AMERICA 3000 (1986)
Article 4516 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 4-26-2014
Directed by David Engelbach
Featuring Chuck Wagner, Laurene Landon, William Wallace
Country: USA
What it is: Post-apocalyptic absurdity

It’s 900 years after the apocalypse. A female society enslaves men. Some men escape to do battle with the women. Then one of the men discovers artifacts from the distant past…

You know, the idea of a society ruled by women that enslaves men isn’t a totally useless idea, but it’s so rarely used in any worthwhile way that the second it’s trotted out, I expect the worst. And there are a couple of moments here and there where I sense that there was an interesting idea or two lying underneath the surface. But the movie is so mired in its bad ideas, its improbabilities, its incredible silliness, and its shamefaced obviousness (I’ll give you one guess how the society of women and the society of men come to an understanding), that the movie never rises above its status as one of the campiest bad movies of all time. Between the ludicrous lingo developed for the people of the future, the boombox that survives 900 years into the future without even needing a change in batteries, the smarmy and self-conscious narration that peppers the movie, the made-in-the-eighties big hair, and the existence of a hairy mutant character known as Argh the Awful, you’ll find an endless supply of jaw-dropping ridiculousness. No, I’m not surprised that the movie has a surprisingly high rating of 4.3 on IMDB; it’s bound to have a cult following that revels in it all. Whatever else you can say about it, this movie is an experience.