Movie review: Warriors of the Wasteland (1983)
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!) [editor’s note: this review was originally written in 2010]
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 a 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.
This review was originally posted September 2010.
