Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn (1983)

Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn is a 1983 post-apocalyptic science fiction action movie directed by Charles Band that includes just about all the ingredients associated with that genre. It was billed as High Noon at the End of the Universe and it does have a bit of a western vibe. It also obviously owes a huge debt to Mad Max II: The Road Warrior.

This movie (wisely in my view) doesn’t bother explaining things at the beginning. Obviously we’re in a post-apocalyptic wasteland but that’s all we know.

In what was already the well-established post-apocalyptic tradition the action takes place in a desert and there are lots of vehicles that are like armoured dune buggies.

Dogen (Jeffrey Byron) is the hero. He’s a Ranger and he’s also a Finder. We never do find out what that really means but he’s clearly one of the good guys. His mission is to track down Jared-Syn (Mike Preston) who is some kind of super-villain stirring up trouble among the Cyclopeans. The Cyclopeans appear to be one-eyed mutants.

Dogen encounters some of Jared-Syn’s henchmen including Baal who is a kind of Cyclopean cyborg and apparently Jared-Syn’s son. Much mayhem ensues. Lots of vehicles get wrecked, there are lots of explosions. Dogen has to fight a duel with one of Jared-Syn’s champions. It’s all standard action movie stuff.

There is some crazy mystical stuff which makes things more interesting. Jared-Syn doesn’t just kill his enemies. He drains their life force and stores the energy. There’s lots of stuff about crystals. There’s some dimension-jumping stuff as well.

Of course there’s a girl, Dhyana (Kelly Preston). She and her father are working an abandoned mine when they get attacked by Jared-Syn’s heavies. Dhyana then hooks up with Dogen.

Dogen has also acquired a cynical smart-talking side-kick, Rhodes (Tim Thomerson).

Jared-Syn’s objective is to start a holy war which will of course end with him in charge. Dogen has to stop him, and rescue Dhyana.

This movie was shot in 3-D. I’ve only seen the 2-D version which looks fine apart from the aerial sequences which were obviously shot to take advantage of the 3-D technology. On the whole the visuals are pretty good and the action scenes are done quite well.

The plot makes no real sense so it’s best not to worry too much about it.

The acting is a mixed bag. Mike Preston makes a terrific sinister charismatic villain.

Jeffrey Byron as Dogen is however sadly charisma-challenged. In fact he’s kind of dull.

Kelly Preston as Dhyana is a bigger problem. It isn’t her fault. Her part is badly underwritten. We expect her to be a feisty sexy heroine but she is given no opportunities to be either feisty or sexy. More damagingly there is zero chemistry between Dogen and Dhyana. Again it’s the script that is at fault. One of Dogen’s motivations is to save her so we have to believe that he has some feelings for her but there’s no indication that he’s more than vaguely aware of her existence. The two of them don’t get a single love scene.

It was A Boy and His Dog in 1975 that launched the post-apocalyptic sci-fi craze and established the basic aesthetics of the genre. Damnation Alley followed in 1977 but it was of course Mad Max II: The Road Warrior that kicked the genre into overdrive and inspired countless imitations.

The great thing about the post-apocalyptic aesthetic is that it always looks cool and it could be done on a very limited budget. There was no need for elaborate sets or whizz-bang special effects with spaceships - all you really needed was to find an abandoned quarry and star filming. Cool creepy makeup effects always helped and the makeup effects here are done reasonably well.

Not surprisingly it was the Italians who made the weirdest and most interesting movies in this genre and who pushed it in genuinely interesting directions in movies like Lucio Fulci’s Warriors of the Year 2072 (1984) and the totally bonkers but mesmerising She (1984).

There’s no way you could describe Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn as a great cinematic achievement. It’s very very cheesy but for a low-budget production it looks good and it’s fun. Recommended.

Vampire Hunter D (1985)

Vampire Hunter D is a 1985 science fiction/horror anime feature film.

Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust, released in 2000, is rightly regarded as one of the great anime movies and certainly one of the most visually stylish and flamboyant anime films ever made. In fact it’s one of the most visually stylish and flamboyant movies of any type ever made. It is a sequel to the 1985 film.

When approaching the 1985 film you do have to take that fifteen-year gap into consideration. This was several years before Akira established anime’s first firm foothold in English-speaking markets. Even in Japan in 1985 the idea of anime aimed at adult audiences was fairly new. Anime film-makers were just starting to explore the thematic and aesthetic possibilities this would open up.

Vampire Hunter D was made as an OVA (basically direct-to-video but without the negative connotations this has in western countries) and later released theatrically. Director Toyoo Ashida did not have anywhere near the budget of the 2000 film. The 1985 movie simply cannot match the visual magnificence of the 2000 sequel.

On the other hand, given its budgetary limitations, the 1985 film is visually quite impressive. At the time it was certainly visually impressive. There are some striking images and the first appearance of D is memorable.

Like the 2000 film this one mixes familiar gothic horror tropes with Wild West elements. It is however not quite the Wild West of American westerns. It’s closer to old Mexico, or perhaps to Spanish California. In fact it’s set 10,000 years in the future so this qualifies as a post-apocalyptic sci-fi movie as well as a horror movie. The hints of the Wild West are there to add coolness, which they do.

Doris Ran is a formidable young lady who is quite prepared to take on werewolves. Vampires however are out of her league. Only a specialised vampire hunter can hope to take on a vampire.

And Doris has a problem. She was bitten by Count Magnus Lee, a vampire. This means that henceforth she will be regarded with fear and suspicion by the other villagers. It seems to her to be an extraordinary piece of good fortune when she encounters a vampire hunter, known only as D.

She knows she will have to pay him. She has no money but she hopes that he will accept the use of her body as payment (the incorporation of such adult concepts in anime was still quite ground-breaking in 1985). D does not take her up on her offer but he agrees to work for her anyway.

Before he even gets near the Count D will have to battle his terrifying supernatural minions.

The Count is not simply out for victims for the sake of their blood. He is 10,000 years old. He gets bored. He needs amusement. Marrying a human girl should provide plenty of amusement. It’s not specifically stated but it is implied that vampires are very attracted to human women. He has chosen Doris to be his bride. Doris is of course horrified. She would choose death rather than succumb to the embraces of a vampire. That’s why she hired D - to save her from such a fate.

There are some twists that make this more than just a conventional vampire tale. D is a dampiel, the offspring of a vampire father and a human mother. He has a vampire side to his nature, which sometimes asserts itself in disturbing ways. There is another dampiel in this story but I’m not going to give away a spoiler.

There are conflicts with the aristocratic vampiric Lee family. There is tension between the Count and his vampire daughter Ramica. There are conflicts within the human population of the village as well.

These conflicts and divided loyalties will pose problems for D, and he has his inner conflict between his human and vampire sides to worry about as well.

Interestingly this movie was based not on a manga but on a series of novels by Hideyuki Kikuchi. It was later adapted into a manga. The character design for D was retained almost exactly for the 2000 movie.

One fascinating thing about this movie is that it deals with a subject that is a crucial ingredient of Bram Stoker’s Dracula novel but which is often rather glossed over in western vampire movies - the class issue. In Stoker’s novel Dracula is seen as a particular threat because he represents the power, glamour and seductiveness of the decadent aristocracy. Dracula’s opponents are solidly bourgeois. In Vampire Hunter D the vampires represent a decadent oppressive (but glamorous) aristocracy which preys on the poor and the middle class.

There’s plenty of violence and gore and there’s some nudity. There’s no shortage of adult concepts. Vampirism in fiction and movies is usually a metaphor for sex but in this case the sexual motivations of vampires are made much more overt.

The overall concept is brilliant, the world-building is done effectively and economically, there’s lots of mayhem and for a low-budget production the visuals are stylish and imaginative. Highly recommended.

Happily the Urban Vision DVD includes the Japanese language version with English subtitles. In general the English-dubbed versions of 80s and 90s anime should be avoided like the plague. There’s also been a Blu-Ray release. One thing that should be noted is that some of the character names are totally different in the subtitled version compared to the English dub.

Yor: The Hunter from the Future (1983)

I always get excited when I see the words “directed by Antonio Margheriti” in a movie’s credits. It invariably means I’m in for a good time. I have no problems with profound movies and arty movies but sometimes you just want the cinematic equivalent of a burger and fries. Antonio Margheriti understood this and he would do you a great burger and fries and throw in a thick shake as well. I respect that.

Yor: The Hunter from the Future came out in 1983. I love the fact that we don’t get an introduction explaining what’s going on. Margheriti is confident he can entertain us enough to keep us watching and that it will be more fun to find these things out slowly.

At the beginning we don’t know if we’re on Earth or some other planet and we don’t know if we’re in the distant past or the distant future. We do know that things are pretty primitive.

We’re introduced to a tribe who are more or less at a Stone Age level of culture. They are however reasonably peaceful and friendly. They’re certainly friendly towards a mysterious stranger named Yor (Reb Brown). He’s just saved the life of Kalaa (Corinne Cléry). She’s a total babe and when he returns to her village with her and sees her dancing and sees the way she moves her hips he’s comprehensively smitten. She thinks he’s pretty nice as well. She knows a hero when she sees one and Yor is definitely a hero.

Yor has a medallion that he wears around his neck. He has no idea what it is but he’s certain that it’s important.

Disaster is however about to strike. There’s another tribe, a tribe of beast-men, and they’re not the least bit peaceful or friendly. They raid the village of Kalaa’s tribe, slaughter the men and carry off the women.

There are lots of dangers to worry about. The dinosaurs for starters. But there are worse things than dinosaurs.

There’s another tribe living out in the desert. Their queen is reputed to have magical powers. They worship her as a goddess. She’s blonde and beautiful. Yor falls for her in a big way.

Yor might be a hero but he doesn’t know too much about women. He doesn’t know enough to realise that these two chicks are going to be trying to scratch each other’s eyes out. Kalaa is a very jealous woman and as far as she’s concerned Yor is her man.

Yor has always had a feeling that there is something important he must do. There is a secret that he must unravel. He has a Destiny.

There’s yet another tribe living by the sea, and sure enough there’s another babe anxious to throw herself at Yor. And there’s a Mysterious Island, which might provide the answers for which Yor has been searching.

I’m being very vague about the plot because it’s ingenious and rather cool and it’s more fun to see it unfold gradually (although the posters give some of it away).

Suffice to say that this is not quite the prehistoric adventure movie it seemed to be at the beginning.

There are people on the island and they’re very different from the other inhabitants of this world. They’re definitely not Stone Age people. There are robots and rayguns. There’s also an insane and very twisted villain. He is Overlord. He has minions, and very nasty they are too.

This movie started life as a four-part Italian television series. It was edited down to less than half its original length for feature film release. The plot is still perfectly coherent (rather crazy but it does make sense).

This film may not have had anything like a Hollywood budget but it’s visually very impressive. Imagination and flair (which this movie has in abundance) always count for more than money. Best of all this was 1983 so there’s no CGI. The special effects are old school but they work just fine.

This film is fast-moving and action-packed. It has a big dumb but likeable hero. It has feisty sexy females. It looks terrific. It boasts some great location shooting (in Turkey). It has monsters and villains. It has crazy twists and turns as Yor figures out what’s going on. It’s lots of fun. A total blast from start to finish. Very highly recommended.

Reb Brown isn’t much of an actor but he’s energetic and has a certain naïve charm and you can’t help liking him. John Steiner oozes slimy evil menace as Overlord. Corinne Cléry is a fine heroine. She is best-known for The Story of O (1975), one of the best erotic movies ever made. She’s also in Lucio Fulci’s The Devil’s Honey (1986) which is an absolute must-see movie.

I’ve reviewed a number of Antonio Margheriti’s films including his giallo Naked You Die (1968) and his amazing science fiction films The Wild, Wild Planet (1966) and The Snow Devils (1967).

Warriors of the Year 2072 (1984)

By the 80s Italian popular cinema was on the ropes. The new wave of Hollywood blockbusters was completing the work of destruction begun by television. Budgets for Italian genre movies were getting tighter and tighter, that’s assuming you could get any kind of financing at all. There was desperation in the air, and a frantic search for new genres to tempt audiences back to movie theatres.

The post-apocalyptic science fiction thriller seemed like a good bet. In the wake of the success of the first two Mad Max movies and John Carpenter’s Escape from New York it seemed like a very commercial proposition. So it’s not surprising to find Lucio Fulci making such a movie in 1984.

Warriors of the Year 2072 ( AKA Rome 2033 - The Fighter Centurions, Italian title I guerrieri dell'anno 2072) more or less fits into this genre. There’s no mention of an actual apocalypse but clearly there’s been extreme social disintegration leading to a totalitarian society that maintains order through bread and circuses. Mostly circuses.

The circuses are ultra-violent TV shows. Like so much science fiction of that era it fails to predict the internet but it does predict the popularity of reality TV based on cruelty.

Drake (Jared Martin) is the current TV superstar. He’s the main attraction of a killbiker show, killbiking being guys on motorcycles trying to kill each other.

Sam (who owns a rival network, World Broadcasting System or WBS) has a plan for a new series that will be even more violent - gladiators fighting in a recreated Colosseum in Rome.

The gladiators will be criminals condemned to death. The one who survives gets his freedom. These guys are not just murderers. They’re psycho killers.

The trick will be to persuade Drake to participate. That’s easy enough - just frame him for the murder of his fiancée.

Drake is inclined to be less than coöperative right from the start. The gladiators are subjected to conditioning to make them even more violent and hate-crazed but Drake is not only determined to resist, he hopes to lead a rebellion. So as well as all the other movies that have obviously influenced this one you can add Spartacus.

Of course it all leads up to mayhem in the arena, and it’s mayhem on motorcycles. And motorcycles used as chariots.

There’s going to be a major double-cross and just about everybody is going to be betrayed. Drake and his newly acquired girlfriend Sarah (Eleonora Brigliadori), who works for WBS but he thinks he can trust her, will have to figure out a way to avoid a disaster on a huge scale.

The similarities to a movie like Rollerball are obvious but this film is also at times reminiscent of Westworld. The world of Warriors of the Year 2072 is run by super-computers and WBS has its own AI, known as Junior. Whether he’s a benevolent AI or an evil one remains to be seen.

I’ve already mentioned Mad Max, Escape from New York, Rollerball, Spartacus and Westworld among this movie’s influence. One could also add A Clockwork Orange. Italian genre movies were notorious for ripping off foreign big-budget movies but in this case there’s such a bewildering mishmash of influences that Fulci ends up making a movie with a certain flavour of its own.

Tight budgets are not usually a problem for people like Fulci who have actual talent, but it is a challenge to make a science fiction movie like this on a tiny budget. This is a movie that aims for, and needed, a bit of an epic feel. Having said that, on a visual level it mostly works. It has style and energy. For those who like gore there are a few decapitations and a fairly well executed face-melting scene. The motorcycle combat scenes are excellent crazy fun.

The plot gets a bit complicated but if you’re a fan of Italian genre movies you’re probably not overly worried about plot coherence. The plot does create the right atmosphere atmosphere of paranoia.

The performances are fine. They’re what the movie required. None of these people were expecting to win Oscars.

Warriors of the Year 2072 delivers action and excitement and interesting visuals and that’s enough to keep me happy. I liked it. Highly recommended.

A Boy and His Dog (1975)

A Boy and His Dog is a 1975 science fiction film which bombed at the box office although it has since gained a cult following. It is based on Harlan Ellison’s much-praised novella of the same name.

This was by no means the first post-apocalyptic science fiction movie but it is arguably the one that defined that genre for decades to come, both stylistically and thematically.

It is set in the year 2024, some years after a nuclear war has devastated the planet.

Vic (Don Johnson) is a teenaged boy who wanders the post-nuclear wasteland with his dog Blood with whom he has a telepathic bond. Blood not only communicates in human speech, he has a human level of intelligence. In fact in this particular partnership he is definitely the brains of the outfit.

Vic and Blood need each other. Blood, as a result of the same mutation that gave him telepathic abilities, can no longer hunt for food. He relies on Vic to provide him with food. In return Blood supplies Vic with what he needs - women. Blood’s sense of smell is unusually acute even for a dog. He can smell a human female a long ways off. Vic needs sex the way Blood needs food.

All Vic wants from women is sex. The closest thing he’s ever had to an emotional relationship is with Blood. When Blood scents a woman Vic chases her down and rapes her. As Blood says to him early on, Vic is not a very nice person. He’s as dumb as a rock, he’s violent and he’s obsessed with sex.

To be honest Blood isn’t a very nice dog either. They suit each other. One might say they deserve each other.

They are however both survivors and they are loyal to each other. Crucially, they need each other and they both know it.

There are plenty of other survivors of the nuclear war wandering about the wasteland. They’re mostly male. Women are in very short supply.

Most of the other survivors are even more unpleasant than Vic. It’s a world of casual violence, brutality and ignorance.

Vic is getting desperate for a woman when Blood announces that he has scented one. Vic follows her back to her hideout and is about to rape her when he’s rudely interrupted. A group of twenty-three Rovers arrives on the doorstep so to speak. Rover is the name given to wanderers like Vic. Most travel in packs but Vic is a loner.

He does eventually get to rape the girl, only he doesn’t have to. She is more than willing. Her name is Quilla June Holmes (Susanne Benton). She tells him that she lives Downunder. Downunder is as its name suggests an underground community, heavily fortified, which keeps civilisation alive. This particular Downunder colony is named Topeka. Once Vic gets a look at Topeka he decides he prefers barbarism and the post-nuclear wasteland to civilisation. One can’t blame him.

Topeka is like 1950s small town America on steroids, with a touch of 17th century Puritanism. Minor offences (such as disrespect towards the governing Committee) are punished by death.

Vic is even more unhappy when he figures out how he got to be there, and why he’s there.

The whole telepathic dog thing, which worked on the printed page in the original story, doesn’t quite work on the screen. It seems too silly and it undermines the necessary suspension of disbelief. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Surprisingly it works much of the time but occasionally when it don’t work it can seem silly. There’s also the problem that while the dog is obviously incredibly well-trained he looks like a dog out of a family sitcom. He’s too cute. They needed a dog that looked just a bit leaner and meaner.

The post-apocalyptic world on the surface (which obviously very heavily influenced Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior) works well in the film. Topeka on the other hand is too much of a heavy-handed caricature and the attempt to make it look slightly surreal ends up making it look silly and unbelievable. Director L.Q. Jones admitted that he wasn’t entirely happy with the Topeka sequences.

Don Johnson is extremely good, as is Susanne Benton as Quilla June. The other cast members have a more difficult time since they’re playing characters who are mere caricatures.

I can understand why Jones went for the weird makeup effects for the citizens of Topeka. It gets the message across that despite the small town Americana feel this is an alien sort of society. Unfortunately the folk of Topeka end up looking like zombie clowns which again adds an unwanted touch of silliness. It’s also rather surreal, which contrasts uncomfortably with the gritty approach of the scenes on the surface.

The Shout! Factory Blu-Ray looks good and includes an audio commentary. More interesting is the lengthy conversation between L.Q. Jones and Harlan Ellison in which they discuss several vexed questions including their legendary disagreement over the last line in the movie. Ellison was supposed to write the screenplay but fund that he couldn’t do it. Jones then took over the writing. I can understand up to a point why Jones thought it would be tricky to stick to Ellison’s famous final sentence but overall I think Ellison is right - the closing sentence that Jones provides is too jokey.

A Boy and His Dog is visually impressive. It very nearly works. It’s a good movie but it misses out on greatness. Perhaps the story really was unfilmable. A flawed but interesting movie. Recommended as one of the crucial post-apocalyptic movies.

Damnation Alley (1977)

Damnation Alley is a low-key 1977 post-apocalypse science fiction movie. Perhaps a bit too low-key.

The movie was based on a novel by Roger Zelazny which he expanded from an earlier novella.

It start with an all-out nuclear war. The men of the 123rd Strategic Missile Wing have survived, at least until another disaster strikes. Four survivors set off on a cross-country journey to Albany, because that’s the only place from which they’ve ever picked up radio signals indicating that there might be other survivors. Denton calls the route to Albany, which skirts areas of high radioactivity, Damnation Alley.

The nuclear war has tilted the Earth’s axis, sending the weather totally crazy. The sky is filled with auroras and radioactive clouds.

They make their journey in two top-secret armoured Landmaster vehicles, which are kind of like a cross between an SUV, a tank and a motorhome. They’re kind of cool, sort of.

In a post-apocalyptic movie you expect roaming bands of mutants but you don’t get that in this movie. In fact the crew of the Landmaster encounter very few humans of any kind. The dangers they face come mostly from the hostile environment.

There are very few action scenes, which again is not what you expect in this genre. The major hazards of post-apocalyptic life seem to be bugs. Gigantic scorpions and armoured cockroaches, that sort of thing.

There is an encounter with radiation-scarred hillbillies.

Four men set off on this journey, some die and two extra passengers are picked up. There’s Billy, a frightened teenaged boy. And there’s Janice (Dominique Sanda), a showgirl they find in an abandoned casino in Las Vegas.

The special effects are at times a bit iffy but this was a 70s movie and I tend to think of iffy special effects as a feature rather than a bug. And it has to be said that the killer cockroaches are very well done and very scary. And the weird skies give this movie a distinctive feel - you really do get the impression that the nuclear war changed absolutely everything and that the world is now a very disturbing place.

The encounter with those killer roaches in Salt Lake City is certainly the highlight of the movie. It’s extremely well shot, it’s creepy and it’s scary.

This was a major studio big-budget production. The visuals (such as the weird skies) are quite impressive. There’s some fine location shooting. But this is a movie that bears little resemblance to Star Wars, which the studio had in production at the same time. There are no epic battle scenes. Damnation Alley had a troubled production history with numerous script rewrites. The original concept was very ambitious but the film fell victim to constant budget cuts. The original cut of the movie was much much longer and included more action scenes and a romantic triangle sub-plot which was eliminated entirely. Which is a pity, since it meant that Janice becomes a minor character and it also has the effect of making the uneasy relationship between Denton and Tanner less interesting.

The main attraction here will be the two leads, George Peppard and Jan-Michael Vincent. Peppard was always fun and enjoyed huge success on television in the 70s and 80s with Banacek and The A-Team. He has a southern accent in this movie, or at least he thinks he’s doing a southern accent. Peppard plays Major Denton, a bit of a martinet who still clings to the military mindset. Jan-Michael Vincent is Tanner. Denton used to be his commanding officer. Tanner was always out of place in the military and he’s a good-natured rebel. Vincent later starred in Airwolf on TV.

As a result of the many script rewrites and the fact that about 45 minutes was cut from the film by the studio the characters feel undeveloped. We never find out what is really bugging Denton. We never find out why Tanner is a rebel or why he and Denton have such a tense relationship. We don’t really get to know Janice. And unfortunately the movie doesn’t have quite enough action or excitement to compensate for the thin characterisations.

Signal One’s Blu-Ray release includes two audio commentaries (plus loads of other extras). I only listened to one of the commentaries, the one with Paul Talbot. He gives an enormous amount of fascinating information about the history of the movie from the time the film rights were bought in 1970 to the time it was finally released in 1977 and he offers plenty of insights into how various effects were achieved. The 16:9 enhanced transfer looks very good (the movie was shot in the 2.35:1 aspect ration which director Jack Smight uses effectively).

There’s also a US Blu-Ray release, from Shout! Factory.

Damnation Alley clearly should have turned out to be a better movie. The potential was there. It just doesn’t really engage the viewer. We don’t get interested in the characters because all the scenes that offered us insights into their emotions and motivations seem to have been ruthlessly cut by the studio. As it stands it’s still not really a bad movie, certainly better than its reputation would suggest, but a bit flat. Worth a look.

She (1984)

She is a crazed 1984 exploitation movie based on H. Rider Haggard’s 1887 novel of the same name (one of the bestselling novels in history and one of the finest ever examples of the lost world adventure tale). When I say it’s based on Haggard’s novel, I mean loosely based. Very loosely.

It’s an Italian movie shot in Italy but in English with an Israeli director.

This is a post-apocalyptic dystopian action thriller with several other genres thrown in for good measure.

The movie is set sometime in the future after civilisation has collapsed and humanity has reverted to barbarism. Tom (David Goss) and Dick (Harrison Muller) are two brothers who are at a village market when the village is attacked by Nazis. Their sister is kidnapped.

The attackers actually seem like a combination of Nazis, bikers and clowns but they’re mounted on horseback.

Now one thing I don’t want you to think is that this is a movie with a coherent plot. It isn’t. In fact for most of the running time there doesn’t appear to be any central plot. It’s mostly just a series of crazy adventures. Insofar as there is a plot it’s a series of quests during a journey to the kingdom of the Norks (they’re the Nazi dudes).

Tom and Dick are captured also. They’re going to be sold into slavery. They end up in the hands of She (Sandahl Bergman). She (obviously based on Ayesha or She Who Must Be Obeyed from Haggard’s novel) rules a tiny queendom. She’s a goddess. At least her followers think she’s a goddess. She never gives any indication that she has much in the way of goddess powers although she can be healed instantly and it’s implied that she might be immortal (like Ayesha in Haggard’s novel). Her followers are women. She has a devoted lieutenant in the person of Shandra (Quin Kessler).

For no reason that is ever explained She forces Tom to under the brutal ordeal of walking the path (which results in his being stuck with lots of sharp pointy things).

Also for no clearly defied reason She undergoes an ordeal of her own. She enters a warehouse where she has to fight a whole bunch of fearsome opponents some of whom look like mediæval knights and some of whom are robots.

She survives the ordeal but even though she’s a goddess she ends up pretty banged about. Luckily in her palace there’s a magic healing pool.

For reasons that are not made terribly clear Tom, Dick, She and Shandra then undergo a series of adventures. Maybe they’re quests but if so we have no idea what their purpose is. Naturally they encounter mutants (it wouldn’t be a post-apocalyptic movie without mutants), they encounter a bunch of weirdos who seem to be living out some kind of Roman Empire fantasy except they’re not just weirdos but something much nastier.

And then they get captured by communists. Although this movie contains both Nazis and communists I get the feeling that this was just so they could have bad guys wearing Nazi insignias and other bad guys with hammer-and-sickle insignia. They don’t seem to be actual Nazis or communists.

In fact the communists worship a god. They seem to be communist monks. At least he says he’s a god. He does appear to have some god-like powers.

This movie starts weird and messed-up and it just keeps getting weirder and more messed-up. I haven’t even mentioned the mad scientist and the guardian of the bridge yet.

One odd thing is that there’s lots of surviving modern technology (gramophones, chainsaws, etc) but guns seem to be unknown. I think the reason for this is obvious when you think about it. This is a Chicks With Swords movie, not a Babes With Guns movie.

Obviously any post-apocalyptic movie released in the mid-80s was going to be influenced by the Mad Max movies, especially Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior. But the 80s sword-and-sorcery boom was starting to get underway. Visually this movie is a mixture of the Mad Max and sword-and-sorcery aesthetics with some truly bizarre surreal touches thrown in. The look of the film really is all over the place but at least it’s never boring.

Despite the presence of Nazis, communists, religious cults and numerous gods I’m not convinced that there’s any intended ideological or religious message here. Unless maybe the message is that all ideologies and religions can get pretty weird.

There’s a wild battle scene and the ending is a slight surprise.

Avi Nesher wrote the screenplay and directed.

Kino Lorber have put this movie out on both DVD and Blu-Ray. It looks pretty good. The only extra is an interview with Avi Nesher.

She is perhaps a bad movie but it’s a weirdly fascinating and hypnotic bad movie. You genuinely have no idea what it’s going to throw at you next.

Highly recommended for its totally unhinged weirdness.