Directed by Joe D’mato, Endgame (1983) is another Italian rip-off post-apocalypse movie and much like Lucio Fulci’s Warriors of the Year 2072, it’s about televised death sports, preempting The Running Man movie, though more than likely copying Rollerball. While not as stylish or gory as Fulci’s film, I enjoyed Endgame more. It spends 30 minutes in the world of ‘Endgame’, where three hunters chase a target through abandoned factories, a pursuit beamed to the masses that are left alive in a post-nuclear war existence.
I loved that all the contestants put on a dash of glam-rock make-up, reminiscent of Bowie or KISS but on the budget of a birthday party face-painting class. The movie eventually gets bored of Endgame as a focus. Our hero, the Endgame champion played by Al Civeris, agrees to deliver a group of mutants with psychic powers, led by Laura Gesmer, to a safe zone, recruiting a band of mercenaries to help escort them through wasteland gangs who alternate between new wave punker looks or animal faced mutations. There’s enough action to keep things humming along, and it’s fun to see how the post-apocalypse Mad Max sub-genre could house previously popular Italian genres like westerns or war movies.
As the Snake Plissken/Mad Max knock-off hero, I enjoyed Al Civeris. Some might say he’s a bit stiff, but I liked that he looked annoyed and sullen, like a coworker stuck at a social event he wants no part of. I loved the parts of the score that completely ripped off Vangelis’ Blade Runner soundtrack. A familiar face to Italian genre movies, George Eastman is also in there, as the most competitive hunter in the game, who becomes a begrudging ally when the movie shifts into Escape from New York mode. Every ten minutes, there’s some action or weird bits of business to make this a fun post-apocalyptic time.
Streamed on Tubi (US).
VHS Tracking 