America 3000/Review

From The Grindhouse Cinema Database

< America 3000

So what do we have here then? Well, on first glance it appears to be a VHS copy of a VHS copy that someone's been kind enough to upload to YouTube, either that or they just went fucking crazy with the soft focus, but that will not deter me from passing my Hammer Of God like judgement upon this movie. Besides which, some kick-ass 80's widdly guitar work has just kicked in and I'm a sucker for some kick-ass 80's widdly guitar work.

A3k1.jpg

In a post apocalyptic world where everyone has hair styles straight out of a Vixen video and we all live in rejected sets from Mad Max 3, America is ruled by the Frau's, a race of Amazonian type woman, who capture Plu-garts, because if you make words up it makes it sound more science fictiony, who are all men (no matter what you might have heard) and make them either work or do the rasti mcnasty for a living.

A young Korvis (Chuck Wagner) is chosen for the mating but deciding that he ain't got time for that, as any teenage boy would do (Jackie Chan WTF face), does a bunk along with Gruss (William Wallace) and heads out into The Badlands. The years pass until both Korvis and Gruss are both strapping young men and, joined by many other strapping young men, decide to break into Frau Central Station and rob them blind.

A3k4.jpg

This goes well, right up to the point they accidentally unleash a man in a giant Yeti costume who chases them out of the camp with the Frau's in hot pursuit. Cornered, our valiant heroes choose to split up ala Scooby Doo and Korvis heads into the old abandoned fun fair...er...I mean radioactive quarry where he takes a crossbow bolt right to the chest and plummets down into an underground bunker. Here he discovers, among other things, guns, pinball machine's, a big double bed, a cuddly toy (OK, I made that one up) and the fact that it wasn't the Russian's that fired first but instead a computer error that caused all out nuclear war. Ah, that old chestnut.

Armed with this knowledge and a very cool 80's boom box, he returns to his people to plan how best to deal with the Fraus. Will he use force, will he use the secret language of l'amour or will he just nuke the shit out of everybody because he's an idiot? Who knows? Well, obviously I do but I'm not telling you. Seriously, you're old enough now to go find these things out for yourself, I'm not going to mother you ALL your life.

A3k2.jpg

This is another one of those "classics" that I'm not quite sure what to make of. Is it a straight film that you should take at face value or does it want you to have a laugh along with it. Now as I don't know David Engelbach personally I'm not sure if he shot this as a serious movie, then having seen it decided to use Gruss as a narrator in post-production to lighten the mood and if that wasn't the case then I apologize but it's hard to not laugh when William Wallaces voice over reminds me of Norm MacDonald. That and the bit where the Fraus bring back their fallen leader on a cart had flashes of Monty Python's "Bring Out Your Dead" about it.

Add to the mix a scene where a bunch of Plu-garts are playing hot potato with a hand grenade, and you can guess how that works out for them, and you have a something that had me roaring with laughter one more than one occasion. It's well directed, which is surprising considering he didn't direct anything else after this, the acting, though not Shakespearean by any stretch of the imagination, is pretty on point and it carries the usual 80's message of how "War Is Bad M'Kay" without ever feeling like it's being preachy but most of all this is a fun and, at times, outright laugh riot of a movie and if that's what he was aiming for then kudos to you sir, you fucking NAILED it.

Rating: 7.5 Would Definitely Nuke The Planet Again Out Of 10.

Neilpic.jpg
Neil Gray is a writer from the UK. The story goes that he was invented in a laboratory experiment that went horribly wrong and has spent years devouring every movie form and film genre that was foolish enough to pass his way until he is now nothing more than a hideous monstrosity, more celluloid than man.
Newsletter
  • Grindhouse Database Newsletter
  • Exploitation books
  • Kung fu movies
  • Giallo BluRay