The New Barbarians (Italy. 1982)

You’d think that the end of the world would be perfect for hundreds of creative new beginnings. You’d be wrong. Cinema has proven time and time again that the nuclear apocalypse a few things: A harsh desert landscape, the death of fashion coupled with the rise of casual bondage gear and people riding around in impractical armed vehicles. It doesn’t make any sense to have a giant drill on the front of your car, but the rest of the gang will laugh if you don’t! Road Warrior did it right. Everyone else failed miserably. The New Barbarians fails a little less then most. That's a bad thing.

It’s 2019 (A very popular year for the world to go kablooee) and the world is dead. The few survivors survive off what little is left and live in constant fear of “The Templars”, a roving gang of pro-death Christian motocross ridding ruffians are driving around and slaying everyone in their path because God has told their leader all humanity must die! God also seems to order them to wear immaculately white uniforms which must be bitch to keep clean in, you know, the arid wasteland they drive around in. A lone unenthusiastic man wanders the wild doing good deeds. He’s helped every now and then by Fred Williamson (with a bow) and a 10 year old blond mechanic (The Kid from House by the Cemetery) who wields a magic killer sling-shot. He saves a woman. They save people. Thee film ends at some point.

Enzo G. Castellari (Director of the fantastically fun Non-Tarantino Inglorious Bastards) seems to have a general idea of what he’s supposed to do. All of the car crashes (The same three cars over and over again that is), lasers that cause people’s head to explode, man on man anal action scene (Yep. You read that right) are done in a relatively competent fashion. It’s cheap, but what the hell did you expect? This is Italy in the 80’s! You should count your lucky stars that most of the shots are in focus. The director even tries to spice things up a bit with a slew of slow motion Peckinpah style editing. If it wasn’t for the sluggish pace you could even call this would be easily qualified as "So bad, it's good" . No one ever expects to laugh with these types of films. They want to laugh at them. In that case, this is okay picking for Trash Crap fans. Where else does our dour faced completely uncharismatic hero face the final baddie in a see through plastic body armour? I never found it got crazy enough to completely let my jaw fall down in awe at the madness me nor did it ever actually get good. It toed the middle line and never took that step back or the step forward. A shame really, but Enzo got it right with his other Nuclear Actioner Bronx Warriors, so you check that one out instead.