Thursday, May 10, 2012

Signal Watch Watches: Warriors of the Wasteland (1983) - with RiffTrax

I think the era of me seeking out movies like this without the benefit of RiffTrax has largely passed, but with them...

Warriors of the Wasteland is a 1983 Italian knock-off of The Road Warrior, sort of.  I mean, if The Road Warrior were filtered through the mind of a guy who was reading too many Humanoids comics, had no budget and had possibly suffered a severe blow to the head.

Its basically a guy with a really goofy-looking muscle car with a plexi-glass dome affixed to the roof for no reason driving around and picking fights with a bunch of guys in odd Storm Trooper-like outfits if the helmets were missing and they all had visited Journey's stylists.

The movie is notable for a number of reasons:

It co-stars Fred Williamson, who has been in more than 100 films and TV shows.  I sort of recognized him from some of his Blaxploitation work.  Here, he plays a guy with a rad mustache and who uses a bow & arrow with explosive tips.  Eat it, Hawkeye.

Everything about the movie's character designs would become prevalent in comics in 1992 or so thanks to the influence of artists like those who would go on to work on books like "Lady Death".  I have to assume they designed any number of female characters based upon the look of "Alma" in the movie, what with her huge shoulder pads, amazing bouffant hair-do, and then, inexplicably, just a pair of underwear and shoes below the ribcage.  And, of course, all the men are decked out in terribly impractical armor.

Fun fact:  in comics, that look just never really went away.

And there's a little Dennis the Menace-like scamp who is a murdering psychopath and a hero.

Go figure.

The RiffTrax on this one are absolutely spot on, and, frankly, if they can make viewing this trainwreck not just bearable but fun?  I tip my hat.

Movie itself: no recommendation.
With RiffTrax?  A must see.

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