World Gone Wild
Basically a low-budget b-movie hybrid / homage of Road Warrior and Magnificent Seven, this is one of the great cable staples from the 80s to have slipped thru the cracks and become completely forgotten today. The story takes place fifty years after the nuclear holocaust and it has not rained since. Water is the most valuable commodity there is, and only an outpost community named Lost Wells has a steady, seemingly magical supply. Led by a mystic hippie holy man named Ethan (Bruce Dern), the settlement finds themselves under attack by white-suited cult members led by Derek Abernathy (Adam Ant), who leads his followers in prayer services while reading from the collected writings of Charles Manson. Along with a beautiful schoolteacher (Catherine Mary Stewart), Ethan takes off on a journey to recruit his own group of tough guys to protect Lost Wells, including his former protege (Michael Pare), a less than trustworthy biker (Alan Autry), an alcoholic legendary gunslinger (Rick Podell), an explosives expert (Julius “Sho Nuff” Carrey), and a crazed cannibal (Anthony “Skinny Dubois” James), who joins up just so he can feast on the dead enemy combatants. What’s amazing about this film is the way it rises above its low-budget and actually works, from its cool title rock song to its quite impressive battle scenes. The main factor here, though, is the dialogue, crisp and humorous with nearly every major character getting some great lines. The fact that Dern’s character spends most of his screen time either smoking pot or tripping on schrooms adds an element of unpretentiousness to the whole affair, and Ant brings an awesome crazed perversity to the insane cult leader. The only minor negatives are a forced romance between Pare and Stewart, and a little too much screen time spent on a mostly catatonic little girl traumatized by the siege. Still, it amazes me that this film is just about forgotten today, and is in dire need of a DVD release. It’s really one of the most entertaining b-movies of all time, and maybe Anchor Bay or someone can pick up the rights so that it’s at least immortalized in the digital format…
9/10