- Directed by “Steve Benson” (Joe D’Amato)
- Written by “Steve Benson and Luigi Montefiori” (Joe D’Amato and George Eastman)
- Starring
- Al Cliver
- “Moira Chen” (Laura Gemser)
- George Eastman
- Jack Davis
- Al Yamanouchi
No, I don’t even try to defend it. But I enjoy this movie. I caught it on late night TV back in high school (for some reason one of the local channels broadcast almost continuous Italian sci-fi & fantasy movies and unknown US ’70s SF flicks after midnight; too bad I didn’t realize what a treasure I had). And unlike most things I fell for in high school, I haven’t completely outgrown this.
In the future, apparently, there are only two environments: The city, which is just as dirty and urban as you’d expect, with large junky areas unlivable except to scavengers and mutants; and the countryside, which is arid and looks generally like gravel yards. Naturally, the only remnants of civilization are in the cities, where a brutal televised game called “Endgame” takes people’s minds of their troubles. It’s a fun little gladiatorial game: One Prey and three Hunters in a wide section of the decimated city, each with three weapons. Fights to the death are permitted and encouraged.
Our hero is Ron Shannon, champion Endgame player, who probably picked up his fighting skills defending his last name in the playground. (Played by Al Cliver, by the way, who showed up as the doctor with the “brainwave machine” in 7 Doors of Death, which I just watched the night before. Wow, what are the odds he’d show up in two movies in one week? Well, given that they’re both Italian, the odds for at least some overlap were overwhelming.) His hunters are Aldridge, a black warrior-type, Mantrax, a diminutive white-guy martial artist, and Karnak, a Cossack-style meanie. Karnak (played by George Eastman) is the one to watch; he and Shannon grew up together, which means he was probably the one beating up Shannon on the playground (’cause hey, “Karnak” just oozes toughness). All of them all wear some kind of facepaint, usually with a motif of a fireball around the eye; it’s a nifty little cultural feature for Endgame players, and it showed up in my Halloween costume the year after I first saw this. (Interesting sidenote: Eastman also co-wrote the screenplay. On the other hand, he’s the man we can blame for writing and directing 1987’s Metamorphosis.)
While Shannon creeps through the dark city (oddly enough, it’s never day there) and his hunters follow, we’re also introduced to “Security Service” troops, Nazi-like stormtroopers doing the bidding of the fascist government. (No, I mean really Nazi-like; they wear German helmets, gas masks at all times, long double-breasted trenchcoats, and even their insignia looks like the double lightning bolt of Hitler’s SS.) Their business is massacring the mutant communities growing up in the rubble, since the mutants have telepathic abilities. (Seems to me, then, that the SS shouldn’t be able to creep up on the mutants, but there you go.)
We’re also introduced to the weakest series of scenes in the movie — a bunch of brown-uniformed generals sitting around a table making nefarious plans. The problem here is that everyone goes to great lengths not to mention what they’re actually discussing; they just say things like, “If this continues, it will ruin all of our plans!” I know it’s meant to be vaguely ominous, but it comes off as vaguely bureaucratic.
Anyway, back to the chase, as it were. In the course of defeating the first two hunters, Shannon also rescues a mutant girl (the beauteous Laura Gemser of the Emmanuelle movies, here billed as Moira Chen) from some raggedy scavengers. She returns the favor by telepathically helping when Karnak finds him; with her unseen help, Shannon defeats Karnak in front of the TV cameras, but then spares his life.
He then saves the mutant girl, Lilith, again — this time from stormtroopers, and they discover together the aftermath of an SS massacre. The only two survivors are the mutant boy Tommy, and Professor Levin, a neurosurgeon studying the mutants who believes they are the glorious next step in human evolution. (Which explains why the generals want them dead.)
He shelters them at his apartment, and a proposition is tabled: If Shannon will help Lilith and a few other mutants out of the city to a rendez-vous point two hundred miles away in the next two days (by December 25th — I’m sure that’s supposed to be meaningful, but nothing is ever done with it), he’ll be paid in massive quantities of gold. The professor makes here a case for the perfection of an all-psychic society; no guile, no dishonesty, no telemarketers… (What! That’s be cool, right?)
Meanwhile, Colonel Morgan, leader of the Security Service, visits Karnak. He points out Lilith’s presence in some stills taken from the televised Endgame; if she were a mutant, he points out, then Shannon may have won unfairly. And that’s enough to set Karnak off.
Shannon assembles the obligatory merc team to help him: The local dojo master and a mysterious martial artist named “Ninja” who works out there; an overweight neo-barbarian named Kovack, and an old half-Indian named Kijawa. Plus cannon fodder named Stark. (Don’t worry, he’ll be dead real soon.)
Before he can leave the city, Shannon is hunted down by Morgan and his troopers; he’s about to bite it, but suddenly Karnak steps out of nowhere and blasts the troopers. See, it’s that honor among rivals thing; no one’s gonna take down Shannon except Karnak, and he’s going to do it in his own time.
In their convoy of two motorcycles, a big van with a machine gun crow’s nest, and Shannon’s own souped-up apocalypsemobile, they start the journey with Lilith, Tommy, the professor, and a half-dozen other mutants (not telling the mercs, of course, of their mutant status).
And hey — it’s finally day time! The wasteland, it seems, is an underwatered, overcast place, with the occasional trashed car scattered with mutant bodies. These mutants, though, are different than the urban kind; theirs is a regressive mutation, which means that some have Planet of the Apes faces, some have webbed fingers and hokey patches of scales, etc. Bet we’ll see more of these guys.
Their next encounter is probably the niftiest: They come upon a decrepit warehouse complex (amazing how no single-family farmhouses ever survive the apocalypse), where they meet about a hundred blind monks, dressed in black robes. It amazes them, then, when the monks attack en masse. Their secret, Lilith reveals, is that they have a captive psychic mutant whom they force to transmit the sight from the travelers’ eyes to the monks. What we’re treated to here is tons and tons of cowboy shooting — you know, the kind where the cowboy fires a single shot and five Indians fall dead. Only the mercs are going at it with machine guns; black-robed bodies fall in waves, until finally Shannon bursts into the building where the captive is held, and kills him; suddenly the monks all wander around, bumping into things. (The only member of the convoy to be lost here was Stark. Toldja not to get attached to him.)
Taking leave of the monks, the party moves out and finds a place to stop and rest. Shannon watches Lilith with Tommy, and finds out the kid’s a powerful telekinetic, which is a new mutation. He’s so powerful that Lilith has to keep his mind in check all the time. Gee, yet on the surface he’s just a cute mopheaded kid. Hmm, bet he won’t be useful later. (Oh yeah, we also get to see, peering over a sand dune… Karnak watching them. Jeez, don’t those psychic senses have any early-warning function?)
Next the travelers find a cadre of massacred travelers — but almost too late, Lilith blurts out that it’s a trap. Alas, it’s true, and the professor takes a bullet, never to see his beloved guileless society. (Excuse me while I wipe away a tear.) Hefty barbarian Kovack then gets all huffy because Lilith’s obviously a mutant, and he didn’t agree to risk his life for some mutant, but Shannon rightly points out that what they’re risking their lives for is the gold.
Alas, the conversation gets no further, because they then find themselves surrounded by a regressive mutant biker gang. Time for some more cowboy shooting; in the fray, Ninja and Kijawa go down (and, one assumes, Kovack; we never see him die, but he abruptly disappears from the movie — serves him right, the prejudiced bastard). And the fat scaly leader of the mutants grabs Lilith for himself. Can’t say as I blame him; he’s travelling with two topless women from his harem, and I really would have appreciated it if they’d put their tops back on.
Finally, with Karnak’s sudden help, the others defeat the mutants and get away. Shannon feels the need to go back for Lilith, and Karnak goes along. They follow the mutants back to their stronghold, yet another abandoned industrial site. While they wait for nightfall to sneak in, Lilith stoically gets raped by the scaly guy. (More on this later.)
After disabling all the (unguarded) bikes, Shannon and Karnak sneak by rope into the midst of the soundest-sleeping mutants you ever did see. I mean, they all sleep in one big room, flopped all over each other, and they still manage to kill the single guard, sneak in, rescue Lilith, kill the scaly guy, and make it out. Or almost; someone wakes up after Shannon and Lilith have escaped, leaving Karnak to fend for himself.
Shannon and Lilith meet up with the convoy (now protected only by Dojo Guy) and make it to the rendez-vous point. Unfortunately, they’re met there by Colonel Morgan and a crapload of stormtroopers, and Dojo Guy bites it. As their final defense, Shannon has Lilith release the blocks on Tommy’s powers, and the little kid cheerfully destroys troopers right and left; they’re blown around by a sudden windstorm, the machine gun on the crow’s nest mows them down by itself, troopers burst into flames, the troopers truck rises into the air and drops on a handful of them… and as a final touch, Morgan’s own gun turns around and forces itself into his mouth. Blam.
Then Tommy’s back to his smiling self. (I’m thinking years and years of therapy here.)
Then the rendez-vous helicopter lands, and two guys in medical white deliver a big box of gold to Shannon. (Wow! It’s like Christmas or something! See, ‘cuz it’s December 25th and… never mind.) Lilith invites him to join them in their new society, but Shannon declines, saying that he’s part of the world of the past. They leave, and Shannon’s about to pick up his gold, when bullets pepper the ground. Karnak’s alive after all. After divesting themselves silently of weapons, they give each other that little “amiable enemies” smile, and launch themselves at each other. Freeze frame. The end.
The most surprising thing about this movie is it’s restraint — especially when you realize that director “Steve Benson” is none other than Joe D’Amato — you know, Anthropophagus, Porno Holocaust, Caligula 2. (Although it must also be pointed out that he did the Ator trilogy.) In fact, the entire thing is completely underkey. Everybody’s a stoic; even the rape of Lilith has very little impact. (And when Laura Gemser’s breasts make little impact, you know you’re in an alternate universe.)
In fact, this is indicative of the biggest flaw of the movie: It doesn’t build to anything. The one big battle scene, against the blind monks, takes place halfway through; by contrast, the rescue mission is anti-climactic. Nothing ever reaches critical mass.
On the other hand, there’s plenty going for this movie. The initial Endgame sequence is well-done, especially the constant sponsor’s messages for Life Plus, the miracle protein drink. There’s an actual plot behind everything, simple though it is, and there are enough interesting episodes to keep it from dragging horribly.
Hey, I know I’m trying desperately to defend this movie. What can I say? It doesn’t rub me the wrong way, and given the median quality level of post-apocalyptic movies (especially Italian ones), that’s saying something.
Some Notable Totables:
- body count: 161
- breasts: 8
- explosions: 6
- dream sequences: 0
- ominous thunderstorms: 0
- actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek: 0
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