DEATHSPORT (1978) Combines the excitement of watching dirtbiking with...forget it. Ah, the 70's and (early) 80's. Back when even if the movie sucked, it could be counted on to deliver a pretty cool poster. These days, even the good movies have pretty lame posters. Yor: The Hunter From The Future had a great poster. So did The New Gladiators. Even this had a pretty cool poster. It is said by some that this is a sequel to the schlock classic Death Race 2000. Whatever threads of continuity there are between the two films seem to be incidental - both have killing for sport, and both have David Carradine. The similarities end there. For sure, the most glaring difference is that Death Race 2000 is a lot of fun, as a guilty pleasure or not, whereas Deathsport is just bad. It's a thousand years after the "neutron war". Humanity lives is walled cities and don't much like to travel the wastes between because of mutants and, of course, each other. Everybody has a "handblaster" which instantly vaporizes anyone it's pointed at. (no use for nonlethal weaponry, I guess, though badguy leader Richard Lynch insists that his handblaster-armed goons capture our hero alive) Condemned prisoners are made to do battle in Deathsport, where the losers die and the winners go free. Sounds like a good way to ensure that what criminals you do have on the loose are the really tough ones. In Deathsport, they test their mettle against those who ride Deathmachines, which are basically dirt bikes with handblasters attached to them. The Deathsport is being used in part to show off the Deathmachines, on which the villains intend to ride to victory against their enemies. Considering how easily the riders of the Deathmachines are defeated by people on the ground with nothing more than swords, I don't think these are likely to be effective in war. Hey, here's a better name for those Deathmachines: Murdercycles! David Carradine plays Kaz Oshay, who's a "range guide", something like a wandering Buddhist monk, I guess. We hear a lot of pseudo-Buddhist mumbo jumbo from these people anyway, and they seem to have magic healing powers. He is captured by the goons of one city (led by Lynch, who has a grudge against Carradine because his mom once kicked his ass), befriends an imprisoned official from another, more hospitable city, and in the midst of the Deathsport, they snag some Deathmachines and drive off to greener pastures. I don't think the Deathsport has been sufficiently thought through. Deathsport seems to make a lot of nods towards capitalizing on the then-new Star Wars craze. There are some fairly broad things, which you might see in any sci-fi movies - the black-clad villain, the mystical warriors, dialogue like "You cannot escape your destiny...death at the hands of Ankar Moor!". Other things are more specific, like how the Deathmachines make TIE-fighter noises as they drive past, the mutants that talk the same way Tusken Raiders do, or the special swords that make distinct sounds as they are swung through the air. Lightsabers make that familiar hum - these "whistlers" make an electronic-sounding whistle. Most baffling, the sound of automatic doors opening - the equivalent of the "shwee!" in Star Trek - sounds like Darth Vader breathing. The climactic swordfight between Lynch and Carradine is laughable. It's shot and edited in a way to ensure that the swords never actually touch each other, and no wonder; the swords seem to be made of clear plastic. The action scenes leading up to that mostly consist of Deathmachines zooming by with those TIE-fighter noises, again and again and AGAIN and AGAIN. Lots of slow-motion explosions too. The synth score often sounds like it was composed by R2-D2, but is sure to be something of a cult favorite among a few hippies because it features one Jerry Garcia on (inaudible to me) guitars. I didn't even mention the crazy mayor who randomly tortures naked disco girls for no apparent reason. Two directors are credited, and producer Roger Corman reportedly did some work as well. In the end, this kinda reminds me of Nemesis 2, in that you'd never think an hour and a half of non-stop action could be so boring. This is a little more entertaining though, because its awfulness is presented with a kind of flamboyance. It's bad, yes, but it's closer to so-bad-it's-good than some. BACK TO THE D's BACK TO THE MAIN PAGE