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Warriors of the Wasteland

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Warriors of the Wasteland is one of the greatest worst films I've seen, and I've seen a lot of bad films. This post-apocalyptic low-budget romp has it all: A homosexual death cult that navigates the wasteland in 20 horsepower go-carts, looking for things to kill! A dashing lone wolf survivor who maintains a rather ambiguous relationship with a prepubescent boy (who also happens to be the local go-to auto mechanic)! Former NFL star Fred Williamson, who's totally sweet archery skills are second only to his arsenal of exploding arrowheads!!! Add to all of this a hot and vulnerable female lead, a cheesy electronic score, and a bunch of awesome monologues by the leader of the bad guys ("There is only one faith! One ecstasy! DEATH!!!"), and you got one hell of a good time! Take it from a true connoisseur of crap: this movie is worth the low price. Best enjoyed with a few beers and a sense of humor.

Just be aware that "Warriors of the Wasteland" is an alternate title for "The New Barbarians" WOW was the title for the U.S. home video release in the early 80's (I searched for years for this movie in some way shape or form until I discovered the title on DVD as NB. It has a great soundtrack by Claudio Simonnetti (of Goblin fame for those who care). I was a young lad when I saw it and I thought it was just a cool movie. Now I am older and I appreciate it for it's camp value. I am a huge Fred "The Hammer" Williamson fan and think that this is a great example of what you can do with no budget in Europe with no one looking over your shoulder. For best value check out the "Post Apocolyptic Triple Feature" box set. It contains "The New Barbarians", "1990 The Bronx Warriors" (also w/ Fred "The Hammer") and "2019, After The Fall of New York" . The best part is all 3 movies are in a box set under $20!!! a fraction of the price that the individual discs retail for (the discs are individual in seperate cases, so no encryption issues or anything like that.) Plus you get an interview with Fred about his experience making the films which is pretty priceless! P.S. As bad as these films are now as a young black kid growing up, Fred was a great action-hero role model because he not only did do cool things with exploding arrows, but he also lived through the movie! "Warriors of the Wasteland" is passable, but for the best results and value, definately check out "Post Apocolyptic Triple Feature"!

In the future (2019 to be exact), the world is destroyed by nuclear holocaust. This causes a gang of dirt-bike / golfcart-riding derelicts in cute white outfits to roam the land in search of other survivors to run down in painfully slooow chase sequences. Enter Scorpion (George Eastman) in his 1970s model sportscar w/ dryer-duct hoses sticking out of it, and a big plastic bubble mounted on the roof! Man, that's the very definition of cool! He's out to rid the planet of the guys in the groovy white costumes. Fred Williamson stars as Nadir, the wandering archer of the wasteland. His humongous moustache and exploding arrows aid Scorpion in his quest to save what's left of the world. Watch for the gut-bustingly hilarious decapitation and exploding body scenes! You'll be howling and rewinding all night! Oh my! ...

What a waste of time! Every Hollywood cliche and formula is in this movie that seems to never end. You keep waiting for a plot to develop and FINALLY something of a plot SEEMS to gradually unfold. These evil "Templars" want to destroy everyone remaining after the Holocaust of 2019. What? Yeah that's the "plot". Yawn. I know it makes no sense.

Why couldn't they have at least shown more scenes with that gorgeous Italian woman. I don't even know her name, but she's the best thing in the film. She has occasional appearances. She's the only socially redeeming thing about this misguided effort.

No doubt you've heard the words "Spaghetti Western" before, referring to the genre of Italian-produced Western movies made in the 1960s and 1970s. There is a lesser known style of movies also made in Italy, but featuring futuristic settings where the world is a dark, desolate post-war place, where small bands of survivors huddle together and have minimal plots thrown at them. These films I like to refer to as Spaghetti Apocalypse movies.

In WARRIORS OF THE WASTELAND, the opening shot features the caption: "2019 A.D. The nuclear holocaust is over." In case you're wondering when the nuclear holocaust began, later dialog in the film places the beginning of the world-wide war as happening nine years before. (Wait, that would mean... LOOK OUT!)

Life in the Spaghetti Apocalypse revolves around three peoples: the Templars, some small bands of survivors and - our hero - Mr. Scorpion. These three groups are presented quickly, if not expertly. The first ten minutes features an large, intense gun battle between two groups of people we haven't been introduced to yet. This makes it difficult to a) keep track of who's winning and b) care about who's winning.

It turns out that this is the first of several battles we see between the Templars and the caravan groups. The Templars are a quasi-religious cult. The Templars blame the entirety of the human race for the disaster that has befallen the human race and therefore are exacting revenge on... the entirety of the human race.

The Templars wear tight white jumpsuits with huge shoulder pads. Presumably, the attempt was for them to appear futuristic while still visually invoking the image of the Knights Templar. The result is to make them Abba. They drive their various vehicles around Italian dirt-mines looking for people to exterminate.

The caravan people are the remnants of humanity, desperately attempting to find a radio signal from some corner of civilization that may have survived. They drive their various vehicles around Italian dirt-mines running away from the Templars who are trying to exterminate them.

Scorpion is our protagonist. He drives his lone vehicle (a late-70s Chevy, it looks like) around Italian dirt-mines and scowls at people. Picture him as a post-apocalyptic Lou Reed (though he more physically resembles Blake from Blake's 7).

Fred Williamson is called Nadir in this film and it's his job to randomly appear standing on the top of a hill and shoot the guy who's about to kill Scorpion. Based on other movies he's been in, I'm jumping to the conclusion that this is his real life occupation, and the director simply pointed the camera at him while he was going about his everyday business.

There is a heck of a lot of back-story here; as the audience, we are not privy to any of it. Scorpion and Nadir have a prior history together which compels Nadir to follow Scorpion around, get him out of trouble and then insult him. Scorpion has a previous antagonistic relationship with the leader of the Templars (a man named One). This conflict drives the plot, although we aren't told why.

The last notable character to introduce is Alma, played by a young woman named Anna Kanakis. Kanakis's costume consists entirely of leather chaps, black tiny underpants, a low-cut top and big hair. It came as no surprise to learn that she was Miss Italy of 1977. Scorpion rescues Alma from the Templars who are about to execute her (or worse). To say that Scorpion and Alma become acquainted quickly would be an understatement. They make semi-passionate love before they even bother to seek medical treatment for her broken shoulder.

You may be wondering what this depiction of a post-apocalyptic world looks like. It mostly consists of a dirt field filled with burned out cars and empty beer kegs. Presumably the global dystopia sprang from a Pontiac dealership in 1982.

This is a film that unabashedly loves its vehicles. I'd wager a good quarter to a third of the film is footage of people driving cars, sitting in cars or falling off motorcycles in slow-motion. This film loves its cars so much that it places a human ear in the radiator of one, presumably as some sort of human sacrifice.

Scorpion's car has a fun feature that allows him to eject the driver's side door at the mere push of a button. This turns out to be useful for him when getting rid of a magnetized bomb which is stuck to the door. Personally, the only time I see myself using this feature would be when I accidentally brush against it while leaning over to turn off JACK-FM.

A bad guy's car features a spinning blade whose sole purpose is to slice the heads off of pedestrians. Unfortunately, it is placed in such low height that any potential victim would have to get down on their knees to cleanly lose their heads. Fortunately, the extras are an obliging lot and do in fact get down on their knees for their decapitation.

This is also a movie that loves its weapons. We have masses of machine guns that look and act exactly like their early-80s equivalent, apart from an electric zapping sound dubbed over the expected sound of gunpowder. We have bows that shoot explosive arrows. We have slingshots that fire explosive rocks.

These weapons (and the bodies they are trained on) bring us to the film's special effects which are both cheesy and ambitious. No other film to my knowledge features more mannequins being detonated and decapitated (sometimes at the same time). Apparently in the future, heads fly off real easy.

During the opening credits one will note: "Music copyright DEAF Ediziono Musicali S.t.L. Rome" This will not come as a surprise to anyone who has heard the soundtrack. It was the 80s and the artists were deaf. That's two musical strikes against them even before the first drum machine is activated.

WARRIORS OF THE WASTELAND is both ridiculous and ludicrous. It's a film where human bodies are destroyed in the most brutal and low-budget ways possible and at the same time shows our heroes cheerfully bringing a little kid along with them on their battle to save the last remaining outpost of humanity.

By the way, based on the title, the post-apocalypse setting, and the appearance of Fred Williamson in both, it would be easy to confuse this movie with WARRIOR OF THE LOST WORLD. Do not make that mistake. Just because they are identical, it doesn't not make them the same movie. Really.

Warriors of the Wasteland has to be one of the number one picks for a bad movie night. Chips, dip, margaritas, and a few of your best friends and you can have a howling good time. Movies depicting "the end of the world as we know it" nearly always have near naked women, strong heroes, and crazy villains. Don't forget the really strange cars and killing devices.

This one almost had a plot, borrowed from the Mel Gibson film, Mad Max II (Road Warrior). WOW does have its fun moments. Fred Williamson as Nadir, a wildly uniformed archer, is fun to watch. The female lead, whose lines number maybe three, is a beauty for the guys. The lead, Scorpion, is handsome. And the little boy with the ability to fix almost any automobile is a charmer, even as he uses a slingshot to kill one of the Templars, the villains who are intent on killing every living thing on earth.

If you decide to watch this film, don't expect much, except for a lot of laughs. Have another margarita.

This film is just wrong! I bought it for $1 at Wal*Mart, knowing it would suck - I love bad movies. To that end, Warriors of the Wasteland far exceeded my expectations. This is a spaghetti sci-fi abortion that should have earned somebody a death sentence. The main "bad guy" has a mullet and drives a souped-up golf cart that can decapitate "good guys" with rotating blades. I've got to beleive that a couple of third-graders with a camcorder could make a better movie - it's that bad. Highly recommended!

This movie is obvously a spin off from the Mad Max movies. It's LOW budget like the first Mad Max, but horribly written. The fight scenes are not believable at all. The bad guys are supposed to be roving homosexuals, but again Not believable.

In short I think that while Mad Max is a good movie to try to copy, not by whoever wrote this. I bought it so the writers won.