Retro Review: ANTHROPOPHAGUS (1980) and ABSURD (1981)

ANTHROPOPHAGUS 
aka THE GRIM REAPER
(Italy - 1980; US release 1981)

Directed by Joe D'Amato (Aristide Massaccesi). Written by Luigi Montefiori. Cast: Tisa Farrow, Saverio Vallone, Zora Kerova, George Eastman (Luigi Montefiori), Vanessa Steiger (Serena Grandi), Margaret Donnelly (Margaret Mazzantini), Mark Bodin, Bob Larson, Rubina Rey, Simone Baker, Mark Logan. (R, 82 mins/Unrated, 91 mins)

One of the most legendary of all the Italian gore classics of the early '80s, though if you rented this at the video store back in the day, you probably wondered why. A banned "video nasty" in the UK, ANTHROPOPHAGUS was released in the US in the fall of 1981 by Film Ventures as the 82-minute THE GRIM REAPER, shorn of nearly ten minutes from its uncensored version. THE GRIM REAPER was missing almost all of the gore, including the two outrageously foul moments that were responsible for its notoriety. Directed by Italian exploitation journeyman Aristide Massaccesi under his most frequently-used of many pseudonyms ("Joe D'Amato"), ANTHROPOPHAGUS follows Lucio Fulci's ZOMBIE as the second Italian gore film in a row for American actress Tisa Farrow (Mia's younger sister) where her character ends up dragging people to a deserted island to their certain death. A group of friends on a Greek vacation end up giving a boat ride to Julie (Farrow, dubbed by Carolyn De Fonseca), who has some friends who live in a villa on a nearby island. Tarot enthusiast Carol (Zora Kerova) gets a bad feeling and of course, she's right. The villa is seemingly abandoned until they find lone survivor Rita (Margaret Mazzantini, who went on to become a renowned writer in Italy), a young blind woman who says a stranger has been prowling the island and reeks of blood. That stranger is Klaus Wortmann (George Eastman, who scripted under his real name Luigi Montefiori), a scarred, monstrous maniac with an insatiable taste for human flesh who starts picking off the travelers one by one.

ANTHROPOPHAGUS scores some points for atmosphere, and the massive villa is a memorable location, but the structure of the story is such that the characters have to spend an inordinate amount of time walking around and talking before the killing can start. The US version also eliminated some of the more repetitious dialogue scenes and helped speed up the pace, but honestly, without those infamous gore scenes, there's not much to ANTHROPOPHAGUS. Saving the most outrageous and offensive gut-muching splattergasms for the finale, Massaccesi and Montefiori have Wortmann--whose backstory includes accidentally killing his wife when he tried to eat their dead son when they were lost at sea--strangle the very pregnant Maggie (Serena Grandi, billed as "Vanessa Steiger") before reaching inside to rip out the fetus and eat it (in the US cut, he simply strangles her and it cuts away after he caresses her belly). In the climax, Julie and Wortmann end up in a well and she barely manages to escape before Carol's brother Andy (Saverio Vallone, the lookalike son of veteran Italian character actor Raf Vallone) reappears out of nowhere to swing a pick-axe into Wortmann's gut. The US cut ends there, but in the uncensored version, Wortmann's intestines spill out and he triumphantly begins to devour himself. Those scenes were enough to guarantee a spot for ANTHROPOPHAGUS on the Video Nasties list and they may have been all Farrow needed to see to decide she had enough: after co-starring with Harvey Keitel in James Toback's critically-lauded FINGERS just two years earlier before doing ZOMBIE in 1979 and Antonio Margheriti's THE LAST HUNTER (1980), she called it a career after ANTHROPOPHAGUS, retiring from acting at the ripe old age of 29.

ABSURD
aka MONSTER HUNTER
aka ROSSO SANGUE
aka HORRIBLE
(Italy - 1981; US release 1986)

Directed by Peter Newton (Aristide Massaccesi). Written by John Cart (Luigi Montefiori). Cast: George Eastman (Luigi Montefiori), Edmund Purdom, Annie Belle, Charles Borromel, Katya Berger, Kasimir Berger, Hanja Kochansky, Ian Danby, Ted Rusoff, Cindy Leadbetter, Martin Sorrentino, James Sampson, Michele Soavi, Goffredo Unger. (Unrated, 94 mins)

Conceived as a sequel to ANTHROPOPHAGUS, ABSURD ended up being an Italian ripoff of John Carpenter's HALLOWEEN with some elements of HALLOWEEN II thrown in for good measure. It's got the core duo of Massaccesi and Montefiori, with the latter again starring as a killer, though this time he looks like George Eastman rather than the heavily-made up monstrosity of ANTHROPOPHAGUS. Eastman is Mikos Stenopolis, a homicidal maniac being pursued through a suburban American town by a renegade Greek priest (Edmund Purdom) who's running church-sanctioned biochemical experiments for which Stenopolis is the chief guinea pig. He's taken to a local hospital after he accidentally impales himself on a spiked gate, but it's discovered too late that the priest's experiments have turned Stenopolis into an unstoppable killing machine whose body is able to regenerate dead cells. Stenopolis escapes from the hospital and after the initial killing spree, makes his way to the home of Bennett family, killing babysitter Peggy (Cindy Leadbetter) and leaving visiting nurse Emily (Annie Belle) to protect the children: irritating young brat Willy (Kasimir Berger) and incapacitated Katya (Katya Berger), who's recovering from a spine operation. All the while, the priest and rumpled detective Engelman (Charles Borromel) scour the town trying to find the escaped Stenopolis.

Unlike the Greek exteriors of ANTHROPOPHAGUS exploiting the exotic island location, Massaccesi goes all-out to make ABSURD look like it's taking place in an American town despite being shot in Rome. That would like explain why such an unusual number of American and British dubbing regulars have onscreen roles here, from actors like Borromel and black British actors Martin Sorrentino and James Sampson, who were frequently seen in Eurocult films of the period, to people typically confined to the dubbing studio, like Ted Rusoff as a surgeon and Ian Danby as the Bennett kids' father, who runs over Stenopolis at one point and is wracked with guilt over the hit-and-run, unaware that the same guy is trying to murder his family. The ruse doesn't always work, as neither Massaccesi nor Montefiori have any idea how Americans behave while watching the Super Bowl: he has the Bennett parents attending a party for "The Game," shown on TV via stock footage from Super Bowl XIV between the Los Angeles Rams and the Pittsburgh Steelers that was almost certainly not authorized by the NFL and has Rusoff handling play-by-play, plus all of the guests are wearing their Sunday best suits and dresses and eating big bowls of spaghetti. But he does get American genre cliches down, as evidenced when the irate Engelman sees who he's got to take on Stenopolis and grumbles "So this is the team, then? A priest, a detective near retirement, and a moron rookie of a cop? That's terrific." He stops just short of declaring himself "too old for this shit," and promising they'll kill Stenopolis "if we don't kill each other first!" The structure is essentially HALLOWEEN all over again, with unkillable Stenopolis a stand-in for Michael Myers, Purdom's priest this film's Dr. Loomis, with Belle and Leadbetter jointly filling the Laurie Strode babysitter-in-peril role. Massaccesi generates some serious suspense throughout, with his relentless overuse of the same library cues that would be heard throughout the legendary PIECES, and by setting Stenopolis' rampage in a disorientingly large house that's every bit as effective as the Greek villa in ANTHROPOPHAGUS, with lots of corners and hallways that allow Stenopolis to jump out from anywhere.

Titled ROSSO SANGUE ("blood red") in Italy, ABSURD is superior in every way to its semi-predecessor, with a more evenly consistent approach to its extreme gore scenes instead of just cramming all of them into the last 15 minutes. Unfortunately, it didn't get a theatrical release in America, instead belatedly turning up in video stores in 1986 in a Wizard Video big box as MONSTER HUNTER, complete with inaccurate artwork and a synopsis that proved no one watched it before summarizing it. It would turn up on budget sell-thru VHS years later as ZOMBIE 6: MONSTER HUNTER and Mya would release a flawed DVD in 2009 under the title HORRIBLE. It's one of the unsung greats of the Video Nasty gorefest days, with Eastman a memorable killer, some admirably brutal kills with everything from a drill to a head in the oven, and a delirious final shot that would've been a real crowd-pleaser had anyone picked this up for the grindhouse and drive-in circuit. ABSURD was just released in a region-free Blu-ray edition by the UK-based 88 Films, a definitive presentation that has the film looking better than it ever did during its VHS and bootleg days of old.

Retro Review: BLASTFIGHTER (1984)

BLASTFIGHTER
(Italy - 1984; US release 1985)

Directed by John Old Jr (Lamberto Bava). Written by Max von Ryt (Massimo De Rita) and Luca von Ryt (Luca De Rita). Cast: Michael Sopkiw, Valerie Blake (Valentina Forte), George Eastman (Luigi Montefiori), Mike Miller (Stefano Mingardo), Richard Raymond (Ottaviano Dell'Acqua), Patrick O'Neil Jr (Massimo Vanni), Elizabeth Forbes, Carl Savage, Michael Saroyan (Michele Soavi), George Williams, Giancarlo Prati, Billy Redden. (Unrated, 90 mins)

An Italian FIRST BLOOD knockoff that also works in elements of DELIVERANCE and SOUTHERN COMFORT, BLASTFIGHTER was originally conceived as a yet another post-nuke ROAD WARRIOR ripoff until a new script was commissioned and the filmmakers just kept the same title. BLASTFIGHTER probably refers to a state-of-the-art experimental combat shotgun that's used by the hero, but it can just as easily describe the hero himself. Jake "Tiger" Sharp (2019: AFTER THE FALL OF NEW YORK's Michael Sopkiw) is a disgraced Atlanta ex-cop just paroled after serving eight years for blowing away the creep (Giancarlo Prati) who murdered his partner (Massimo Vanni, billed as "Patrick O'Neil Jr") and then killed his wife. Tiger's cop buddy gives him an off-the-books SPAS shotgun to off the corrupt D.A. who repeatedly shielded the creep and sent Tiger to prison, but he can't bring himself to pull the trigger. Instead, he heads to Clayton, the small town where he grew up, intent on living a quiet, solitary life in the Sharp family cabin.

Of course, the rowdy, redneck townies won't allow that to happen. Tiger repeatedly clashes with bullying Wally Hanson (RAIDERS OF ATLANTIS' Stefano Mingardo, billed as "Mike Miller") and his buddies (including Eurocult regular Ottaviano Dell'Acqua, billed as "Richard Raymond"), who hassle him at the market and kill a helpless fawn he's adopted. Tiger runs into his childhood buddy and local sawmill owner Tom (George Eastman)--who's also Wally's older brother--and learns that Wally and his doofus pals are poaching wildlife and selling the carcasses to a black market herbal medicinist from Hong Kong who's set up shop in the area. Tiger busts up that operation, sending the Hong Kong guy and that entire subplot packing, but now he's pissed off Wally. Arriving just in time for the backwoods mayhem is Tiger's estranged daughter Connie (Valentina Forte, billed as "Valerie Blake"), who's nearly gang-raped by Wally and his goons after they kill Tiger's visiting cop buddy as well as Connie's boyfriend Pete (Michele Soavi, billed as "Michael Saroyan"). Despite Tom intervening to keep his stupid brother from letting things escalate (the Clayton depicted here has possibly the most absent sheriff in film history), that's exactly what happens, with Wally gathering up all the yahoos from town to hunt down Tiger in the woods before a final confrontation that will pit two lifelong friends against one another.

Most Italian exploitation fare from this period was made with the intent of passing itself off in the most American way possible. This often involved a certain amount of location work being done in the States, mixed with interiors being shot in Rome. In the mid '80s, however, the US location work became significantly more extensive, with states like Georgia, Nevada, Florida, and especially Arizona welcoming Italian crews for numerous films. With almost everyone in the cast and crew hiding behind Americanized pseudonyms, BLASTFIGHTER, directed by Lamberto Bava (credited as "John Old Jr" as a tribute to his legendary father Mario Bava, who went by "John M. Old" on a couple of movies), puts forth a lot of effort to look as American as possible, shot almost entirely on location in Atlanta and Clayton, GA, the latter being the same general vicinity where much of DELIVERANCE was shot. Also contributing to the "See, this isn't Italian...it's American!" ruse is the recurring use of the Bee Gees-penned "The Evening Star," a big hit for Kenny Rogers the same year of BLASTFIGHTER's release, but represented instead by a cover version by someone named Tommie Baby. The production even found Clayton resident Billy Redden, best known as the "Dueling Banjos" kid in DELIVERANCE, handed him another banjo, and had him stand with it in the downtown Clayton market with some other confused locals watching the Italian crew hard at work (which begs the question, why is everyone just standing in the tiny market watching Billy Redden play a single half-assed banjo lick before Tiger walks in?). There's some interior work obviously done in Rome, but most of BLASTFIGHTER takes place out in the elements of Clayton and the surrounding rural area, which lends much grittiness and authenticity to the action, as well as the surreal appeal of things just being slightly off because no matter how much effort they put into the illusion, these Italian knockoffs never quite fully succeeded at passing themselves off as totally American. Even in the hick environs of rural Clayon, the local boys don't yell "Yee-haah!" as much as Wally and his buddies do.

Of course, for fans of such things, that's all part of the charm and why movies like BLASTFIGHTER--a movie whose battered Vestron Video VHS tape was guaranteed to be found in every video store you walked into well into the 1990s--have remained such nostalgic cult items decades later. It helps that BLASTFIGHTER is a legitimately entertaining action movie, with American Sopkiw a credible genre star considering he only made four movies over a three-year period before quitting acting (and he's dubbed here by Larry Dolgin). Fresh off Sergio Martino's 2019: AFTER THE FALL OF NEW YORK--the pinnacle of the Italian post-nukes--Sopkiw, 29 at the time of filming, is miscast in BLASTFIGHTER as the father of a character played by Forte, who was around 17 or 18 at the time (and dating CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST director Ruggero Deodato, who cast her in the next year's CUT AND RUN). Some effort is made to make Sopkiw look a little older--with his stache, he actually resembles both Franco Nero and Maurizio Merli, which makes one wonder how badass one them would've been as Tiger--but he and Forte just don't really gel as father and daughter. Still, it's easy to look past it, as he's a solid action hero who handles a lot of his own stunts along with Forte.

Released in the US in late 1985 by Almi Pictures, BLASTFIGHTER has just resurfaced in a terrific-looking limited edition Blu-ray restoration by Code Red in another defiant example of the death of physical media being significantly exaggerated. There's interviews with Bava, Sopkiw, cinematographer Gianlorenzo Battaglia (credited on the film as "Lawrence Bannon"), and Eastman, who was clearly caught on a bad day, going full Howard Beale in one of the more scorched earth special features interviews of late, declaring "I never liked Lamberto Bava," going on to call him a "half-man" and "an idiot," and emphatically stating "Let's be honest, most of the movies I did are atrocious." Sopkiw is on hand for a commentary track with Mondo Digital's Nathaniel Thompson that has some interesting observations here and there, but despite Thompson's efforts to prod for more info, Sopkiw just isn't the best interview subject. He's foggy on a lot of details--understandable after 33 years--and won't talk about his other Bava film DEVIL-FISH (aka MONSTER SHARK) because "that's another contract," and "my contract said the interview was for this and AFTER THE FALL OF NEW YORK," (which Code Red is releasing later this year) and, worst of all, he comes off as dismissive of the film, his short-lived movie career, and the very idea that his movies have a cult following.

Sopkiw with Code Red's Bill Olsen,
still trying to make "Banana Man" a thing. 

Sopkiw says doing conventions isn't worth his time and that "only a half dozen people are interested in these movies anyway." He doesn't seem to like movies much at all (he's never seen THE GODFATHER, didn't realize BLASTFIGHTER was a FIRST BLOOD knockoff because he wasn't aware of FIRST BLOOD, didn't care for MAD MAX: FURY ROAD, and doesn't like watching movies in HD), he seems to go through several mood swings over the course of the commentary, and his reluctance or inability to go into any significant detail and his repeated shout-outs to Quentin Tarantino to give him a call get old after some time (Bava also mentions Tarantino in his interview--must Tarantino be invoked on every one of these?). It's a sharp contrast to how good-natured Sopkiw was on the disastrous commentary on Media Blasters' old DVD release of AFTER THE FALL OF NEW YORK, where he seemed enthused to be there until "post-nuke historian" Dolph Chiarino infamously hijacked the track to shit-talk and settle scores with message board scenesters, bloggers, and writers (the DVD was eventually recalled and reissued without the commentary). There was probably a better commentary to be had with Thompson and some other genre historian just discussing the movie and the creative personnel, but nevertheless, BLASTFIGHTER looks great on Blu-ray (once you get past an intro with Sopkiw and Code Red's Bill Olsen in his inane "Banana Man" costume that you can't bypass) and holds up quite well as one of the more entertaining Italian ripoffs of its day.

Retro Review: IRONMASTER (1983)

IRONMASTER
(France/Italy - 1983)

Directed by Umberto Lenzi. Written by Alberto Cavallone, Dardano Sacchetti, Lea Martino and Gabriel Rossini. Cast: Sam Pasco, Elvire Audray, George Eastman (Luigi Montefiori), William Berger, Pamela Field (Pamela Prati), Jacques Herlin, Brian Redford (Danilo Mattei), Benito Stefanelli, Areno D'Adderio, Giovanni Cianfriglia, Walter Lucchini, Nello Pazzafini, Nico La Macchia. (Unrated, 93 mins)

"When warriors stop showing their power, it's the beginning of the end. We're only happy in battle! War is our reason for living! What's the use in having invincible weapons if you can't use them?" 

"But everyone hates us, Vuud."

This isn't to suggest that the makers of the 1983 Italian QUEST FOR FIRE-meets-CONAN THE BARBARIAN-with-a-bit-of-EXCALIBUR ripoff IRONMASTER saw a certain world leader's ascendance happening 34 years ahead of time, but the eagerness of Vuud (George Eastman), the film's villain, to use all the weapons at his disposal does draw comparison. Vuud's father Iksay (Benito Stefanelli), the aging leader of their caveman tribe, is eager to step down after the next hunt but is stalling because he doesn't think his son is capable. Vuud is next in line by right, but Iksay expresses concern to his council Rag (Jacques Herlin) over the bad-tempered, impulsive, Sonny Corleone-esque Vuud: "He's unable to control himself," Iksay says, adding "What would become of this tribe if it were led by someone so restless?" Rag assures him Vuud will mature into the job but Iksay is unconvinced: "I don't know. I just don't believe in him."

Sam Pasco as Ela

Iksay would rather hand control of his tribe off to the more well-liked and even-tempered Ela (Sam Pasco), but he never gets the chance since an impatient Vuud bashes in his father's skull, a vicious act witnessed by Ela. Ela outs Vuud as a murderer, to which Vuud naturally responds by attacking Ela in a violent rage, accidentally killing Rag when he tries to break up the scuffle. Vuud is banished to the surrounding desert, where he encounters the duplicitous Lith (Pamela Prati) and discovers iron in the shape of a sword in the aftermath of a stock footage volcanic eruption. Believing he has found a new form of weapon beyond their customary rocks and sticks, Vuud returns to the tribe and is hailed as a god, his first act to banish Ela to six days and nights crucified in the desert as he and Lith take charge, roaming the land, dominating and enslaving every peaceful tribe they encounter. The cave people are ordered to accept this as their new normal and anyone who objects is killed. Ela befriends Isa (Elvire Audray), the daughter of kindly tribe leader Mogo (William Berger), who assembles his people to help Ela take back his tribe and overthrow the despotic Vuud and the scheming, self-serving Lith, his chief source of encouragement and prodding.

George Eastman as Vuud

There was no shortage of CONAN THE BARBARIAN ripoffs flooding theaters and drive-ins throughout the early-to-mid '80s, and the Stone Age-set IRONMASTER, co-written by Alberto Cavalline (the 1978 coprophagia ode BLUE MOVIE) and frequent Lucio Fulci collaborator Dardano Sacchetti, and directed by Italian genre stalwart Umberto Lenzi (ALMOST HUMAN, CANNIBAL FEROX), is probably one of the weakest (hey, they can't all be YOR: THE HUNTER FROM THE FUTURE). It has some undeniable entertainment value for Eurotrash devotees and fans of Italian knockoffs, whether it's the presence of perennial Eurocult fixture Eastman, the familiar dubbing voices (almost all of them are here) or an amazing shot where Lith is jogging away and actress Prati is the victim of a gratuitous nip slip that Lenzi just left in the movie. One of its chief points of interest is that most of the exteriors were shot at some striking locations in Custer State Park in South Dakota, which gives the film a look and feel that's unique to this subgenre (and Lenzi and the producers were really fixated by a nearby herd of grazing buffalo, as nearly every cast member gets a scene running by them at one point). The other noteworthy aspect of IRONMASTER is that it's the sole mainstream film appearance of Pasco, an American bodybuilder better known as "Big Max," who appeared in numerous gay porn films at the time and was also a popular model for COLT, a leading producer of gay pornography and sex toys since 1967. Pasco is dubbed in IRONMASTER, and in an interview on Code Red's new Blu-ray, Lenzi dismisses him as "worthless" and "pathetic" as an actor as well as in action scenes, saying he didn't move in a "masculine" way. Pasco and his porn world monikers "Big Max" and "Mike Spanner" vanished and were never seen or heard from again after 1985, so it's generally assumed he died around that time, with several corroborating comments on a couple of different message boards mentioning he spent his final days doing private modeling gigs and hustling in NYC before succumbing to steroid-related liver failure in 1985.  Lenzi is also similarly unkind to Audray (THE SCORPION WITH TWO TAILS), who committed suicide in 2000 at the age of 40, saying she came along in a package deal with the French co-producer that she was dating at the time. The dull and slow-moving IRONMASTER is really only for the most die-hard Italian ripoff completist, but such people are out there (guilty as charged), and it's a small victory for children of the '80s to see these VHS staples getting such nice HD treatment decades down the line.

Sam Pasco, aka "Big Max," on the cover of a 1979 issue of COLT Men

Retro Review: THE UNHOLY FOUR (1970)

THE UNHOLY FOUR
(Italy - 1970)

Directed by E.B. Clucher (Enzo Barboni). Written by Mario di Nardo and Franco Rossetti. Cast: Leonard Mann, Woody Strode, Peter Martell (Pietro Martellanza), Luigi Montefiori, Evelyn Stewart (Ida Galli), Helmuth Schneider, Lucio Rosato, Alain Naya, Giuseppe Lauricella, Dino Strano, Andrew Ray (Andrea Aureli), Enzo Fiermonte, Luciano Rossi, Salvatore Billa, Romano Puppo. (Unrated, 94 mins)

A spaghetti western mostly by virtue of being Italian, THE UNHOLY FOUR is a throwback of sorts and more in line with the psychological, character-driven 1950s westerns of Anthony Mann than with the more distinct 1960s spaghettis of the Sergios Leone and Corbucci. Even Riz Ortolani's score sounds like it came from an older Hollywood western, unlike the groundbreaking, iconic cues of Ennio Morricone. The film opens with a Dodge City asylum being set on fire as a distraction for an overnight bank robbery by a gang of miscreants led by Tom Udo (Lucio Rosato), the son of a wealthy landowner (Giuseppe Lauricella). Four inmates escape the burning jail: slow-witted, God-fearing strongman Woody (Woody Strode), intimidating card cheat Hondo (Luigi Montefiori, better known as "George Eastman"), loony Silver (Peter Martell), and Chuck Mool (Leonard Mann), an amnesiac with no idea who he is or why he's in the asylum until one of Udo's dying cohorts sees him and exclaims "Chuck Mool!" With his three unlikely compadres in tow, Chuck Mool (a name concocted by the English dub team--the Italian version was titled CIUKMULL, so everyone constantly refers to him as "Chuck Mool" on the English dub track) embarks on a quest to uncover the chain of events that led him to being locked up in Dodge City

But there's more to the story than the plight of Chuck Mool: the Udo family is fighting off an attempt to take over their land by John Caldwell (Helmuth Schneider), another rich asshole who's buying up everyone's property and wants the Udos out of the way. Caldwell believes Chuck Mool is his son, presumed dead in a fire three years earlier. Learning that Chuck Mool is alive and heading their way with three presumed-dangerous madmen, Old Man Udo devises a scheme to convince Chuck Mool that he's his father and that he's supposed to kill the Caldwells. Udo's daughter Sheila (Evelyn Stewart) isn't happy about the scam and tries to warn Chuck Mool after he arrives. Tensions escalate as Chuck Mool, Woody, Hondo, and Silver are forced to take on the duplicitous Udo family and a bunch of their hired killers (among them ubiquitous Eurocult stalwart Romano Puppo) and shoot their way out of town.

THE UNHOLY FOUR was the directing debut of veteran cinematographer Enzo Barboni, who shot Sergio Corbucci's influential 1966 classic DJANGO, as well as Corbucci's THE HELLBENDERS (1967) and American director Don Taylor's spaghetti western THE FIVE MAN ARMY (1970). Adopting the pseudonym "E.B. Clucher," Barboni (1922-2002) would go on to direct the enormously popular spaghetti western comedies THEY CALL ME TRINITY (1971) and TRINITY IS STILL MY NAME (1972), which led to international fame for stars Terence Hill and Bud Spencer. Barboni's experience as a cinematographer is put to excellent use in THE UNHOLY FOUR, with some expertly choreographed gunfight sequences and some--for the time--unusually fluid, almost Steadicam-like camera movements throughout the action scenes. For the most part, it doesn't really play like the more stylish and violent Leone westerns or the politically charged genre offerings from Corbucci, but rather like something out of the 1950s or early 1960s and more beholden to the Hollywood western. There's one wacky, comedic bar brawl that hints where Barboni's career would soon head with the TRINITY movies, but THE UNHOLY FOUR gets darker and more downbeat as it goes on, making Ortolani's incongruously upbeat music cues sound somewhat inappropriate. There's occasional flashes of genuine unpleasantness scattered throughout, none more shocking than the jaw-dropping moment when a leering, lip-smacking Tom Udo tells Sheila "You got a hell of a lot to offer...too bad we're brother and sister...I could show you what it's all about."

In just his second film, Mann, an American actor who spent the bulk of his career in Italy before retiring from movies in 1989 at the age of 42 (his few American gigs included 1981's NIGHT SCHOOL, 1987's FLOWERS IN THE ATTIC, and his final film to date, 1989's SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT 3: BETTER WATCH OUT) to become a teacher and playwright under his real name Leonard Manzella, is good as the lost hero in an existential crisis. Things slow down a little too much in the sluggish midsection, which seems to just be killing time for the undeniably ass-kicking last 20 or so minutes, where Barboni really starts firing on all cylinders and the titular quartet bands together to take on Udo's army. Though it was dubbed in English by the usual suspects (Ed Mannix, Robert Spafford, and others can be heard), THE UNHOLY FOUR was never released theatrically in the US and pretty much fell into obscurity, a curio known only to the most devoted spaghetti western completists. Wild East released a gray market double feature DVD that paired it with Ferdinando Baldi's 1969 western THE FORGOTTEN PISTOLERO, which also starred Mann and Martell, but it was was recently issued on Blu-ray by Kino Lorber in another textbook example of the death of physical media being greatly exaggerated.

Ripoffs of the Wasteland: THE NEW BARBARIANS (1983) and Trashtastic bonus film ESCAPE FROM THE BRONX (1983)

THE NEW BARBARIANS
aka WARRIORS OF THE WASTELAND
(Italy - 1983; US release 1984)

Directed by Enzo G. Castellari. Written by Tito Carpi and Enzo Girolami (Enzo G. Castellari). Cast: Timothy Brent (Giancarlo Prete), Fred Williamson, George Eastman (Luigi Montefiori), Anna Kanakis, Thomas Moore (Enio Girolami), Venantino Venantini, Massimo Vanni, Giovanni Frezza, Iris Peynado, Andrea Coppola, Zora Kerova, Fulvio Mingozzi, Stefania Girolami, Paul Costello. (R, 91 mins)

Affectionately but often mistakenly considered by fans and historians to be part of the non-existent "BRONX WARRIORS trilogy," Enzo G. Castellari's THE NEW BARBARIANS is also the only actual ROAD WARRIOR-inspired post-nuke of the three films in question and has no relation to the other films aside from being directed by Castellari. It was shot between 1990: THE BRONX WARRIORS (1982) and ESCAPE FROM THE BRONX (1983), but rather than post-apocalyptic, the two BRONX films were closer in setting and tone to Walter Hill's THE WARRIORS (1979) and John Carpenter's ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK (1981), with their then-futuristic setting (the sequel ESCAPE FROM THE BRONX takes place ten years after the events of 1990: THE BRONX WARRIORS) perhaps misleading people into lumping it in with all the post-nukes being made at the time. THE NEW BARBARIANS was Castellari's only entry in the Italian post-nuke cycle, and while it features all the expected crazy cars and futuristic, rocket-launching dune buggies, post-nuke despots, nomadic heroes, and that same desert portraying the same scorched-earth wasteland, it also stands alone in its subgenre. Taking what others might use as a subtle subtext and bringing it to the forefront as a major plot point, THE NEW BARBARIANS is the CRUISING of Italian post-nuke ripoffs.

Set in 2019, several years after the nuclear holocaust, the world is a desert with scattered bands of survivors trying to rebuild and restart the human race. That doesn't work for One (Luigi Montefiori/George Eastman), the tyrannical leader of the Templars, the "high priests of death" and the "warriors of vengeance," a brutal, militarized squad of hilariously-coiffed psychos bent on making the living pay for the crime of being alive. It is One's goal that "the seed of man will be canceled forever from the face of the earth." It's telling that there's only men in the Templars, and that One's goal is zero population growth. Enter Scorpion (Giancarlo Prete, billed as "Timothy Brent" and looking like a post-apocalyptic Bert Convy), a nomadic warrior with a giant plastic bubble on top of his car. Scorpion tries to help a wandering group of survivors that includes Alma (Anna Kanakis of 2019: AFTER THE FALL OF NEW YORK), and gets help from two other post-nuke loner mercenaries, the tough-as-nails Nadir (Fred Williamson) and a fix-it-all kid mechanic (THE HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY's Giovanni Frezza) who also helps build a bullet-and-laser-proof body torso shield for Scorpion in his final battle against the Templars.

Action-wise, THE NEW BARBARIANS is pretty much business as usual: there's a ton of wrecked vehicles, car chases, explosions, smashed faces, heads are sliced and blown off, and there's no shortage of amusing dummy deaths and silly contraptions, like Scorpion's clear, illuminated, portable fuck-pad that comes in handy when he meets Alma. It looks like a portable, see-through bounce house, but Castellari intercutting the sex scene with Scorpion and Alma's prior discussion of their lives over a campfire is a less explicit homage to DON'T LOOK NOW and an interesting precursor to the similar and very praised George Clooney-Jennifer Lopez love scene in Steven Soderbergh's OUT OF SIGHT (1998). You get the feeling that there's some strong sexual undercurrent to THE NEW BARBARIANS with Castellari's abundance of weaponry protruding and extending from speeding vehicles like some kind of post-nuke Cialis commercial, but that's just a warm-up for what happens later. Where the film differentiates itself from overcrowded Italian post-nuke scene is its open depiction of the homosexual villains. One, clearly crushing on Scorpion, keeps trying to get him to join the Templars, but is only met with rejection. Their sexual preference--or at least the preference of One, who seems to rule his men by force and coercion--is not from innate desire for other men but to avoid the possibility of procreation and to have the world end. Late in the film, One gets so fed up with Scorpion that he has him strung up, and forcibly "initiates" him into the Templars via anal rape, a ceremony the rest of the Templars seem to know all too well. It's only after this humiliation and emasculation (along with some vaguely homophobic ballbusting from Nadir) that Scorpion rises like an avenging angel and decides to take out the Templars once and for all. It's here that THE NEW BARBARIANS vacillates between a post-apocalyptic spaghetti western with Scorpion, Nadir, and the kid mechanic forming the requisite unholy alliance, and a post-nuke DELIVERANCE as Nadir and the kid step aside and let Scorpion handle One on his own. Scorpion's final revenge on One is about as twistedly funny as this subgenre would ever get: a car chase with Scorpion barreling up on One, and an erect drill-like mechanism penetrating the back of One's ride and right through the lower part of the driver's seat, literally plowing through One's ass and ripping it apart.

ESCAPE FROM THE BRONX
(Italy - 1983/US release 1985)

Directed by Enzo G. Castellari. Written by Tito Carpi and Enzo G. Castellari. Cast: Mark Gregory, Henry Silva, Valeria D'Obici, Antonio Sabato, Paolo Malco, Timothy Brent (Giancarlo Prete), Thomas Moore (Enio Girolami), Massimo Vanni, Alessandro Prete, Romano Puppo, Eva Czenerys, Andrea Coppola, Moana Pozzi, Carla Brait, Thomas Felleghy, Martin Sorrentino, James Sampson, Paul Costello. (R, 90 mins)

THE NEW BARBARIANS opened in Italy in July 1983 and it would be picked up by a pre-NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET New Line Cinema, who rechristened it with the much snappier WARRIORS OF THE WASTELAND for its January 1984 release in US theaters. ESCAPE FROM THE BRONX was released in Italy in August 1983, just a month after THE NEW BARBARIANS, and like that film, New Line would also acquire it for the US, rolling it out in January 1985, minus some of the more excessive gore to secure an R rating. ESCAPE is an an enjoyable follow-up to BRONX WARRIORS, though it's not quite as good. Set in the year 2000, it involves a plot by an evil corporation overseen by Clark (Castellari's brother Enio Girolami, billed as "Thomas Moore") to gentrify the Bronx and relocate its denizens to lovely, scenic New Mexico. In truth, he's ordered armed "disinfesters" led by renegade cop Floyd Wangler (Henry Silva, in a slightly reworked version of Vic Morrow's Hammer the Exterminator from BRONX WARRIORS), to corral and exterminate the remaining residents. After his parents are killed, Trash (a returning Mark Gregory), who's now a nomadic warrior thanks to his entire gang being wiped out in the previous film, teams up with mercenary Strike (Giancarlo Prete), his dutiful son Strike Jr (Prete's son Alessandro), affable gang leader Dablone (Antonio Sabato), and crusading reporter Moon (Valeria D'Obici) to take on Clark, his ambitious second-in-command Hoffman (Paolo Malco), and mad dog Wangler, who spits coffee, berates everyone, and acts insane, because he's played by Henry Silva. Like its predecessor, ESCAPE isn't really a post-nuke outing, but everyone seems OK with letting them into the club. With less location shooting in the Bronx and more set work done at Cinecitta, ESCAPE is able to have a more dystopian feel than the urban war-zone immediacy of BRONX WARRIORS. Gregory was only 17 when BRONX WARRIORS was shot, and though it's just a year later, he looks a bit older and seems much more composed and comfortable compared to his awkward presence in the first film. ESCAPE FROM THE BRONX was featured on MST3K under the title ESCAPE 2000 (not to be confused with the Brian Trenchard-Smith film) and indeed has no shortage of amusing elements, from unconvincing miniatures to constant explosions to Silva's overacting to Trash's parents having a huge Mark Gregory-as-Trash poster adorning their living room wall.

The so-called "BRONX WARRIORS trilogy" has just been released in Blu-ray/DVD combo sets by Blue Underground (to their credit, they don't use the "trilogy" moniker) in impressive new transfers and bonus features. Castellari previously recorded commentaries for the Media Blasters/Shriek Show DVD editions of 1990: THE BRONX WARRIORS and THE NEW BARBARIANS from a decade ago, but has recorded new tracks for these editions. There's a lot of repeat info, but Castellari, even with his heavily-accented English (his son and former production assistant Andrea Girolami, completely fluent and with barely an accent, is on hand to occasionally help him find the right words), is such a likable presence and entertaining raconteur and has enough new material that they're worth hearing. This marks ESCAPE FROM THE BRONX's first appearance on DVD or Blu-ray in the US, and it's the uncensored version with all of the New Line-trimmed violence intact. All three titles feature an "In Conversation" featurette with Castellari and producer Fabrizio De Angelis in 2015, discussing the films and reminiscing about the productions, with plenty of interesting anecdotes for fans.

Ripoffs of the Wasteland: 2020: TEXAS GLADIATORS (1983)

2020: TEXAS GLADIATORS
(Italy - 1983; US release 1984)

Directed by Kevin Mancuso (Aristide Massaccesi and Luigi Montefiori). Written by Alex Carver (Luigi Montefiori). Cast: Harrison Muller, Al Cliver, Daniel Stephen, Peter Hooten, Al Yamanouchi, Sabrina Siani, Donald O'Brien, Geretta Geretta. (Unrated, 86 mins)


The credits of the Italian post-nuke ROAD WARRIOR ripoff 2020: TEXAS GLADIATORS take great pains to make the movie look American. All of the technical credits are pseudonymous, starting with score composer Carlo Maria Cordio going by "Francis Taylor" and production manager Donatella Donati as "Helen Handris," all the way to the end with assistant director and future Italian horror auteur Michele Soavi (CEMETERY MAN) hiding incognito as "Mike Soft." But all of that effort is for naught early on with the repeated sightings of signs reading "DANGER: EXSPLOSIVE," the tell-tale, "Do Not Entry" sign from THE BEYOND that, despite the Herculean efforts of everyone involved, the ruse collapses thanks to the Italian prop guy. And if you watch enough of these, you'll start recognizing not only the same actors being dubbed by the same voices, but also the same Italian locations, as 2020's action mostly has the actors running around the same abandoned factory and the stunt drivers careening around the same gravel pit and dirt mounds that can be spotted in most entries in the subgenre.

Set in the ruins of Texas several years after "the Atomic Wars," 2020 focuses on the Rangers, a group of mercenaries led by Nisus (Al Cliver). The Rangers battle the jack-booted forces of The Black One (Donald O'Brien), a nefarious dictator-type who's trying to conquer the community so he can have access to a refurbished refinery that now produces clean drinking water. After an early Rangers expedition results in Nisus banishing Catch Dog (Daniel Stephen) after he tries to rape single mother Maida (Sabrina Siani, in one of her few appearances outside of an Italian CONAN ripoff), Catch Dog immediately switches sides and joins the Black One, using his knowledge of the Rangers to get back at his former cohorts. When Nisus (the character is listed as "Nisus" in the credits, but it sounds like the dubbing team is saying "Nexus," which sounds cooler) is killed in a raid by the Black One's goons and Maida is sold into prostitution, the rest of the Rangers--Halakron (Peter Hooten), Jab (Harrison Muller), and Red Wolfe (Al Yamanouchi)--rescue her and avenge Nisus by taking on The Black One and Catch Dog. Filled with the usual goofy-looking cars, mutant goons, wild stunt work, gun battles, "exsplosions," completely inconsistent beard continuity for Hooten and Muller, over-the-top violence, and a pretty impressive body count, 2020 is total guilty pleasure stupidity, right from the start with the Rangers killing about 50 bad guys before the opening credits are even finished. There's no shortage of bloodshed and the near-constant action keeps things moving briskly, but 2020: TEXAS GLADIATORS doesn't really try to take advantage of its setting. Other than a hand-painted "Texas" sign, and Halakron challenging Maida's cowboy pimp to some DEER HUNTER-inspired Russian Roulette in an old west saloon, no effort is made to create the illusion of "Texas," unlike the many post-nukes set in NYC, like 2019: AFTER THE FALL OF NEW YORK, where even a half-melted model of the Statue of Liberty went a little way toward creating some NYC atmosphere. 2020 does an OK job of being a post-nuke western of sorts--an idea more successfully explored in Giuliano Carnimeo's EXTERMINATORS OF THE YEAR 3000--but it mainly resorts to cliches and cringe-worthy stereotypes that would've been antiquated in the 1940s, like the late-film introduction of some constantly war-whooping "Indians" who stop just short of saying "How!" and "We smokum peace pipe" when they reach a tentative truce with Halakron and the Rangers and join their fight against The Black One.

Aristide Massaccesi (1936-1999),
 aka "Joe D'Amato," "David Hills,"
and at least 50 other pseudonyms

Released in the US in 1984 by short-lived grindhouse outfit Megastar Films and shown on TNT's MONSTERVISION with Joe Bob Briggs in 1999, 2020 was directed mostly by Aristide Massaccesi, who used countless pseudonyms over the course of his career, the most frequent and familiar being "Joe D'Amato." Massaccesi dabbled in everything, starting as a camera operator on Mario Bava's HERCULES IN THE HAUNTED WORLD (1961) before graduating to cinematographer by the late '60s and moving on to directing in the '70s, with everything from Laura Gemser's BLACK EMANUELLE films to the gore classics BEYOND THE DARKNESS, aka BURIED ALIVE (1979), and ANTROPOPHAGUS, aka THE GRIM REAPER (1981). As "David Hills," he directed several ATOR films during the post-CONAN craze, and under the name "Steven Benson," he would gather most of the cast and crew of 2020 for the same year's Italian post-nuke favorite ENDGAME. The workaholic Massaccesi also used the D'Amato name on several old-school Skinemax favorites like ELEVEN DAYS, ELEVEN NIGHTS (1986) and TOP MODEL (1988). By the early 1990s, Massaccesi was working exclusively in hardcore porn, where he would finish his career prior to his death in 1999. 2020: TEXAS GLADIATORS' direction is credited to "Kevin Mancuso," which is actually a shared pseudonym for Massaccesi and familiar Italian cult actor Luigi Montefiori, better known as "George Eastman."

Luigi Montefiori, aka "George Eastman"

Montefiori first gained notice as The Minotaur in 1969's FELLINI SATYRICON, and, as "Eastman," would later co-star in the Charlton Heston version of THE CALL OF THE WILD (1972) and with Kirk Douglas in SCALAWAG (1973), as well as one of the kidnappers in Mario Bava's RABID DOGS (1974), but that's about as classy as his resume got. As "George Eastman," he was a regular fixture in Eurotrash cinema, usually appearing in "Joe D'Amato" films. He starred as the cannibalistic killer in THE GRIM REAPER and in the D'Amato horror/porno crossovers EROTIC NIGHTS OF THE LIVING DEAD (1980) and PORNO HOLOCAUST (1981), the latter known more for its close-ups of porn actor Mark Shanon's genital warts than anything else. "Eastman" is perhaps best known by post-nuke fans for his performance as Big Ape in 2019: AFTER THE FALL OF NEW YORK (1983). In addition to acting under his "Eastman" moniker, Montefiori scripted numerous films, either under his own name (1976's KEOMA) or under a variety of pseudonyms (as "Lew Cooper," he co-wrote Michele Soavi's 1987 breakthrough STAGEFRIGHT). Montefiori scripted 2020 under the name "Alex Carver," and wanted to try his hand at directing some of it as well. It's been rumored that Massaccesi handled the action scenes, which would mean he directed most of the movie. Considering they remained friends and worked together several more times over the years, it's doubtful that this was a situation where Massaccesi stepped in and took over for Montefiori. More likely, Montefiori wanted to get his feet wet behind the camera and Massaccesi delegated some scenes to the neophyte director. Cult actress Geretta Geretta--aka Rosemary in Lamberto Bava's DEMONS--had a small role in 2020 and when asked who directed what, she responded "All I remember is that the director was tall and handsome," which would probably indicate that the few scenes she was in were handled by the the 6' 9" Montefiori. If Montefiori wanted to branch out into filmmaking, it didn't really pan out after partnering with Massaccesi on 2020: to date, he's only stepped behind the camera on one other occasion, the Norfolk, VA-shot horror film METAMORPHOSIS (1990)--memorable to back-in-the-day video store denizens for having one of those great, gimmicky Imperial Entertainment VHS boxes--where he's credited as "G.L. Eastman." Now 72, Montefiori hasn't acted since 2004 and has spent recent years writing for Italian TV.

Despite being fourth billed in the credits, Hooten is the real star of 2020: TEXAS GLADIATORS, at least after second-billed Lucio Fulci regular Cliver gets Janet Leigh'd out of the film by the 30-minute mark. A native of Florida, Hooten worked steadily on TV in the early '70s with guest appearances on shows like THE MOD SQUAD, MANNIX, and THE WALTONS. Over 1977 and 1978, with a co-starring role in ORCA and the title role in the CBS/Marvel pilot movie DR. STRANGE, it appeared as if he was about to break out, but DR. STRANGE wasn't picked up for series and Hooten quickly became a Next Big Thing instantly forgotten. By the end of 1978, he made his way to Europe where he would work almost exclusively starting with Enzo G. Castellari's THE INGLORIOUS BASTARDS. Already showing signs of disinterest in the projects he was being offered--his only Hollywood gig during this time came in a supporting role as one of Ken Wahl's commando unit in James Glickenhaus' 1982 actioner THE SOLDIER, and he didn't even stick around to dub himself for 2020, leaving it to voice actor Frank von Kuegelgen--Hooten only worked sporadically as the '80s went on. He eventually retired from acting in 1990 after starring in TROLL 2 director Claudio Fragasso's completely obscure NIGHT KILLER. It was shortly after shooting 2020 that the openly gay Hooten met Pulitzer Prize-winning poet James Merrill, and the two were together until Merrill's 1995 death from AIDS. Now 64, Hooten currently lives in Florida and came out of retirement in 2013 to appear in a pair of extremely low-budget Sarasota-shot regional horror movies, HOUSE OF BLOOD and SOULEATER.

2020: TEXAS GLADIATORS is a fun film, but between young Montefiori working with Fellini and Hooten almost becoming a Marvel superhero, it's also a film that those with once-promising careers settled for when they just needed the work. French-born Irish actor O'Brien was no exception. He got his start with supporting roles in big-budget films like John Frankenheimer's THE TRAIN (1964) and GRAND PRIX (1966) before finding his niche as villains and miscreants in a slew of Italian spaghetti westerns throughout the 1970s, going back to Sergio Sollima's RUN MAN RUN (1967), all the way up to era-enders such as Lucio Fulci's FOUR OF THE APOCALYPSE (1975), Enzo G. Castellari's KEOMA (1976), and Sergio Martino's MANNAJA (1977). He also played a Nazi general in THE INGLORIOUS BASTARDS and an exorcist in Massaccesi's sleazy nunsploitation classic IMAGES IN A CONVENT (1979). O'Brien is best known to Eurotrash audiences for Marino Girolami's ZOMBIE HOLOCAUST (1980), where his zombie-creating mad doctor was granted the title role when the film was rechristened DOCTOR BUTCHER M.D. for its 1982 American release. Vacationing in Paris in 1980, shortly after completing his work on ZOMBIE HOLOCAUST, O'Brien suffered a serious head injury when he slipped and fell in the bathroom of his hotel room. After spending several days in a coma, he awoke to find he was partially paralyzed. 2020: TEXAS GLADIATORS was his first film after the accident and its effects are obvious: he has a halting limp and is often dragging his left leg, and the right side of his face demonstrates frequent, involuntary twitching very similar to that of Japanese actor Takeshi Kitano/Beat Takeshi in the aftermath of his 1994 motorcycle accident. Still, the veteran actor, while dubbed, manages to create a vivid impression with his shaved head, hammy overacting (check out his overdone Dr. Evil cackle at a not-very-funny joke that Catch Dog makes), and memorable death scene. O'Brien continued to act in films, but his paralysis took its toll. He required a cane and as the years went on, in later films like HANDS OF STEEL (1986) and THE NAME OF THE ROSE (1986), he's usually seated or leaning against something. O'Brien would go on to appear in Massaccesi's final ATOR film QUEST FOR THE MIGHTY SWORD (1990) and Michele Soavi's THE SECT, aka THE DEVIL'S DAUGHTER (1991), before retiring from acting in 1994 after severely injuring his hip in another fall. He died in 2003 at the age of 73.

Ripoffs of the Wasteland: 2019: AFTER THE FALL OF NEW YORK (1983)

2019: AFTER THE FALL OF NEW YORK
(Italy/France - 1983; US release 1984)

Directed by Martin Dolman (Sergio Martino). Written by Julian Berry (Ernesto Gastaldi), Martin Dolman (Sergio Martino) and Gabriel Rossini. Cast: Michael Sopkiw, Valentine Monnier, George Eastman (Luigi Montefiori), Anna Kanakis, Roman Geer (Romano Puppo), Edmund Purdom, Vincent Scalondro, Louis Ecclesia, Serge Feuillard, Haruhiko Yamanouchi, Jacques Stany, Tiziana Fibi, Siriana Hernandez, James Sampson, Angelo Ragusa, Giovanni Cianfriglia. (R, 96 mins)

While THE ROAD WARRIOR provided the chief template for the early '80s Italian post-nuke cycle, the influence of John Carpenter's ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK weaved its way in from time to time. This was certainly the case with Sergio Martino's 2019: AFTER THE FALL OF NEW YORK, which may very well be the best that the Italian post-apocalypse subgenre had to offer, not counting Enzo G. Castellari's 1990: THE BRONX WARRIORS, which isn't really a post-nuke but is almost always cited as one. Released in Italy in the summer of 1983 and in the US by Almi in December 1984 minus the "2019" portion of the title, 2019 is a case study in making the most of budgetary limitations. Even a major cue in the "Oliver Onions" (Guido & Maurizio De Angelis) score is recycled from their soundtrack for Antonio Margheriti's YOR: THE HUNTER FROM THE FUTURE (1983). What Martino's film lacks in gonzo car stunts and the ability to recreate a convincing NYC (even Carpenter had to let a declining East St. Louis, IL stand in for the ruins of the Big Apple), it makes up in imagination, perseverance, and old-school special effects techniques. Sure, the matte paintings, the miniatures of a bombed-out, radioactive Manhattan, and what looks like a half-melted souvenir model of the Statue of Liberty that appear to be set up on a workbench in Martino's basement will probably evoke derisive snickering upon a first glance, but after the opening skyline shot, he makes their appearances sparse enough that they're eerily effective when you do get fleeing glimpses of them later on. Martino's got very little to work with from a visual effects standpoint and knows just how much of it to show to keep the film from collapsing in on itself.

In 1999, the evil Eurac Monarchy ("the powerful Euro-Afro-Asian unity") initiated a nuclear holocaust that left the world a radioactive wasteland. Most of America is a desert, with only torched shells of skyscrapers remaining in major cities. It's been 15 years since a human child was born, and the US government, now called the Pan-American Confederacy, based in northernmost Alaska, and run by a sickly President (Edmund Purdom), gets word that one fertile female remains in the ruins of NYC. He orders nomadic warrior and former Pan-Am soldier Parsifal (Michael Sopkiw) to venture in with the help of two mercenaries, eye-patched strongman Ratchet (Romano Puppo) and Bronx (Vincent Scalondro), find the woman, and in exchange, they get three seats on the next shuttle to Alpha Centauri, where the Pan-American Confederacy is looking to rebuild itself beyond the boundaries of Earth.

If Parsifal reminds you of Kurt Russell's Snake Plissken and the President's offer vaguely recalls one presented to Plissken by Lee Van Cleef's Hauk, then you picked up on the not-very-subtle borrowing of elements from ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK. Parsifal, Ratchet, and Bronx eventually encounter a group of survivors, where they pick up Giada (Valentine Monnier) and dwarf Shorty (Louis Ecclesia) while being pursued by coldly ambitious Eurac soldier Ania (Anna Kanakis). Bronx takes an early exit in the form of a bullet to the head but not before he gouges out the eyes of the nefarious Eurac commander (Serge Feuillard). Eventually, the motley crew cross paths with a band of mutants led by the hirsute Big Ape (George Eastman)--or, as he was known in ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, "The Duke" (you can also conclude that Shorty is this film's "Cabbie")--who ends up tagging along just because he wants to be the one to plant his seed in the fertile woman, Melissa (Tiziana Fibi), when they find her.

The more "Michael Sopkiw is almost
Kurt Russell" poster design.

2019 is consistently engrossing but really takes off with a wild climax that has its ragtag group of heroes and a hibernating Melissa packed into a steel-reinforced station wagon and driving through mined, obstacle course tunnels under NYC, during which Big Ape hurls his sword and decapitates about ten Eurac soldiers at once in one of the finest moments in all of Italian post-nuke. Again, Martino doesn't have the luxury of shooting a big action sequence in NYC, so he circumvents that hassle by taking the ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK 69th Street Bridge sequence underground in the same tunnel sets used in virtually all of the Italian post-nukes. Martino does have a couple of scenes early on that were shot in Arizona, prior to Parsifal being taken to Alaska (which looks almost exactly like the futuristic Mount Olympus set in Luigi Cozzi's HERCULES), but virtually the entire film was shot at De Paolis Studios in Rome. Martino (using his occasional "Martin Dolman" pseudonym) co-wrote the script with veteran screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi (credited as "Julian Berry") and Gabriel Rossini, and they spend a bit more time on characterization than you usually see in ripoffs of this sort. Much like the team of oddballs helping Plissken on his mission, the crew surrounding Parsifal exhibit much in the way of character and personality, even when their actions (why would they leave Giada and Melissa alone with Big Ape?) don't make much sense. The writers don't play favorites with who lives or who dies and there's a genuine unpredictability and ambition to the way the plot builds and unfolds. It's been brought up online before (by Video Junkie's William Wilson and EUROCRIME co-producer Michael Martinez to name two) but it's worth repeating again: there's some interesting coincidences between 2019 and if not P.D. James' 1992 novel Children of Men, then at least Alfonso Cuaron's loosely adapted 2006 film version.  Both are set in a dystopian, barren future where one fertile woman has been found (in James' novel, the men are infertile); both have a lone wolf hero being charged with finding her and getting her to where she needs to go to keep the human race from dying out; and both have upper-class characters (Feuillard's commander in 2019 and Danny Huston's Nigel in CHILDREN OF MEN) with Picasso's Guernica displayed on their wall. It's entirely possible that both Martino & Gastaldi and Cuaron came up with the notion of using Guernica, since it's regarded as a symbol of humanity's suffering in war. Just like it's entirely possible that Cuaron or one of CHILDREN OF MEN's four other screenwriters caught AFTER THE FALL OF NEW YORK on VHS or during one of its late-night cable airings in the '80s and it stuck with them enough to work it into another, much more higher-profile movie with a similar central conceit, albeit with different circumstances and metaphors.

Greatest credit ever?

2019: AFTER THE FALL OF NEW YORK marked the debut of Sopkiw, an American model whose acting career lasted three years and four films. Born in Connecticut in 1954, Sopkiw was a wandering sort in his youth, with stints in merchant sailing and the maritime shipping industry, during which time he served a year in prison for transporting marijuana. He briefly studied acting in NYC and fell into modeling in Europe, which got him the 2019 gig (he's still dubbed by someone else--this was one of the few Italian genre films of the era not handled by the usual crew of American and British dubbers working in Rome, but by SPEED RACER voice actor Peter Fernandez's crew in NYC). In 1984, Sopkiw made two films with director Lamberto Bava: the entertaining DELIVERANCE/FIRST BLOOD hybrid BLASTFIGHTER, which reteamed him with Eastman, and the future MST3K-favorite DEVIL FISH, which again paired him with Monnier. In 1985, he starred in Michele Massimo Tarantini's MASSACRE IN DINOSAUR VALLEY, a belated entry in the post-CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST gut-muncher craze, and that was it. Sopkiw went back into modeling in NYC before pursuing his interest in medicinal plant science, and went on to run the Los Angeles-based American importing office of the Dutch glass company Miron Violettglas. As 2019's cult grew over the years, so did the interest in the elusive Sopkiw, who emerged from obscurity to be more or less a bystander on a controversial, kamikaze commentary by a "post-nuke expert" on Shriek Show's 2003 DVD release of the film. The DVD was quickly withdrawn and re-released without the commentary, which found the moderator in question more or less using the opportunity to take cheap shots and settle scores with various figures and discussion forums in Eurocult's online community. The DVD's anamorphic transfer holds up well, but with the re-released version out of print for several years now, the film is long overdue for a Blu-ray upgrade. In recent years, Sopkiw has maintained a low profile but periodically appears at fan conventions, usually when there's a panel on '80s Italian cult movies.

The veteran journeyman Martino's only direct contribution to the Italian post-nuke movement (though you could argue that 1986's HANDS OF STEEL, with its arm-wrestling cyborg hero and John Saxon hoisting an over-the-shoulder laser bazooka, belongs under the umbrella as well), 2019: AFTER THE FALL OF NEW YORK featured several Eurocult mainstays in its cast, such as Eastman, Puppo (billed as "Roman Geer"), Purdom, Jacques Stany as a Eurac flunky, and Hal Yamanouchi in a small role as the leader of a band of radiated mutant goons who gets his head split open in a memorable shot. The other noteworthy cast member was 20-year-old Kanakis as the ambitious Ania. Kanakis made headlines five years earlier when she was named Miss Italy 1977 only to be disqualified from the eventual Miss World competition when the organization discovered that she was only 15 years old. She claimed that the Miss Italy people never told her that the minimum age requirement was 17 (1977's Miss Malta, also 15, was given the boot as well), but she soon ended up with an acting career, with 2019 her second post-nuke in quick succession, following Enzo G. Castellari's THE NEW BARBARIANS (1983), released in the US in early 1984 as WARRIORS OF THE WASTELAND. Kanakis, who was married to Goblin leader Claudio Simonetti from 1981-1984, remained sporadically busy over the next 20 years, primarily on Italian television. Her last acting appearance to date was a starring role in the 2007 Italian TV mini-series LA TERZA VERITA.