DEATHSPORT (1978)
Article 2786 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-23-2008
Posting Date: 3-30-2009
Directed by Allan Arkush, Nicholas Niciphor, Roger Corman
Featuring David Carradine, Claudia Jennings, Richard Lynch
Country: USA

It’s after the apocalypse, and the evil empire kidnaps several mystical warriors known as Ranger Guides in order to have them do battle with their new death machines.

For the record, I find movies that borrow heavily from various movies a little more entertaining than those that borrow heavily from just one movie. What we have here is basically a STAR WARS clone minus the space travel fleshed out with ROLLERBALL and DEATH RACE 2000 trappings. The death machines are just motorcycles with zappers and their own special overdrive sound effect. Being that it’s from Roger Corman and New World, you can expect it to be heavy on exploitation. There’s nudity (Claudia Jennings and an uncredited Linnea Quigley), lots of stunts, and a overplenteous assortment of slow-motion explosions. In the final assessment, what it really becomes is a competition as to which of three things will end up annoying you the most; is it the overabundance of explosions, the dumb mystical dialogue of the ranger guides, or that annoying sound effect of the death machines? It’s no real competition; that sound effect will really get to you before the movie is over. It ends with a battle between good and evil. What did you expect, surprises?