Schlocktoberfest XVI – Day 1: The New Barbarians

The New Barbarians (1983)

Trailer:

*Spoilers Throughout*

What’s This About: In the far future of 2019, a gang of vicious nihilists terrorize the wasteland and only one man, one sidekick and one youngster can fight back against these new barbarians.

Here are some of my observations as I watched the film:

I hope the screen doesn’t stay at 1/4 in the top left like this.
Italian post-nuke, Mad Max-rip-off schlock. Bellisima!
“2019 AD. The nuclear holocaust is over.” Shit. We missed it!
What I wouldn’t give to go back to 2019. And that year itself was terrible.
A million megawatts solar radio?! In this economy?
“Oh god, if only everything could go back to the way it was.” Amen sister!
Savages are coming to attack these survivors. I’d say circle the wagons but we can see that their vehicles and stuff are already in a circle.
I love how the vehicles, fashion and tech are 2019 futuristic for 1983, however, all this seems ridiculous and silly in actual 2019. Go figure.
Bad guy is sporting a mohawk. He’s got to be the leader.
The bad guys are named The Templars. What’s the over/under that the film will explain how they are named for the crusade knights from 1000 years ago?
So in a post-nuke reality the vehicles that these rag-tag survivors drive is either motocross BMX bikes and souped up golf carts with guns attached.
Top speed of 18 mph! My mailman’s ride goes faster than this.
Before this epic battle gets underway I want to poke fun at how the Templars ruined their element of surprise by giving away their position on the hilltop, then slowly driving down the hilltop towards the survivors who are now armed and ready for the Templars. The Templars are now slowly driving around the survivor circle encampment. From what I can tell so far the Templars have no guns. Or are not showing their weaponry yet.
Let me also point out the high-pitched motor sound of the Templars’ vehicles. Kinda like an RC car. Not intimidating at all. AT ALL!
Templars have laser guns!!
Everyone has laser guns!! I thought the survivors had bullet weapons since they are standard M-16s and such.
This feels very much like GI Joe.
Pew-pew-pew!!!
It’s funny watching this “high speed” attack from the Templars in their vehicles that have no side paneling and are completely exposed to any attack.
I’m not sure if this film’s budget is so cheap that they can’t have laser blast special effects or that the Templar falling off the vehicle was just him losing his grip. The shot was spliced with the good guys shooting at that vehicle with laser fire but when the Templar fell off the car there was no laser impact, fire or damage shown.
One Templar had the brilliant idea to drive into the encampment through 3 dozen stacked beer kegs! They must’ve been empty though because none of them exploded or leaked.
One dumb survivor runs in front of the Templar easily a victim of his laser fire.
OK, so some of the laser fire produced smoke and sparks when they shoot at something. Also apparently, some laser fire is not as deadly as some others since this survivor was hit in the arm or chest and barely flinched. This is just like GI Joe!
So far 2 survivors has perished because they didn’t think to get low to the ground or take cover behind a vehicle or something.
The Templars are sporting the largest shoulder pads known to man!

One Templar on a dirt bike lights a fuse of a homemade bomb. He then rides his bike over a ramp to drop the bomb into the middle of the encampment, killing two survivors. He could’ve just thrown the bomb.
The mohawk Templar stops his vehicle and starts to chuckle while a large gun appears from the hood of his car. He fires and completely destroys one of the survivors’ cars. If the Templars had firepower like this, why didn’t they start with that?!
When two survivors run away from the exploding car, another Templar (who we’ll call Rick Wakeman) chases one in his Dreadnok Thunder Machine. When the survivor falls down, Rick Wakeman exposes his vehicle’s big gun which is a flame thrower and crisps up the hapless survivor.
Meanwhile, the Mohawk Dreadnok, I mean Templar, is still shooting his tank missiles at the encampment after they already killed practically everyone. Wasteful if you ask me.
Now Mohawk utilizes his vehicles fan blade to chase down another hapless survivor. Again, he could just shoot the fella or even run him down instead of driving along side the dude to cut his head off.
And the only reason he’s able to decapitate the survivor is because the survivor also fell, which made the fan blade on the vehicle to be the perfect height for the dude’s neck. Otherwise it would cut him at the chest.
Worst. Beheading. Ever.

Well idiots, there’s nothing for you to scavenge since you destroyed everything for zero reason.
Apparently, Rick Wakeman’s nom de guerre is Shadow. Mohawk tosses him a book, which is either a dictionary or a bible (or a collection of Dilbert cartoons) and Shadow seems annoyed at the printed word.
Apparently the written language is a lost medium in 2019. Ya know, they ain’t too far off as I write this in 2026.
Close-up revels it is a bible and Shadow hands the book to another Templar who grunts the word “Books!” as he effortlessly rips the 800 page Bible I half with his bare hands.
The literary maven, the inimitable George Eastman, then goes on to explain: “Books! That’s what started the whole apocalypse!” Then throws down the bible in disgust. At this point I’m not sure who I’m rooting for yet.
Mohawk’s name is actually Mako. Not sure if he’s named for the shark or the Japanese actor.
I believe Shadow just referred to George Eastman as One. That’s one dumb name.
“The world is dead. It raped itself.” Did the world also go to Cornell University? Ooof; Too soon?
One is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do.
By nightfall, the Templars have left and now we meet these humanoid scavengers who are pillaging what they can at the destroyed encampment. They are all covered head to toe in white rags, like sloppy mummies, and they are all brandishing swords. They’re grunting the whole time. Imagine Tusken Raider but way way dumber.
Some middle-aged white dude who kinda looks like Barry Newman, scares them off when he arrives in his vehicle which I swear looks very similar to The Homer, the car Homer Simpson designs in the 1991 Simpsons episode Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?

Barry Newman finds one survivor on the brink of death and asks him who did this to them. The survivor says what difference does it make. He then says: “Survival means nothing anymore. The end—the end is already here, maybe…it’s just as well.” Couldn’t agree more amigo.
Right after, Barry Newman shoots each dime-store Tusken Raider one by one as they approach him. They were basically asking to be shot they way they tried to slowly ambush him individually.
Sand People always die in single file to hide their numbers.
The dying survivor begs Barry Newman to save one bullet for him, which Barry Newman abides.
Barry Newman finds an RV that’s covered in foil and other wacky shit, like a giant pinwheel and large gears.
Suddenly Barry Newman is attacked by someone using a laser slingshot. It’s a slingshot that somehow fires laser-type projectiles.
Of course the slingshot shooter is a young boy. Hmmm, taken out of the ol’ Road Warrior playbook it seems.
So the young boy and Barry Newman know each other. Little shit could’ve killed him yet Barry Newman commends him on his shooting improving.
The kid’s also a mechanic. Give it time and we’ll probably learn he’s an excellent chef and international spy.
The kid looks at Barry Newman’s car which Newman says is giving him trouble. The kid looks under the hood, gasps then picks up a thin layer of scalp with an ear still attached. They’re not sure if that chunk of skin was the issue.
The Templars are now in a high-speed (maybe 50) pursuit on a stretch of road with a steel-paneled van. Shadow’s vehicle has a battering ram/spike attached and pierces the van and tears off the thinnest piece of tinfoil off the van. Seriously, it looked like heavy duty Reynolds.
He then shoots his flame thrower into the van’s hole, filling the van with fire. The two passengers jump out.
One a woman and the man looks like he belongs to the Black Widows. Shadow chases the man until he corners him and kills him with his battering ram.
Mako chases the woman and catches her in a net. I’m assuming they want her alive for you know, pleasant conversations and all. He drags her for a bit until Barry Newman shoots the rope, freeing her. Before confronting Barry Newman, Mako tells the woman to “[you] stay right there!”
So far, every time the camera does a close-up of Barry Newman’s silver skull hood ornament, the music does this like magic spell sound effect. I’m assuming this hood ornament is special in some way, like it conceals a major weapon or something. Otherwise, it’s weird that that sound effect plays every time they show it.
Barry Newman’s actual name is Scorpion. Boooooo!
Either Scorpion (Here I am!) used to be a templar (Rock you like a hurricaaaane!!!) or was an old enemy because he knows both Mako and Shadow—hates them both but was cordial to Shadow. Scorpion says that he only has peace with dead Templars, yet lets all three Templars live and drives away to pick up the woman.
Shadow asks Scorpion that he fights, kills and robs so why is he any different from the Templars and Scorpion says that One wants to kill every human on Earth to erase life from the planet. What a scheme! Guess he has to kill all his Templar minions at some point and it’s folly that the Templars haven’t thought about this yet.
While driving with the woman, Scorpion plugs in a crystal-looking box onto a circuit board that’s on his dashboard and when he presses a button he gets a radio station that seemingly only plays Goblin.
I finally realized what Shadow reminds me of and it’s Sam Rockwell’s sci-fi character in Gentlemen Broncos.
And it also just dawned on me that Mako kinda looks like Wolf from that obscure sci-fi comedy Future Man. Good show, you should check it out.
As Scorpion is driving along the highway, another vehicle that looks like Batman’s dune buggy, spots him and starts to follow.
It’s Fred Williamson! Finally some acting talent in this dreck.

Mako is planning a mutiny against One and Shadow. Says they are getting old. Honestly, they all look the same age.
Why is Fred Williamson wearing the Infinity Gauntlet?
It didn’t take long for Scorpion to get creepy with the woman he rescued. He tells her with all the Templars around, women are getting rare.
But then after she starts defending herself against him touching her, he notices that she has a shoulder injury and tries to help her. See, he’s not a bad dude after all.
And as a reward for him not raping her, she then has sex with him!
Boinking in what could only be described as a tent made out of clear inflated plastic making it look like something you would contain a laptop in to ship it.
There’s no one like you, I can’t wait for the nights with you, I imagine the things we’ll do, I just want to be loved by you.
Was Fred Williamson watching them fuck?
The next day Scorpion runs afoul of more Templars and their amazing fighting machines. One Templar shoots a sticky grenade onto Scorpion’s car door. Knowing it was a bomb, Scorpion nonchalantly presses a button on his dashboard that ejects the whole car door back towards the Templar; then blowing up! Those sticky grenades happen all the time to Scorpion’s car. Do you know how many car doors of Scorpion’s that were destroyed before he installed the door ejectors?!
After Mako misses Scorpion’s car with 4 missiles, for some reason Scorpion stops the car and leaves it only to nearly be blasted to bits. But he quickly recovers, fires and blasts some hapless Templar dead in the chest.
Scorpion is still a sitting duck with the Templar’s superior weaponry but don’t worry because Fred Williamson is here—armed with … a bow and arrow?
Don’t worry, take your time Fred. Scorpion can outrun the Templar cars all afternoon if need be.
At the least the arrowheads are explosives. I guess this is where Rambo: First Blood, Part 2 got this idea.
Scorpion wastes his surprise attack on Mako. What a dope.
It would be heart-pounding action and tension while Scorpion and Mako are fighting in the moving Templar attack vehicle if only it was going faster than a bumper car with a stuck wheel and not just spinning in circles.
Welp, that should be the end of Mako as his head is pulverized by his own vehicle’s tires. Uh-oh better get Maaco.
Sweet! Williamson shot his arrow into the neck of one Templar blowing him to smithereens!
What exactly is a smithereen anyway?
I’m assuming that Mako isn’t really dead because why give him that scene where he’s assembling allies for his mutiny?
I know we’ve only known Scorpion for about 20 minutes or so but he’s already one of the dullest heroes in a movie I’ve ever seen. Not as bad as Chuck Norris though. (RIP Chuck!)
Fred Williamson’s name is Nadir? But it’s pronounced Nay-Dear.
That Grace Jones headband ain’t doing Nadir’s masculinity any favors.
I still don’t know if Mako is dead or not but he’s now mostly naked (and wearing a codpiece of all things) and is in some sort of hammock while One scolds him and the one Templar that returned Mako’s body.
The hammock kind looks like it’s a giant sling shot. I’m hoping his corpse is flung 400 yards away as punishment for his treason.
One is monologuing about they are the Templars, the warriors and priests of death and that they’ve been chosen to make others pay for the crime of being alive. One never learned what irony is.
One’s nihilism and self-loathing human hate is kind giving Zardoz vibes if you ask me. What? You didn’t ask me? Well fuck you then!

Now the world is gone, I’m just One, Oh, God, help me. Hold my breath as I wish for death, Oh, please, God, help me!
So that wasn’t a slingshot but an elevated funeral pyre as One shoots the garbage or debris under Mako, making it burn his silly corpse. The other mutineer Templar is simply shot by Shadow after a half a minute of him begging for his life.
Say, nice glory hole you’ve got there!
New survivors? Same tribe as before? Whatever man.
These assholes in a post-nuke hellhole of a planet are still worshipping God? I was wrong about One’s “kill em all” philosophy.
The movie didn’t say exactly when the nuclear war started but one of the survivors joked about calling the customer service number for a machine that they can’t get working and another survivor said the company blew up 9 years ago. So it’s safe to say maybe 9 years ago was the nuclear holocaust. After the priest/leader of these survivors refuses any payment or trade to help out the woman’s shoulder (we still didn’t get her name!), Scorpion questions their generosity and Nadir tells him that they are a sect of people that believe in God. OK, even if the nuclear holocaust was in 1983 (the year the film was made) that still isn’t enough time for most of the human race to forget about any of the world’s 1000 religions.
“Take her to Wiz.” NOBODY BEATS THE WIZ!
The Wiz informs the woman that he’s not a doctor but he easily fixes things so that’s why they call him the Wiz.
Glad it’s not the other reason we occasionally use the word wiz. No, not the canned cheese, the other one.
One states that it’s extremely hard to beat Scorpion giving an air of awesomeness to Scorpion’s fighting abilities. But we also saw him stupidly get out his car and almost get shot 4 times in an earlier scene so forgive me if I call bullshit on how “invulnerable” Scorpion is.
The Road Warrior’s MacGuffin was gasoline basically. Tribes of survivors fought over energy and gas to live and move. We are over 50 minutes in and there doesn’t seem to be any energy crisis. Judging by the electric motor sound of the Templar’s attack vehicles, I’m guessing they are electric but no mention about how they’re powered. Maybe they run on jizz.
Nadir is alone with Vinia, who apparently is the tribal whore. Although, her tasks are called the “deconcentration service.” But she doesn’t get much work since most the of the guys are already paired up and she has to work on her biorhythmic concentration. So in other words, she’s a lousy lay.
She says she’s originally from Dallas Five. I love how post-nuke flicks assume the human race is ultimately going to start from scratch and rename places and things. And again, the flick is alluding to the nuclear holocaust only happening less than a decade prior. Shit, we still use old Native names for our states from 400 years ago.
Vinia is explaining to Nadir who her tribe is and basically they are a religious cult that predicted the end of the world but her story confirmed that the nuclear holocaust was 9 years ago.
Yeah baby, deconcentrate me! Deconcentrate me so hard!
Did Nadir have to pay for his moment of deconcentration or did Vinia give him a free-bee?
In some angles the Templars uniforms look like Klaus Nomi’s tuxedo.
The inside roof of Scorpion’s car is covered in aluminum foil. Maybe it’s Jiffy Pop.
By now I thought they would give us some explanation to why Scorpion is called Scorpion but he doesn’t seem to have any Scorpion tattoos or any images of scorpions on his car or clothes. Christ, Ryan Gosling has more claim over the name Scorpion with his awesome jacket in Drive.
Maybe I should start to turn my Jeep into a post-nuke attack vehicle with guns, missiles, fan blades, lances, and other Spy Hunter style gadgets. It won’t be long before we all start fighting for gas and food.
The most boring futuristic car chase ever.
One captured Scorpion finally. And he tells him that he may not wanted to live as a Templar but he will die as one. Then One plunges a plastic knife down Scorpion’s backside and somehow pulls down Scorpion’s pants revealing his bare ass. Is this how all Templar’s are initiated? Like the Freemasons?
Shit. Is One going to rape Scorpion?
Did I ask too much, more than a lot? You gave me nothing, now it’s all I’ve got. We’re one, but we’re not the same. Well, we hurt each other, then we do it again.
I actually have zero clue what’s happening right now. Maybe the Shadow knows….
Dammit, he is going to rape him. Scorpion is tied up to a metal frame and his neck has a harness that is attached to a pulley that Shadow is now raising one his end, which is making Scorpion bend his waist down.
One is behind Scorpion with a crazed look in his eyes. But to be fair, George Eastman always has a crazed look in his eyes.

I feel like Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s Relax should be playing.
Oh good, One is interrupted by a Templar minion who tells him they discovered a new caravan of survivors. He leaves but tells other minions to finish Scorpion off—whatever that means.
35% of this film’s footage is silly slow driving electric cars buzzing around the wasteland.
Speaking of, I know it’s been 9 years but there’s an awful lot of greenery in this post-nuke wasteland. This is why you film armageddon flicks in Australia and not Tuscany.
Again, take your motherfucking time Nadir. Scorpion is only being tortured by being dragged around by motorbikes.
Scorpion again is having that kid fix his car.
Wait. What? Nadir just referred the Templars as the big bad queers. I mean, I can see that (the whole male rape thing kinda gave it away) but honestly, they could be gayer.
I glossed over this earlier but One always told his minions that only he could be the one to kill Scorpion and they should never harm him. But once he has the chance to finish off Scorpion he runs off to kill other survivors without a moment’s hesitation and leaves Scorpion high and dry with other minions that he told to finish him instead. One is one dumb villain.
While they wait for the kid to do something in his RV, Nadir harshly coaches Scorpion to quick draw his pistol. But when would Scorpion ever be in a gunslinging duel?
I think One is listening to some self-help audio books. Tony Robbins perhaps?
I love how flimsy this movie’s plot is. It’s basically 2 groups just fighting and killing each other. Over what? Nothing. No one has complained about gas shortages, money, food, medicine, clothing. One just wants to kill humans because we all suck.
The mechanic kid is the voice of reason when Scorpion refuses Nadir’s help in taking down One.
I think One is just fucking lazy. He preaches that the world is dead and everything human’s created and stood for is dead and there’s no more hope. But is he trying to be a solution—No!
“Punish those clods!” “It’s against the rules to interrupt me!” One sure is a stickler. Although he’s harder on his own men than the other survivors it seems.
It takes Shadow like 25 seconds to realize that the ‘clods” are dead when one of them clearly has an arrow in his chest.
This is it. The epic final battle. This is going to be epic!
Hahaha. One casually asks Scorpion why he’s here.
After 3 minutes of them staring at each other The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly style (mostly ugly), One finally tries to shoot Scorpion but Scorpion has on hidden armor.
Seriously, what is stopping One or Shadow from just slaughtering all these survivors right here and now instead of teasing and taunting Scorpion about them?
Heat gun?
OK, so Shadow does start randomly shooting some of the survivors but seems uneasy about it.
Shadow stupidly looks into a large pipe and Scorpion shoots his heat gun into the pipe effectively torching Shadow’s face!

I know we only have like 5 minutes remaining but who exactly are the new Barbarians exactly? All of them probably.
And now another mediocre car chase.
Don’t tell me that’s how One dies? During the car chase, Scorpion utilizes his car’s new feature of a long (very long) drill that he manages to stick right behind One’s seat and screws One as he drives.
Then One’s car quickly drifts over to the side of a mountain, crashes and explodes.
As Scorpion ambles toward the wreckage I finally got a good glimpse of his outfit and I’m speechless. Clear plastic armor over his naked chest with leather pants with a large cod piece. Bad fucking ass.
Well they manages to save some of the survivors. A win I guess.
At least Fred Williamson looks like he had fun in this picture. More than I can say.

What year?!: 2019

Who are the Enemies: Rogue band of psychotic nihilistic barbarians

What Happened to the Earth?: Nuclear Holocaust

Final Thoughts: A fun and dumb post-nuke Mad Max rip off. A spaghetti Mad Max if you will. However, it’s cheap, poorly written or executed and the action scenes are highly derivative. I shouldn’t waste too much time talking more about this silly yet forgettable flick. Don’t get me wrong—with the right audience—a drunk or stoned audience and you can have a lot of fun nitpicking all the poor decisions made in making this flick. For Giancarlo Prete fans and completists for sure.

Score: 3 (slow-ass moving Dreadnok Thunder Machines) (out of 10)