newbarbarians

This is my absolute favorite of the Italian post-nukes. It starts with a really cheap looking nuclear bomb going off, and a prologue that says : 2019....the holocaust is over. The holocaust may be over, but the survivors have a bigger problem. A roving band of rabid homosexuals known as the Templars ( I'm not sure if they're somehow connected to the Templars out of Tombs of the Blind Dead, but I do know that these ones aren't at all interested in biting young female virgins) are roaming around the wasteland killing everyone in sight for 'the crime of being alive'. Well that's their leader Wan's reasoning anyway. There are three main Templars. Wan (George Eastman-After the Fall of New York) is their leader. He's a real zeolot, and is always giving longwinded speeches to his men. Mako (Massimo Vanni-1990:The Bronx Warriors) is the loose cannon, and future ruler of the group.

He's not too bright, and has a ridiculously large mohawk that due to continuity errors, often changes from purple to red in the middle of a scene. And then there's Shadow ( Thomas Moore - Great White), the quiet, philosiphising Templar who's jeolous of Mako. These guys are killing everyone in sight, because of some half arsed mission that Wan thought up. Maybe his mother never hugged him, and his father hugged him too much...anyway, enough of analysing Wans psyche. They're chasing after a woman one day ( just to kill , because of course she doesn't do anything for them) when who should show up, but rogue hero Scorpion (Timothy Brent-Bronx Warriors 2). He ruins their plans by killing most of them, but sparing Mako and Shadow so that they can run back to Wan and plan how to kill him. All of this leads to Scorpion hooking up with

his old ally Nadir (Fred Williamson- Fist of Fear, Touch of Death), a real cool cat armed with a compound bow and exploding arrows. He also gets some help from this movies answer to Mad Max 2's Feral Kid, whiz mechanic LIK ( at least that's what I call him, it stands for Little Italian Kid), played by Giovanni Frezza. Together they decide to end the Templars murderous reign of hilarious terror.

This is an action packed, extremely funny satire of Mad Max 2 aka. Road Warrior. A lot of people miss the point of this, and think Castellari was trying to make a serious movie, so it's dismissed by most viewers as being plain bad. Enzo obviously got a pretty good deal on silver paint, and perspex, because everything is absolutely covered in it. Some of the women even have perspex breast sheilds ! This was years before Madonna ever thought of it. My favorite actor George Eastman has his finest hour as the mad savior Wan. You can tell he's loving every minute of this role. It's got some incredibly funny scenes.One has Shadow telling Wan "there are plenty of us, even against a madman like Scorpion". Scorpion is incredibly layed back, non-threatening, downright boring, and by no means a madman. Another of the funniest is when Nadir is about to have sex with a prostitute. She tells him her bio-rythems are started, and she is entering into phase....everythings gonna get high tech in the future! One thing that isn't high tech are the cars in this. They're all old dune buggies, sedans, and golf carts painted silver. I think I even spotted my old Chrysler Sigma somewhere in there. It also has some effective gore sequences that would put a lot of horror movies to shame. This movie is packed with an even better ensemble of characters than Bloodsucking Freaks. The characters are so good, they could build an entire Star Wars style franchise around it. I better not say that too loud, or we'll end up with an absolute stinker of a prequel called Episode 1: the Templar Menace , with Scorpions head on the side of a pepsi can. This is one of those movies that will become a staple party tape, and even something you can just watch 5 or 10 minutes of every now and then. If you like post-nukes, buy it now , you won't regret it.

Once upon a hot summers night, while at a freinds house swilling beer and watching b-movies, our host produced a film which he said he'd just bought as an ex-rental from a video store for about $2.00. Little did I know that the film which was discarded by the franchise chain ( who probably thought they were above owning this flick) and picked up by my friend would become such an integral part of my life.

I'm not saying that I preach the words of Wan , or the philosophy of Shadow , or that I'll live my life the way Nadir does : " You must understand the power of victory!" in all his competitive glory , but I must say my perception of films changed..... no longer would I be consumed by the latest film which had a budget of a hundred million dollars. Now I would be asking questions like : " I bet Enzo could make a hundred movies for the price of the catering budget on Titanic , and they would all be more interesting". This film is great for so many reasons , but above all it's thoroughly entertaining with an unmatched cast.

George Eastman is maniacal as Wan , Tom Moore is thoughtful as Shadow , Anna Kanakis is enchanting as 'that bitch with the flying goggles' , and even Timothy Brent ( whos acting style is fairly underdone) is great as consumate hero Scorpion. Fred Williamson is toughguy Nadir , who has a great golf cart that he low-rides around in , bizarrelly following Scorpion , and even in one scene watching him have sex. Some of the sets are bad , with the crews bus making an appearance in one outdoor scene , but it just adds to the atmosphere of this film. In closing , I must say that the dialog is great , with a lot of the phrases entering my friends and my vocabulary... some are : "not bad , keep practicing though" , "books....that's what started the whole damn apocalypse" and even " bye.....BYE!". I tell you this film kicks ass ! Watch it and fall into the fantasy of living in a post-nuke wasteland.