The New Barbarians



In the commentary track for The New Barbarians (1982) the director explains that the genesis of the project was that he had an idea to do a western set in the future. That the finished movie appears to be just another in the seeming infinite series of Italian rip-offs of The Road Warrior (1981) is a cosmic coincidence that will vex philosophers for generations to come.


Anna Nicole Smith did not survive the apocalypse.

After the apocalypse humanity is reduced to pockets of people moving from place to place in futuristic cars tricked out with primitive weapons. Don’t be fooled just because the cars look like contemporary cars, we know they are futuristic because they have vacuum cleaner hoses and big clear domes slapped on them in improbable places. They make electric motor sounds when they move, so they must be from the future. Our main character is Scorpion, a battle-hardened nomad whose only friend is a little kid with a slingshot. See? Nothing like The Road Warrior! In that movie the kid had a boomerang!


"Is that a hemi?"

Scorpion is much hated by the Templars, a gang of white-clad maniacs who go around killing everyone they find because they believe humanity must be punished for causing the apocalypse. In other words, the kill people to punish people for killing people... Okay, consistency isn't a big priority for the Templars. The Templars are also supposed to be homosexuals, I think, though in one early scene it is implied they want to rape a woman whose pants were apparently destroyed in the apocalypse.

How cheap is this movie? Every time the Templars chase some poor sap, they end up in a muddy quarry. And not just a muddy quarry, but the same one every time. Later the filmmakers shoot the other direction in the quarry so we see the rock crusher and such, and use that as a background for the next three action scenes.


Fred Williamson at the nadir of his career... I mean, Fred Williamson as Nadir.

Fred "The Hammer" Williamson appears as a character named "Nadir," adding what passes for star power in a movie like this. His character uses a bow and arrow with explosive charges, which might be cool if Nadir didn't keep all the explosive charges on the outside of his armor. If just one Templar had the presence of mind to throw a smallish pebble at Nadir, he'd blow up like the Fourth of July at Michael Bay's place.

Posted: Mon - April 25, 2005 at      

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