 "Photo: Molly Raskin")
There’s a reason I’m avoiding the barren wasteland of movie theaters this month, opting instead to hide out in a self-imposed Netflix bunker. With (count them) three schlock-filled post-apocalyptic blockbusters clogging up the cinematic market (Legion, Daybreakers and The Book of Eli), right now seems like a great time to stay at home and work on the old queue. As an unrepentant sci-fi fan, I’m by no means knocking the genre. It is, after all, the genre that brought us Mad Max and Planet of the Apes. I’ve simply had my fill of doomsday lately.
For me, The Road was enough end-of-days entertainment for one winter. This Cormac McCarthy adaptation by the up-and-coming Australian director John Hillcoat of The Proposition, incidentally one of my favorite movies, was certainly bleak and slow-paced, but nevertheless managed to be one of the best and most gorgeously shot movies of 2009. More recently, I gave Daybreakers a chance, but I’ve never seen a movie that more solidly fits in the “meh, that was alright” category. Nevertheless, this current glut of over- the -top doomsday flicks does give me the perfect excuse to drop a gerrymandered list of actually worthwhile films onto you, dear readers.
So, submitted for your approval, here are five (or so) of the wackiest, weirdest or most overlooked post-apocalyptic movies, tailor-made to get the open-minded, B-curious movie-viewer through this bleak winter:
A Boy and His Dog (1975) — In the ’70s, B-movies could apparently get away with anything, and though misanthropic and more than a little misogynistic, this quintessentially campy story of a horny teenaged orphan and his telepathic dog is definitely worth watching. It’s like Mad Max only witty, and with more gratuitous nudity. The tagline says it all: A Boy and His Dog is “a rather kinky tale of survival” that has since become a cult classic. This film was the result of an odd collaboration between sci-fi writer Harlan Ellison and actor L.Q. Jones (veteran villain of several Sam Peckinpah films) who actually manages to direct a coherent and comedic take on this heavy-handed, Cold War genre. Despite the film’s sociopathic subtext, Jones shows that the apocalypse can be a blast, especially if you have a wisecracking telepathic dog.
The Last Man on Earth (1964) and The Omega Man (1971) — Okay, it may be a bit awkward to throw these two very different movies together, but there’s some method to my madness. Both are the predecessors of 2007’s I Am Legend and are based on the 1954 Robert Matheson book of the same name. In The Last Man on Earth, Vincent Price plays Robert Neville, the last living human who is besieged by zombie-vampires who taunt him mercilessly and fumble helplessly around his doors Night of the Living Dead-style. In Omega Man, post-apocalyptic go-to action hero Charlton Heston battles camp-tastic ghouls in the same role. The Omega Man is somewhat quicker-paced than the dated and talky Vincent Price version, with motorcycle chases and an inter-racial romance thrown into the mix. Nevertheless, Vincent Price easily out-acts both Heston and Smith. As always, stick with the original.
Six String Samurai (1998) — Though I admittedly haven’t seen it, this no-budget homage to spaghetti westerns may have my all-time favorite premise. After a ’50s nuclear showdown only the town of Lost Vegas remains standing, but The King (Elvis) is dying, leaving a power-vacuum in which a spectacle-wearing, sword-swinging loner named Buddy must fill.
On the way, he will fight a bowling team of assassins, pick up a kid and meet with Death itself. Does this make any sense? No. Am I behind any movie that uses the end of the world as an excuse to combine rockabilly and Kung Fu? Hell yes. If you somehow have a copy, come find me.
Tank Girl (1995) — Only the success of Sin City could redeem comic adaptations from the manic day-glow disaster that was Tank Girl, a gun-happy MTV vision of life after government. This still remains one of the weirdest (and most annoying) films to ever come out of the ’90s. For example, Ice T makes an appearance as a kangaroo-mutant. It also features a young Naomi Watts and an aging Malcolm MacDowell (A Clockwork Orange), as well as some of the worst girl-power one-liners you’ll hear outside of Spice World. I saw this movie as a kid, and I’m still baffled by it. First of all, who was the intended audience for this mess? The only group I can think of is post-punk feminists with gun fetishes and speed habits. I think Ebert said it best when he felt “worn down” after this movie. You could exhaust yourself by watching the trailer.
The Stand (1994) —The Stand, despite the handicap of being a TV miniseries, was far from bad, or at least as far as Stephen King adaptations go. It was certainly well done enough for me to unapologetically count it as a movie. Besides, it starred some mid-’90s big-hitters like Rob Lowe and Gary Sinise. With its gigantic cast of characters, Biblical sub-text and a disturbingly logical modern apocalypse (a biological weapons accident involving the flu), it’s surprising but encouraging that an ambitious novel like The Stand ever made it to screens at all. Too bad it never made it to the big one, as intended. Although The Stand could stand a little more nuance behind its obvious good-versus-evil conflict, this four-episode, six-hour epic is one of the most underrated gems of the post-Apocalyptic genre, as well as the Stephen King canon.
(Dis)honorable mentions — Because I promised B-movies let me throw a few names at you: Beneath the Planet of the Apes, Robot Monster, Hell Comes to Frogtown and Larry Clark’s Teenage Caveman. Be warned, some of these make Tank Girl look positively coherent and the latter makes A Boy and His Dog look as tame as a Pixar movie.
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