▶ watchcultDead End Drive-In
1986 · Australia · 87m
A drive-in turned into an internment camp. The satire is not subtle.
Post-nuke
1982–1990 · 7 films catalogued
Italian producers watched Mad Max 2 and made forty of them in five years.
Mad Max 2 (1981) and Escape from New York (1981) came out months apart and were both enormous in Italy. Roman producers responded the way Roman producers always responded.
The formula
A wasteland, which is a quarry outside Rome. A drifter with a modified car. A gang in shoulder pads and hockey masks. A settlement with a water supply worth defending. Somewhere in the last reel, a monologue about the old world.
The films
1990: The Bronx Warriors, Escape from the Bronx, 2019: After the Fall of New York, The New Barbarians, Warriors of the Wasteland. Enzo G. Castellari and Sergio Martino made most of the good ones, having already made most of the good poliziotteschi.
Why they are watchable
The budgets were tiny and the ambition was not, so you get a lot of practical vehicle work, real fire, and stuntmen taking hits that would not be approved anywhere today. The dialogue is uniformly terrible in every dub.
Where to start
1990: The Bronx Warriors, for Fred Williamson in a cape.
Where to start
All 7 →▶ watchcult
▶ watchcultEscape from the Bronx
1983 · Italy · 89m
More of the same, with flamethrowers and property developers as villains.
▶ watchcultThe New Barbarians
1983 · Italy · 91m
Castellari's Mad Max, with perspex cars and George Eastman. Sold in the US as Warriors of the Wasteland.
▶ watchcultYor, the Hunter from the Future
1983 · France/Italy · 89m
Starts as caveman fantasy, becomes science fiction with no warning.
▶ watchknown2019: After the Fall of New York
1983 · France/Italy · 96m
The last fertile woman on Earth, in a quarry outside Rome.
▶ watchknown1990: The Bronx Warriors
1982 · Italy · 93m
Fred Williamson in a cape. Castellari doing Warriors on a Roman budget.
▶ watchcanonMad Max 2
1981 · Australia · 96m
The template the whole Italian post-nuke cycle copied for a decade.