‘Oh supreme fertility god! Master and creator of all life!’
150 years after the nuclear war, a group of scavengers encounter a strange tribe led by a mysterious woman and her high priest, who seem to have created an idyllic community. But all is not what it seems…
Grade Z jungle adventure from the Philippines that starts off looking like a Mad Max rip off but soon reveals its’ true colours as a cheap knock-off of H. Rider Haggard’s classic novel, the much filmed ‘She’! This week’s ‘Road Warrior’ is Trapper, played by an impressively wooden Michael James, who leads a ragtag gang of toughs including wise old retainer Doc and a bloke who flips his shades on and off a lot because he’s just so incredibly cool.
After the usual scratchy mushroom cloud footage, we join our heroes in the obligatory abandoned quarry and get our first clue that it’s not business as usual in this straight to VHS post-apocalyptic world! These guys are on foot, they have no motorised transport at all. l guess the film’s budget didn’t even stretch to a couple of motorcycles. Luckily, they do have the usual leather gear with studded gloves and the ridiculously huge shoulder pads. There’s a dust up with a rival gang, and they join forces with a mysterious stranger who leads them to a nearby jungle. Although water is the most precious commodity left after the Earth was scorched, apparently there’s enough here to grow a rainforest. We find out later that it’s all down to a working nuclear reactor so that’s fine.
lt’s not long before they’re attacked by a tribe of dwarves in body paint who keep coming back from the dead. Obviously, the gang’s firearms aren’t really all that deadly, despite shooting what seem to be exploding smoke bombs. Actually, it turns out that the forest holds the secret of immortality, guarded by a 175 year-old Amazon Queen (Deborah Moore) who gets her strange powers from badly animated bursts of tiny lightning. Of course, she fancies James and the two of them get it on in a scene that no doubt featured prominently in the trailer. Unfortunately, this doesn’t go down well with the local high priest and things are all set for a final confrontation with the two immortals shooting laser beams from their eyes (accompanied by appropriately 1980s sound effects).
Paddington’s hardest stare wasn’t even in it…
Given the storyline, this should be a lot of low-budget fun, but the film mostly takes itself seriously. There’s little humour, and the acting is flat and disinterested. Director Bobby A Suarez is content just to point the camera at his cast and the stunt work and fight choreography are desperately uninspired. Worse than that is the lacklustre script which, despite the mix of ridiculous elements, never surprises the audience, with all the tattered story threads reaching entirely predictable outcomes.
James only had a short career in action films but his CV does include supporting roles in pictures with David Carradine, Klaus Kinski and Gordon Mitchell. Moore went onto more mainstream projects, appearing a little way down the cast in big budget biography ‘Chaplin’ (1992) and in a small role in Piers Brosnan’s ‘Bond’ swansong, the underwhelming ‘Die Another Day’ (2002).
This is a curious hybrid of a film, which you can’t help thinking was originally intended as a straight ‘She’ picture before someone thought it would be good box office to throw in a little post-holocaust action.
Unfortunately, the results provide a fairly low level of entertainment.
Mark David Welsh 
The Bionic Boy/El Nino Bionico (1977) – Mark David Welsh