Robot Holocaust

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Lang:

Italy / USA • 1986 • 79m •

• Directed by: Tim Kincaid. • Starring: Norris Culf, Nadine Hartstein, J. Buzz Von Ornsteiner, Jennifer Delora, Andrew Howarth, Angelika Jager, Michael Downend, Rick Gianasi, George Grey, Nicholas Reiner, Michael Azzolina, John Blaylock, Michael Zezima..

Neo, a drifter from the atomic-blasted wastelands, arrives with his klutzy robot sidekick at a factory where slaves labor to fuel the sinister Dark One's Power Station. There, he meets a comely woman who convinces him to help rescue her scientist father, who has invented a device that can break the Dark One's control over the slaves. Gathering a motley crew of allies on the way, Neo and pals travel to the Power Station, where they confront the Dark One's evil servants.

Review:

Cheap, gloriously bad cheese from the 80's, the decade of cheese. I watched this one first uncut and un-MST3K'ed, and it was pretty much laugh out loud funny even without the comments.

The plot(such as it is) revolves around a post-apocalyptic world in which the AI robots revolted(sound familiar?) and destroyed pretty much everything, leaving a world in ruins with air so bad no one can breathe it. The few humans that are left act as slaves to an enigmatic being called the Dark One, which seems to be part computer and part organic being. The 'air slaves' work to produce energy for this being in return for breathable air. Every once in a while, the Dark One has the strongest of the air slaves fight to the death, so that no one will rise as a leader in a revolt against the Dark One.

Okay, that's the so-called serious stuff. On to the silly stuff, such as the ridiculous quasi-futuristic clothing that everyone sports, including car seat cover 'fur' garments, loin cloths, and spangly stuff and feather boas(worn mostly by the Dark One's henchwoman, a chick with an unrecognizable and almost non-understandable accent). Or the wooden acting and stilted lines sported by all of the so-called 'actors', who's dialog is high on pretension and low on sense. Or the dime store special fx, including pink socks with teeth glued onto them for 'deadly' sewer snakes, a bomb made of strung piano wire and a tin can, and terrible 'mutants' with Halloween rubber masks on.

A band of air slaves follow their leader, a mysterious wanderer who has adapted to the air outside, to go to the energy plant to destroy the Dark One. The guy's name is Neo, which explains where the Wachowski brothers got the idea for the Matrix. They meet up with a group of Amazons along the way, with the obligatory fight scene in which the female is bested(of course). Has anyone else ever noticed that in every Amazon movie or t.v. show ever produced, these so-called amazing warriors always get their butts kicked by either men or women? Amazons are just pansies, I guess.

This band of determined warriors makes their way through Central Park...errr...the ravaged lands beyond the last standing city(good way to save money on the matte paintings of a destroyed New York City, anyway) and journey into the sewers leading to the Power Station where the Dark One and his go-go girl henchwoman Valeria hang out. Here they vanquish such ferocious beasts as the sock puppet worms, a giant spider no one sees, and the goofy lobster robot who is one of the Dark One's personal guard.

The final showdown is pretty sad. One of the slaves, a girl who's father was taken by the Dark One because he'd produced a way for people to breathe the foul air, sees that her father has been 'consumed by the Dark One's true form", which involves him being eaten by a giant avocado until only his head is sticking out. The three remaining adventurers destroy the Dark One by turning off a few switches, and the robot holocaust dies not with a bang but with a whimper. The two humans exchange some amazingly wooden last lines, and that's it.

Review by Diana from the Internet Movie Database.