"Deathsport"

I have seen the future, and it is DVD.

I guess the first thing that caught my eye about DVD wasn't the superior imaging, the lack of being a recordable media, or the superior audio (trying playing a stereo DVD player on a mono TV sometime) but rather the extras.  Said extras being second/third audio tracks offering commentary by either 1) people who made the film, 2) people who acted in the film, or 3) people who have studied the film.  While just a curate's egg to most people, to critics like myself it offers quite an insight.  Not the insight in what the three kinds of people above have to say, but what they say when they say it.  Namely if they had a foot in reality when they were making their film or their cocaine was not strong enough.

But we don't have to worry about that:  "Deathsport" or it's cousin, "Death Race 2000," do not offer any commentary track in their current releases, courtesy of New Horizons Home Video.  In fact, this is one spectacular case where the DVD is missing something that the VHS edition isn't:  the interview between Leonard Maltin and Roger Corman (who made this film) where Corman fesses up to the fact that "Deathsport" ain't that good.  And when you compare it to it's main reason for existence, the success of "Death Race 2000," it's even more pathetic.

So, that didn't put me in a good mood off the bat.

"Deathsport" started off right after the success of "Death Race 2000," the film that Roger Corman produced and Paul Bartel directed.  Fortunately, it was more of Bartel's success:  his dark humor added a certain spice to a basically action plot.  Sure, you can run people over, but can you do it while mocking the then-subtle intruding media and humanity itself?  No, they couldn't.  So, as "Death Race" took it's place in Sci-Fi's Hall of Fame, Corman went to do a 'sequel' of sorts.  Since there was really no reason to continue in the same storyline, another story was written.  Instead of neat cars massacring people, it was turned into motorcycles.  Or rather, Destructo-Cycles.  Meaning that you paint some cardboard silver, glue some gun barrels and pointless lights to it, and foley in jet fighter noises.  Good idea, right?

Wrong.  Cause you can't fill ninety minutes with strictly Destructo-Cycles and death.  So the story is full of melodrama that hasn't been seen since the days of Flash Gordon and an uneasy mix of mysticism that is truly out of place in a futuristic world.  That is one piece of advice I can offer those who want to write science fiction:  DO NOT MIX FUTURISTIC SCIENCE FICTION WITH MYSTICISM.  I can believe in magic, I can believe in advanced science.  But if you mix the two you don't have anything to balance their effects with.  Can a killer robot battle effectively against telekinesis or a book of spells?  Plus, you have to add some more background into how the magic works and it's weaknesses.  Just saying it comes from nowhere in a world which everything (science) is EXPLAINABLE makes it even more of a copout. In finale:  please, future writers, don't mix magic with science fiction.  It makes you look like a hack.

Anyway, "Deathsport" tries to do this.  In this future world, there exists only two Cities:  Helix City and Tritan.  Tritan is the free Utopian city which everything is happy, and Helix City is where the despotic Lord Zirpola reigns.  Helix City also holds the Deathsport, which is the equal of the Roman Coliseum.   Instead of lions, they have soldiers on DESTRUCTO-CYCLES which make short work of the prisoners (those being against the Lord, duh).  Okay, everyone caught up?  This is the science fiction part.

The mysticism part is the Range Guides.  The Range Guides are the Jedi of this picture who are the honorable do-gooders who travel alone and offer their services as guides through the holocaustic wasteland.   In fact, Jedi is the best way to put it.  In fact, this could be considered a Grade-A ripoff of "Star Wars," which was made a year previous.  This is emphasized by the fact that the Range Guides carry this huge crystal swords which they use as their primary weapon.  In fact, their swords remind me of the "Visionaries," a forgotten toy line from the '80s which were these action figures that had holograms in their chest which showed what they could morph into.  Not the figure itself, but the character, because in the cartoon they could actually turn into their respective animal.  Sorta like "Manimal," but with a medieval setting. Of course, the Visionaries flopped because no kid can pretend their figure is a bear if they have to hold it at a certain angle in the light.   It sorta blows the mood if your action figures have to have an extra lamp.

Anyway, the Range Guides are like the Jedi.  They're mystics, and have powers as such.  Why?  Who knows, really.

The movie starts out with Kaz Oshay (David Carradine in a loincloth, EWW!!) being captured by Ankor Moor (Richard Lynch).  Both of these men are Range Guides.  Ankar was hunting Kaz because he killed Kaz's mother, supposedly the Greatest Range Guide to Have Ever Lived.  Apparently NOT good enough.  So, Ankar takes Kaz to Helix City to dispose of him and the threat of having that knife in his back.

Meanwhile, another Range Guide Deneer (played by Claudia Jennings) is leading a group of people or survivors to Tritan and FREEDOM before they are attacked by Helix City Guards for probably running or just being on Helix City land.  Anyway, the group is captured and taken to Helix City.  Kaz and Deneer are lucky enough to have cells opposite of each other.  This is where Kaz formally learns of his mother's death at the hands of Ankar Moor.  Who, is lucky enough to be second hand man of Lord Zirpola!!  WOW!!  Sorta like "Star Wars,"  if Zirpola was the Emperor and Ankar was Darth Vader!  WOW!!  What a coincidence!

Anyway, Kaz and the others try to escape and gets shot down.  Deneer is also tortured for her part in it by being forced to walk naked through a dark room with flashing bars which cause pain.  At least I think they cause pain.  Hell, for all I know they might be twenty-two degrees Fahrenheit metal which wouldn't be that pleasant to have slammed into your naked body.   But honestly, this is the part in the movie where Corman told Claudia Jennings to earn her paycheck.  Which is sad, really:  Ms. Jennings does have a nice body but it's played for such exploitative purposes......UGH.  That sums it up nicely.  UGH UGH UGH.

But at least it's not David Carradine in the altogether.  Shudder Factor: Eleven out of Ten, tops.  EWWWW!!!

Kaz is tortured by Ankar Moor who is determined to end this movie in a bucket.  Seriously, what kind if idiot kills a guy's mother, tortures the guy and leaves the guy alive JUST so said guy WON'T kill him?  What's the point in that??  Either way, after their escape attempt, the Helix City guards just throws Kaz, Deneer, and two other nameless guys who were in the Tritan group into the same cell.  Deneer reminds the audience that Range Guides are mystics by healing his back.   Of course, I could blame the stupidity of throwing all four of the heroes in the same cell to the Lord Zirpola subplot which explains the Lord has this brain disease that will cause him to lose his sanity and eventually die.  But I won't, since this subplot is so pointless.  All it means is that Ankar will ice the Lord and take over Helix City.  There.  The shock has ended.  Rejoice.

Anyway, Kaz and Deneer are forced to go into the Deathsport.  Now the irony here is that anyone who is the last alive in the Deathsport wins their freedom.  This makes Ankar look even MORE stupid:  why would you piss off this guy who's mother is dead at your own hand, torture him, then place him in a situation that he is (supposedly) more than ready for AND that offers him the opportunity to escape?  Seriously, did this idiot just cheat his way through Range Guide school or what??  Geez!!

So, predictably, Ankar goes after Kaz and Deneer with a gaggle of Guards, determined to return to his own Helix City triumphant with the body of Kaz.  Okay, maybe he's obsessed, but that doesn't explain why he placed Kaz in that position in the first place.   Anyway, the movie degrades into a bunch of stunts around this point.  To make it short:  Kaz and Deneer fight a lot of guys, killing them with a bunch of neat guns that cause them to vanish into thin air in the only real special effect in the movie.   Kaz tells Deneer to take the group of people she has found to Tritan and fulfill that obligation while Kaz defeats the rest of the Destructo-Cycled Guards and faces the Idiot Ankar Moor on the outskirts of Tritan.  Personally,  I think that comparison I made to Darth Vader I made earlier was sorely mistaken.  I think Ankar Moor would have a hard time outwitting Pee Wee Herman.  In fact, I can see that now:  "Deathsport 2: Pee Wee's Big Adventure."  Cause you see, Pee Wee has this neato bike and if him and Ankar got a Destructo-Bike......

Oh, forget it.

Anyway, Kaz and Ankar fight for about three minutes before Kaz beheads Ankar, putting him out of my misery.  After absorbing Ankar's spirit into his body, Kaz shouts "There can only be one!" and paves the way for Roger Corman to successfully sue the creators of "Highlander."

No, wait.

What really happens is that Kaz beheads Ankar and meets Deneer on horseback.  Deciding that they should forge "a Union" which in our language means "You wanna go steady?" or "Wanna fuck" or "Wanna get married?," Kaz decides they should stick together.  And as the two and a girl on horseback rides off (I skimmed over her role, it ain't that important and I don't care), the credits end and all this '70s sappiness flower-child shit ends with synthesized music and the credits that identify Grateful Dead Guitarist Jerry Garcia has having some part in the music of this movie.

If you watch the movie closely, you will notice that they use the same matte shot for the Deathsport arena as they do for the New York Memorial Racetrack in "Death Race 2000."   It's sorta that shot that can be seen at the beginning of the old "Buck Rogers" show with Gil Gerard AND the beginning of "Dollman" AND the beginning of that weird syndicated sitcom of the '80s called "Out of This World" which is the only known celluloid evidence that Donna Pescow actually existed.   A neat fact.

RATING:  It's cheesy in only a way a film from the '70s can be:  an improper meshing of science fiction and mysticism that neither really accomplishes either.  The costumes are rivaled only by a bad episode of Doctor Who and the nude scenes are probably the only parts of this movie you will watch as it rots on your bookshelf.  It's corny, it's cheesy, but it provides quite an interesting addendum to the production of "Death Race 2000."  And, damn it, I love it strictly as a time waster.  Two and a half stars out of four, and possibly more if you're searching for audio-visual evidence on hygiene for women of the 1970s.

Sadly, Claudia Jennings (who provided most of the entertainment of this flick) was killed shortly afterwards.  Such a waste.  I believe she had quite a career ahead of her.  R.I.P.