NEW BARBARIANS, THE

aka I nuovi barabari (I), Warriors of the Wasteland (US), Les nouveaux barbares (Fr), Metropolis 2000 (WG)
1982
Italy
Deaf International Film
Director: Enzo G. Castellari [Enzo Girolami]
Story: Tito Carpi
Screenplay: Tito Carpi, Enzo Castellari
Cinematography: Fausto Zuccoli {Cinescope}
Music: Claudio Simonetti
Editor: Gianfranco Amicucci
Art director: Antonio Visone
Original running length: 90 mins
Release information: Italy (Registered 07.03.83), France (Paris, 09.05.84 - 90'), Germany (10.06.83 - 84'), US (1983 - 91')
Cast: Timothy Brent [Giancarlo Prete] (Skorpion), Fred Williamson (Nadir), George Eastman [Luigi Montefiore] (One), Anna Kanakis (Alma), Thomas Moore [Enio Girolami] (Shadow)
Uncredited: Venantino Venantini (Moses), Massimo Vanni (Mako), Giovanni Frezza (the young mechanic), Enzo G. Castellari, Iris Peynado (Vinya), Andrea Coppola (Mako’s friend), Vito Fornari, Andrea Girolami, Stefania Girolami (the radio operator), Mark Gregory, Patsy May McLachlan, Fulvio Mingozzi, Paul Costello (Whizz)

You can buy this film from Amazon.co.uk

This film is something of a bete-noire to me. Whilst discussing it recently with some friends, it suddenly dawned that I'd probably seen it far, far more than any single other film that I happen to own on video. Well, let me qualify that: I’ve seen the beginning of this film far, far more than any other film that I happen to own on video. Unfortunately, the ending of the film has proved somewhat more elusive. The story goes something like this: I go out to the pub, drink a sensible amount of alcohol, get home, my wife goes to bed, and I stagger around putting on a video. And more often than not, the video that goes on is The New Barbarians. And more often than not, I have fallen asleep before the first half-hour has passed.

What also became clear during the course of these aforementioned discussions is that such a routine is not confined to just me; it seems to be worryingly common. Worldwide, there are hundreds of people who have spent what is frankly an obscene amount of time watching this film whilst on the verge of unconsciousness. So I decided to sit down, bite the bullet, watch the whole damned thing - whilst sober, no less – and write a review. The things I do for you.

UK video cover for The New Barbarians

The plot goes something like this: after a nuclear holocaust, the world has seemingly shrunk to become a skeleton-littered quarry on the outskirts of Rome. The main occupants of said quarry are numerous badly dressed travelers, desperately seeking some kind of civilization. Unfortunately, they generally find ‘the Templars’, a bunch of even more badly dressed homosexuals who drive around on customized beach buggies. The leader of these goons is an ugly dude called ‘One’ (George Eastman), who is much given to ripping up bibles and proclaiming: ‘the world is dead… it raped itself!’

Also pottering around, and marginally better dressed, is Skorpion (Timothy Brent), your habitual ‘lone hero’ (who is hardly ever alone). Skorpion – who seems to have had some previous connection to the Templars – manages to antagonize ‘One’ even further by killing his favorite sidekick, and things soon escalate into an out-and-out war. This rapidly also comes to involve a commune of pacifists (‘who believe in something called…God’) and Nadir (Fred Williamson), a dude with a quiver full of explosive arrows and a fine moustache.

Of course, all myths – whether set in the past, the present or the future - require their hero to experience despair in order to triumph, and things don’t immediately go Skorpion’s way. After being captured, he finds himself forcibly, achem, initiated into the ways of the Templars; but he manages to escape, overcome his uncomfortable injuries and turn up for a final showdown.

Being an Enzo Castellari film, The New Barbarians is – despite its many failings – a fast moving and not joyless experience. Idiotic it may be, but boring it is not. Cheap it certainly is, but dull it definitely isn’t. There are an awful lot of stunts, an awful lot of pyrotechnics (often involving multiple body parts) and more action than you could shake a cat at. It’s not badly filmed, with the director throwing in plenty of his trademark slow motion, but nothing can help it overcome it’s main hindrance: being entirely and inescapably stupid. Castellari’s Bronx Warriors films were hardly the epitome of intellectualism, but this is something else entirely. A lot of this idiocy derives from the general paucity of the budget; the sets are laughable and costumes preposterous, not unlike a cheaper episode of Blake’s 7. It’s very difficult to take a bunch of stuntmen with exaggerated shoulder pads zooming around on souped up golf-carts seriously, whether filmed at double speed or not.

Giancarlo Prete	George Eastman
Anna Kanakis	Giovanni Prezza

People often make a connection between the post-apocalypse films and the spaghetti western, and that is certainly the case here. As well as throwing in a couple of Sergio Leone references – a dope smoking villain (For A Few Dollars More (Per qualche dollaro in più, 65)) and a body armor climax (Fistful of Dollars (Per un pugno di dollari, 65)) – this also seems to be a cheapjack attempt on the part of Castellari to remake his own Keoma (76). As in that film you have: a hero who is simultaneously a part of and apart from the villainous ‘gang’; a black archer as an accomplice; a mysterious female who awakens the hero’s humanity; and a group of handy victims (the plague sufferers in that film, the pacifists here). And that’s before you even start considering the reams of hilariously portentous dialogue and an irritatingly enjoyable soundtrack.

Fortunately, you can’t help but feel that the filmmakers weren’t treating their material with the utmost seriousness (as witnessed by Castellari’s own estimation of the film as ‘…total rubbish’). And well they might not; when it comes down to it, the script is about a bunch of psychotic homosexuals who want to eliminate the human race because they feel a bit piqued. In other words, it’s so half-witted you could almost mistake it for high-concept.

Some of the performances aren’t bad. Thomas Moore is quite effective and George Eastman gives a trademark gonzoid performance. In fact, the most interesting part of the film is the interplay between these two old hands, and it’s very difficult to ascertain the exact nature of the relationship between their characters. Both of them also sport very strange wigs, but poor old Massimo Vanni wins the silly haircut award, looking like nothing so much as a new wave parsnip.

Matt B