Ever wonder what Persis Khambatta did after Star Trek: The Motion Picture, other than grow her hair back? Well, that varied quite a bit. She does make an uncredited appearance in My Beautiful Laundrette (1985), a great little British film. She would also find some respectable TV work before her untimely death. Her other roles are less memorable. In 1988, she played the main villain in a terrible flick called Phoenix the Warrior aka She-Wolves of the Wasteland aka Phoenix the Warrior: She Wolves of the Wasteland (sort of the main villain-- there's an evil Reverend Mother behind her, the role and physical appearance very much like the Emperor in Star Wars). This forgotten treasure inexplicably came up in our recommendations after we re-watched (me) and watched (my wife) Fritz the Cat, which hasn't improved since I last saw it.
It's a low-budget (no, lower. Think lower) film set in a discount Mad Max future where (we're initially led to believe) only woman have survived, and most are trained warriors who believe fervently in "bulletproof nudity." Gas, makeup, and 1980s hair products remain inexplicably abundant. Fabric, apparently, is in short supply. According to an interview with Kathleen Kinmont, who plays Phoenix the Lead Character, her pay barely covered gas to the filming locations, which consist of the Mojave Desert, the San Bernardino Mountains, and some unidentified industrial site.
Many scenes occur in a flimsy small town in the desert. They appeared to have made it out of whatever stuff they could gather, which might make sense, if the film didn't establish that we're a couple generations after the apocalyptic event. In two generations, they couldn't manage better than this? That's a far bigger insult to female aptitude than even the average acting in this film. The low budget also means that they couldn't afford to give the Reverend Mother a proper lair. Her scenes take place in a room hanging with plastic sheets.
A satiric and almost-scary segment with TV-zombie creatures is the highlight. The concept is amusing and the makeup people created a passable haunted attraction look.
The plot, if you care at this point, involves our heroes helping a pregnant woman (Peggy Sands) trying to escape the Reverend Mother. She later gives birth to.... a boy. Their action bring them in conflict with the Reverend Mother's murderous group of women warriors. Our heroes gets some help from an adult man who escaped from the "sperm banks," and a villain who does a hero turn. In addition to the various scantily-clad pseudo-Amazons, we have the Rev. Mom's true blue agent, Cobalt, played by Khambatta. She has two things going for her: unlike the other women in this film, she dresses practically for a warrior, and she can actually act.
Kinmont, who plays the titular Phoenix, doesn't fare as well in this early outing, but she has managed a long career in horror and exploitation films, and TV show episodes. She also appears in a similar-seeming film called Roller Blade Warriors: Taken by Force (1989), in which "a warrior nun on roller skates must rescue a seer, who is to be sacrificed by a band of mutants." To her credit, she has a small part in That Thing You Do!, so there's that.
She regrets doing Phoenix, though I'm certain a few of the film posters were swiped by horny teenage boys, so it has some legacy.
How MST3K missed this film I do not know.