Queen of Elephants 2: Sahara is today a deep-cut obscurity. It never received a legitimate DVD release in English-speaking countries. Some German VHS tapes exist under the title Dschungel der Begierde 2 or Sahara – Die Rache der Elefantenkönigin. Italian VHS might be found as Colpo di sole nel Sahara or similar generic retitling. Online, it surfaces occasionally on private trackers or boutique streaming sites dedicated to vintage exploitation, often sourced from nth-generation VHS rips.
For scholars of Joe D'Amato, it's a minor but essential example of his late-career obsession with "one-location erotica." For fans, it's comfort food: no intellectual demands, just shapely bodies, warm sand, and a dirge-like synth score.
Critical rating (as per rare user reviews): ★★½ (two and a half stars) – "Enjoyable if you like sun-drenched softcore with silly costumes; drags in the middle; the belly dance scene is worth the price of admission."
Director: Joe D’Amato (Aristide Massaccesi)
Subgenre: Erotic Adventure / Softcore Safari Joe D-Amato - Queen Of Elephants 2- Sahara -19...
If you know Joe D’Amato, you know not to expect Lawrence of Arabia. The man gave us Emanuelle in America, Anthropophagus, and a mountain of pseudonymous erotic cash-grabs. Queen of Elephants 2: Sahara—a sequel in name only to his earlier Queen of Elephants—fits comfortably (or uncomfortably) into his later period: shot on cheap video, dubbed poorly, and held together by sunburned skin, jangling jewelry, and the faint smell of desperation.
Plot?
Our heroine (insert blonde, foreign actress with limited English) travels to the Sahara to find… something? A lost treasure? A missing lover? The film isn’t sure. She encounters a sheikh with a tiger-print turban, a rival adventurer with a permanent sneer, and several local “tribesmen” who appear to be Italian bodybuilders with a single day’s tan. Mostly, the plot stops every 12 minutes for a softcore encounter involving silk sheets, sand dunes, and the least convincing animal wrangling since Roar.
The D’Amato Touch
True to form, D’Amato directs with his signature “zoom-and-grope” aesthetic. The cinematography is either glaringly overexposed (daytime desert shots) or murky brown (nighttime tent scenes). The elephant promised in the title appears for roughly 47 seconds—stock footage spliced with a medium shot of our heroine riding something that might be a real pachyderm or might be a very patient man in a rug. Queen of Elephants 2: Sahara is today a deep-cut obscurity
Performances
Everyone delivers dialogue like they’re reading cue cards in a windstorm. The lead actress spends 70% of her screen time in various states of undress and 30% looking confused at the horizon—perhaps wondering how her agent talked her into this. The male villain has a mustache that deserves its own credit.
Sex & Violence
The sex scenes are standard 90s late-night Italian softcore: repetitive synth music, heavy breathing, and lots of pearl-clutching close-ups. Violence is minimal—a dagger threat here, a slap there. This isn’t D’Amato at his gory peak (Beyond the Darkness); it’s D’Amato paying for a camel rental.
Verdict
Queen of Elephants 2: Sahara is for D’Amato completists and fans of so-bad-it’s-hypnotic erotic trash only. If you want desert adventure with competent filmmaking, watch The English Patient. If you want to see a fake sheikh fondle a European tourist while a man in a cheap elephant costume stomps past a tent in the background… well, you’ve found your oasis. To understand a movie like Queen of the
Rating: ★½ (out of 5) – One star for the sheer chutzpah. Half a star for the elephant’s cameo.
To understand a movie like Queen of the Elephants 2, you have to understand the D’Amato philosophy. Why build an expensive set when you can film in a quarry? Why hire a script doctor when you have a camera that works? This was the era where the Italian film industry had mostly collapsed, leaving producers like D’Amato to churn out content for the burgeoning home video market.
This film serves as a sequel in name only to his earlier adventure Queen of the Elephants. It follows the tried-and-true "Sexy Indiana Jones" formula: a rugged hero, a damsel in distress (or a tough-but-naked female lead), a vague quest for treasure or artifacts, and a lot of walking through dunes.