Land of Doom

My review was written in August 1986 after watching the movie on Lightning video cassette.

"Land of Doom" is an uneventful U. S. imitation of the popular Aussie hit "The Road Warrior", second of the Mad Max adventures. Film was shot in 1984 and recently released (sans a theatrical run) on video cassette.

Set typically after a "final war", picture is one long trek by tough girl Harmony (Deborah Rennard) and idealistic Anderson (Garrick Dowhen) who is trying to get the nihilistic band of raiders to get serious and start rebuilding the world. Leader of the marauding raiders, Slater (Daniel Radell), has a grudge against Anderson and has his henchmen trying to kill him.

Though duo is vaguely searching for a fabled, faraway place where people already have banded together to recreate civilization, they accomplish nothing during this trek and are left a film's end with a bad case of sequelitis, ready to trek on.

Lacking special effects or any science fiction content, "Doom" is just an excuse to watch guys dressed up like "Mad Max" villains, riding around on motorcycles and souped-up vehicles. Absence of any nudity makes it of little interest to exploitation film fans. Stark locations are atmospheric, looking as if it were filmed in Turkey or some other exotic locale.

In a poisoned post-apocalyptic world, marauders destroy all the good that is left. Harmony (Deborah Rennard) survives a raid which devastates her village. She encounters wounded warrior Anderson who is being hunted by ruthless raid leader Slater. She distrusts him but joins him anyways.

This is a straight up B-movie. The acting is bland. Rennard lacks charisma. Usually, this type of movie would try to sex her up. I can give it points for making her functional as a post-apocalyptic survivor rather than a bikini-clad killer. She tries to be seductive in one scene and it is so awkward. There is barely any chemistry between the two leads. Mostly, I like the Turkey locations. The style is somewhat silly. I don't mind the simplistic plot. It's a bit boring but it's not the worst.

Director: Peter Maris Cast: Deborah Rennard, Gerry Dowhen, Daniel Radell

Adventure, Sci-Fi, Thriller. Throw in a bunch of explosions, more cool leather costumes than you can shake a stick at, some awesome Turkish desert locations and rad-tastic old cars outfitted for combat Mad Max style and you can see how this one hits all the right notes... so long as you look at it from the proper skewed, underdeveloped perspective. Its hilarious.

Land of Doom is dumb in every way a movie like this should be dumb, but it's pretty entertaining if you're in an undemanding mood and hankering for leather, explosions, flamethrowers and guys with metal arms and face plates. Deliciously low budget . I had fun with it. 6/10

Plenty of reviews to the quality of the movie already that are pretty accurate.

One classic part was where the guy drove the motorcycle off the cliff. He makes a face like "oh no" and you see him jump off and the bike goes over... to explode of course. But the the shot back up and he has fallen over the cliff and is just hanging on, where he was on the ground several feet behind it.....

And no one has commented on the pants the star wears. What's with the giant black V think that looks like a big thong on the outside? It made her backside look pretty big.. And then there was the cave girls. The villain has four women in slightly skimpy clothes we only see briefly.... but they really needed MORE clothes. Obviously someone doesn't understand the idea of background scenery in sci-fi.

A few people knocked the music, but the last 15 minutes or so during all the fight scenes the music was very inspired, if you like cheesy action stuff. Bit of batman, intro to baywatch, maybe a little A-team or incredible hulk fight scenes. The composer did a good job ramping it up to try to give it some energy, needed since much of the fight scenes were dumb at best.

And then there's the theme song that plays at the end. It has lyrics including: "talkin' bout, warriors of rape, of death and hate, killing for fun" "cannibalists, living amidst, are hunting man" How can you not give that a thumbs up. If you search it's available on u tube with a whopping 8 comments. Maybe go there and add one...

Anyway, have to upgrade this from a 1 to a 2 for the music in the last 15 or 20 minutes. The music achieved the fun cheese that the rest of the movie was never able to...

In a sort of Sweeded version of the Mad Max films, Harmony (who really dislikes being touched) and Anderson roam the Turkey landscape chased by an insipid ragtag group of post-apocalyptic 'ruffians' . Longing to have a budget as big as say a 'Hell comes to Frogtown' sequel this film is marginal more silly/awful than any such film(s). The bikes alone are utterly ridiculous, not to mention the do-it-yourself make-up, the worst Frenchman impersonation since Holy Grail (but unintentional this time) and make-shift Star Wars-esque creatures.

If I'm making this film sound good in any way, shape or film, I'm sincerely sorry. It's not even good as a drunken guilty pleasure film. And this was somehow based on a book, how??