THE NEW BARBARIANS (1983)

DIRECTED by Enzo G. Castellari

SCREENPLAY by Tito Carpi & Enzo G. Castellari

STARRING  - Giancarlo Prete "Timothy Brent" as Scorpio, Fred Williamson as Nadir, George Eastman as One, Anna Kanarkis as Alma.

PLOT - In the far off future of the year 2019 the world is a very different place...Twenty years previously, mankind finally went mad and World War 3 began. It ended in the nuclear fires of armageddon. The once green and beautiful planet Earth became a smoking, scarred, irradiated hellscape. The survivors of mankind huddled together in frightened, desperate groups. Every day a bitter struggle for survival. 

One group of survivors is the band of bikers known as "The Templars" ruled with a rod of iron by thier psychotic leader - the madman known only as One. The Templars terrorise the irradiated landscape, hunting down other groups of survivors - raping, pillaging and killing them. 

The activities of the Templars become known to a man named Scorpio. Scorpio is a lone wanderer. Driving down the blasted highways seeking to aid and help any frightened survivors he can find. Scorpio has a bitter past with the twisted messianic One and vows to defend a ragtag band of survivors who the Templars are attacking. 

With the aid of his sharpshooting ally - Nadir, a woman known as Alma and a small boy who is proficient with weaponry, Scorpio takes the fight to One and his private army of Templars. Who will survive ?

DIALOUGE  - One - "The world is dead ! It raped itself, but I'll purify it with blood ! No one is innocent ! But only we - the Templars - are the ministers of revenge !!!!" (Yep, as you probably guessed he's completely barking).

PERFORMANCES  -   As was the standard practice with Italian B-movies of the time this film features a mixture of Italian actors dubbed with English language voices and American actors speaking undubbed in thier own voices and own languages. Don't ask me why they did this as I have no idea but it was just something that Italian film makers seemed to go in for. At least the dubbed actors haven't been given silly sounding voices in this film, so even the dubbed performances come across as more natural and less jarring than usual.

Prete as Scorpio makes for a functional hero - he's slightly bland and doesn't seem to have a lot of personality (mainly the scripts fault), he's very much a cross between Mad Max and the Man With No Name - he rides onto the scene, doesn't say a lot, acts generally heroic and leaves - he doesn't have the depth of Max or the presence of Clint Eastwood but he does what is required of him and does it well enough.

Far more interesting is Fred Williamson playing Nadir. Nadir is the coolest character in this film by far - armed with explosive arrows that he fires from a bow, raining down destruction on the bad guys left, right and centre - things are never dull when he's onscreen. Williamson imbues the character with a knowing smirk to the audience like he knows that this is all comic book nonsense but is having a great time all the same, as a result the audience has a good time watching him as well.

George Eastman does a suitably maniacal turn as One - he almost, but not quite hams it up in his portrayal of a man who believes himself to be a messiah. As a result he comes across as supremely unhinged and egotistical, making for an effective villain.

SFX - A nice mixture of gory make up effects, some impressive pyrotechnics and some nice plastic skeletons depicting what's left of those who didn't survive the big bang.

SEX & VIOLENCE - A tastefully done sex scene, a disturbing male rape scene (which was heavily re-edited when the film was released in Britain) and lashings of explosive vehicular manslaughter. 

A lot of the violence is of the "A-Team" style i.e. - something explodes and a very obvious stuntman is hurtled through the air in slow motion. You could get very drunk, very quickly if you downed a shot for every slow motion explosion or shooting in this film. 

The shootings are quite amusing - the actors are clearly using ordinary looking guns and yet, whenever the guns are fired they make typical sci-fi laser gun sounds even though you can see a muzzle flash like you would get with a regular gun and no sign of any visible laser beam whatsoever. It's insane.

Nadir's explosive arrows are a great addition leading to the double whammy of seeing a baddie getting an arrow in the neck (cue spurting jugular vein) followed by an explosion (cue severed head sailing into the distance coupled with flying chunks of meat). Its all massively O.T.T and great fun.

RATING - Obviously, we're in total Mad Max rip-off territory here but if you're a fan of the post-apocolyptic genre there's a lot to enjoy in this movie. Castellari's past C.V. includes lots of spaghetti westerns and you can see that influence and style in spades here, particularly in the scenes where Scorpio is having shootouts with the villains - it's all shot in that classic western style.

The costume design is somewhat odd to be sure. The Templars seem to have taken to dressing like Gary Glitter for some reason...

Also what's with this blokes beard ?

Did he miss bits shaving or something ? Or is it just because it's a post apocalyptic future ? That's what it is - its a futuristic beard - a beard from the future if you will...

Also, towards the end of the film, poor old Scorpio is saddled with what is quite possibly the single most gayest looking piece of body armour that has ever been depicted in the annals of sci-fi history...

Just look at it !!! What the hell where they thinking  ??? The perfect way to undermine your mystery man of action so you can't take him at all seriously right there. It's even worse than Sean Connery's mankini in Zardoz for crying out loud.

The depiction of the post nuclear landscape is very bargin basement too - everyone is quite obviously running and driving around a quarry/gravel pit and the road scenes look like they where filmed at a disused aerodrome/runway. Still, if it works for 70's Doctor Who then it works for this I suppose.

Budgetary constraints and questionable clothing choices aside, this is still a very fine example of the genre. It's not in the same league as the Mad Max movies but it's still a helluva lot of fun.

Final score - 3 badly dressed road warriors out of 5.