Awhile back I came across mention of this short film anthology and found myself incredibly intrigued as I'm a huge fan of post-nuke cinema, specifically the Italian variety. With a name like Shaky González attached to this project I was certain it would be entertaining at the very least but could a group of Danish filmmakers really craft their own distinct interpretations of the sub-genre while still maintaining a certain amount of respect for the source material? In my opinion the filmmakers and distro company behind Wasteland Tales have done a damn good job of doing just that! The first three selections on this anthology were definitely the best; González's "The Last Warrior" was outrageously cool and undoubtedly the most commercial of the lot but Christensen's "Connected" was nothing short of visually-stunning. Both shorts are begging for feature-length treatments. "Eastern Army" was decent as well though it suffered from weak fight sequences and a few predictable story elements.
The remaining three shorts we all good as well in their own way but each had issues I found hard to overlook, like the absurdity of Sakurai's "I Barbari Dei CPH" (reminded me of Mungia's Six-String Samurai) and the lack of even remotely convincing "zombies & mutants" in Jensen's "Max Fury." Concerning The Sun King's "Tutorial – How to Kill a Racist," well it sort of came across more like an anti-racism infomercial; like preachy propaganda mixed with some brutal, video game violence. There was certainly a point being made that I agree with but I wanted post-nuke action and it didn't satisfy that craving at all.
Bottom line, wonderful! Wasteland Tales kicks all kinds of ass with well-produced and entertaining shorts and is a must-see release for post-nuke fans and a must-have addition to cult cinema collections. Not only was this packed with cool shorts for our viewing pleasure but there were quite a few extras as well including trailers, Another World DVD trailers, bios, a intro on Movie Battle 2010 and some stills and artwork. Very fun and informative stuff. Let's hope the success of this release warrants future anthology releases or even a release of the last Movie Battle 2007: Grindhouse shorts.
