ENDGAME (1983)

 

DIRECTED by Joe D'Amato

SCREENPLAY by Alex Carver & Joe D'Amato

STARRING - Al Cliver as Ron Shannon

Laura Gemser as Lilith

George Eastman as Karnak

Jack Davis as Professor Levin

Hal Yamanouchi as Ninja

Gabriele Tinti as Bull

Mario Pedone as Kovack

Gordon Mitchell as Colonel Morgan

PLOT - The year is 2025, a few decades after the bomb has dropped. 

Most of the human survivors of the Nuclear war are living in run down cities run by a fascist state, their only entertainment being the state sanctioned gladiatorial contest known as The Endgame. The rest of humankind has become mutated and live out in the wastelands struggling to survive, but not all mutants look mutated - some look like normal human beings but have developed uncanny powers.

One such mutant is Lilith - a beautiful woman blessed with telepathic powers. Lilith and her mutant kin are seeking to escape the ever more totalitarian confines of the city. Only one man can get them free - Ron Shannon...but first he's got to survive the brutality of the Endgame....

PERFORMANCES - I'll just address the elephant in the room before I start - this is an Italian exploitation movie, therefore the dialogue is dubbed into English - this means I can't fully determine how well the actors are playing the roles because I'm not hearing their original line delivery, basically you only ever get half of the real performance in a dubbed movie.

Having said that - I do think the actors do a fairly good job here (and the dubbings not too clunky either).

The main lead is Ron Shannon (played by Al Cliver) - a hard-nosed, black leather clad badass from the poor underclass of the fascist city state. He's a contestant in the Endgame (mainly because he needs the prize money) and his main opponent is his former friend turned deadly rival Karnak (George Eastman). To say that Cliver has a stoic presence in this role is probably a bit of an understatement - for the entire film his face literally HARDLY EVER MOVES. He pretty much has the same facial expression in every scene he's in - whether he's scowling at fascists, fighting desert mutants or building a friendship with Lilith - he's always wearing that weather-beaten grimace.

Now normally this would be a huge black mark against Cliver and cause for much ridicule...BUT - in this film and for this character it works.

Just put yourself in Shannon's position - you've grown up in a post nuclear shit hole, a bunch of wannabe Nazis are calling the shots, you've lived a life of poverty scavenging the bleak city streets ever since you where a kid, and now your best mate wants to kill you for a bit of a cash prize in a gameshow/snuff movie - surely you too would be slightly pissed off and a bit emotionally stunted ? Anyway, I can't for the life of me decide whether Cliver is a good actor or not but he works for me as this character. I like him, so basically jobs a good 'un.

The other main character is of course Lilith (Laura Gemser) who isn't really much more than a plot device to get the story moving but Gemser does a good job of making the character seem more three dimensional than the script suggests - she has a good chemistry with Cliver for starters which really helps to sell their friendship and you actually do feel sad for her when Shannon decides to stay in the wasteland rather than go with her to the promised land.

Finally we get Italian B-movie legend George Eastman in the role of Karnak who's a great character. Basically Karnak and Shannon grew up together in the city streets and have now both been co-opted into the Endgame. You get the impression that if it wasn't for this their rivalry would have remained friendly. Things get a bit more complicated when Shannon wins the Endgame and spares Karnak's life, feeling both thankful but also a bit humiliated Karnak then follows Shannon on his quest into the wasteland. Basically he's doing this because he wants to keep Shannon alive so that they can resume thier fight to the death once the quest is over. So the two become allies, whilst always keeping an eye out for and also on each other - needing each others' help but never trusting one another.

Needless to say thier rivalry eventually comes to a head in a final cliffhanger scene that both leaves the audience in tenterhooks and re-establishes the status quo for the two characters in grand style. Also needless to say that George Eastman is as cool as hell in this and makes for a likeable and charismatic final boss villain/anti-hero.

SFX - Some decent set design for the shabby city, a smattering of practical gore and a few facial prosthetic makeup effects for the more mutated looking mutants.

SEX & VIOLENCE - There's a really gratuitous scene where Lilith is captured by mutants and sexually abused by thier leader - it even features the immortal line "look at me when I'm raping you, dammit !"...yeah, don't think THAT one would get by the censors in 2026.

The rest of the violence is more conventional - Mad Max style road violence, explosions, shootings, stabbings, that kind of thing.

Probably the most disturbing bit of violence is the scene where the fascist troopers casually and callously machine gun to death a group of innocent defenceless people they believe to be mutants. The rest of the violence is more cartoonish and comic book-esque but this scene feels more real somehow, maybe because it's the type of cull that's been seen in the real world way too many times.

There's also some pretty gruesome dessicated corpses to be found and a scene where one character gets his entrapped neck twisted until it breaks.

RATING - I'd never heard of this movie until I was rooting around on Tubi looking for something post apocalyptic to review. Knowing how ropey some Italian exploitation films can be I went in with pretty low expectations.

To my pleasant surprise it's actually really bloody good. There's some points where it lags in places but overall it's an effective little slice of Spaghetti Sci-Fi...and the end scene is utterly fantastic.

4 and a half perma scowls out of 5. Well worth a watch.

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