLAW OF GOR'

Title: OUTLAW OF GOR aka GOR II Year: 1988 Rating: ***

Cannon's fantasy exploitation GOR was more obviously leading towards a sequel than even the original STAR WARS... instead of just Darth Vader's tie-fighter flying off into space, there were several villains intentionally leading to a direct followup, played by last-minute cameo Jack Palance and the extremely beautiful Donna Denton...

Both taking the menacing mantle formerly handled by British actor Oliver Reed... but OUTLAW OF GOR has Denton in charge, here as a climbing princess turned evil queen making the once-freed barbarian-canyon village full of enslaved slave girls once again...

Donna Denton in OUTLAW OF GOR

Sadly, former co-lead Rebecca Ferratti, whose role as the girlfriend and battle-instructor of Urbano Barberini... a clumsy college professor shuttled into this otherworld... is only sporadic... somewhat replaced by sexy slave supermodel Michelle Clarke...

This time, Barberini's Cabot gets thrust from Earth to GOR with a goofball sidekick, who'd been pathetically striking out at a neon-80's nightclub, and, seeming like potential comic-relief, is actually sidelined by little-person warrior Nigel Chipps, returning from the original but with a much larger (so to speak) role...

Michelle Clarke in OUTLAW OF GOR with Urbano Barberini

In a by-the-numbers sequel directed by 1960's/1970's exploitation veteran John 'Bud' Cardos, using basically the same broad premise of a menacing dictator encroaching both land and freedom, causing the preppy-turned-muscular Cabot to trudge through the barren landscape (while pontificating philosophy) to eventually save the day...

But it's THE NEW MIKE HAMMER ingenue Donna Danton's ride, almost entirely here, seeming more like a pilot to a cable-series she'd melodramatically headline... with gladiator style death-matches replacing what was previously a more basic sword-and-sandal traipsing adventure... that was miraculously intriguing enough (with its scantily-clad slave girls) to merit a sequel, again geared towards sexed-up b-movie male fans — now able to lust upon both the protagonist and antagonist ingenues.