El imperio de Ash

In a post-apocalyptic future, a virus has destroyed much of the population. In New Idaho, commander Baalca leads her group in kidnapping and collecting fertile young healthy women. The Shepherd leads the ruthless campaign to kill non-believers. Danielle convinces drifter Orion to help her rescue her younger sister from these marauders.

This is low-budget amateurish effort. The acting is horrible. The lead actress' best move may be taking her top off. There are lots of fun badly-filmed stunts. The dialog is badly written when they actually have any. The editing and directions are probably the weakest part of the movie. There are some good campy aspects to this movie. They put in lots of guns, trucks, crashes and stunts. It's low grade Mad Max wannabe. The effort is there but it's a bit of a mess.

Empire of Ash was released as Empire of Ash 2 a year later, i just bought the vid at a boot sale. Genius! think of the money they saved...

Actually i think a good effort, looks like budget didn't stretch to employing any great actors, but the film focuses on action mainly anyhow so they may not have been given an opportunity to shine. The directing is probably not the best you're ever going to see but again budget may have influenced this and overall feels and looks like a student film. However some of the plot was very well thought out, the concepts behind the two rival groups brilliant, and the music (although some a bit derivative, think ZZ Top) and big hair superb!

In your typical post-apocalyptic drama, we have mutated survivors and men dressed in rags sparring off against each other. They drive around in big trucks, swear a lot and take orders from scantly clad ladies with massive fringes. If anybody is captured, they have the white blood cells and bone marrow literally sucked out of them to preserve the lives of the people at the top. The heroine is a young woman who goes on a journey to save her sister from this terrible fate. She is a bit handy with a gun, and picks up a mysterious hunk on the way, with whom she shares an obligatory sex scene (after the obligatory shower scene, of course). There is lots of bullets flying around, some very unconvincing explosions, plenty of incoherent dialogue and a mad preacher guy who baptizes, then kills you. Viewer gets bored around the hour mark, removes cassette from VCR and throws it across the room. Want to know the end? Waste your own time.. 2/10

Empire of has a lot going for it at first glance. Plenty of action, lots of guns, lots of armour clad vehicles, topless girls, rock soundtrack and plenty of extras. The direction is decent for the most part too in a TV movie style.

The main problem is that the story is disjointed at best, completely absent for the most part. It feels like at some parts, the film makers actually forgot what the plot was, so they through in a few minutes of topless girls to distract the viewer long enough to pick up wherever they liked. The acting is atrocious for the most part. It's unclear who the lead characters are and the dialogue makes no sense. None of these things would usually put me off, but this one is just too difficult to actually be convinced at any level.

There are some excellent action scenes mixed in with some ridiculously poor action which is a real shame.

There seems to be two lead female characters both of whom get their kit off which seems sensible. Then there are a number of other characters who's characters are not really developed enough to really get a grasp of. There is a religious element thrown in which really is very vague and half hearted.

It has a similar vibe to Death Run which I reviewed a few months back for UKfilms net. But where Death Run succeeded on a pocket money budget, Empire of Ash fails. The production value of Empire of Ash is miles better than Death Run, the make-up is not dissimilar but its clear that there was a costume designer involved in this one.

To sum it up I would have to say that it looks good, the sets, costumes and props are good. The leafy locations are not so great and the lack of any decent plot let it down massively.

This is the film that was infamously re-released a year later as its own sequel, therefore doubling the revenue. This trick doesn't surprise me, as EMPIRE OF ASH is one of the most wretched films I've seen in a while. I'm a big fan of post-apocalypse movies, but this incredibly awful movie is even worse than the schlocky Filipino 'epic', CLASH OF THE WARLORDS. One reason for this may be that EMPIRE OF ASH was filmed in Canada. Funny, you don't really think of Canada as a place to stage a post-apocalypse epic. America, yes; Great Britain, yes; Italy, of course; the Philippines, South Africa, both yes. Canada? As expected, this is a zero budget 'adventure' that takes place out in the woods somewhere, as a few good people fight against a few evil people in the most routine, predictable and unexciting ways imaginable.

This film ticks all the boxes: awful acting, awful directing, nothing in the way of special effects other than a couple of blood squibs; rubbish looking vehicles and costumes, terrible pacing, no discernible plot, unfunny comedy, and a boring climax. It looks incredibly cheap, but even a high quality version would have been abominable. Usually when I watch poor films I try to find things I like, but there was nothing here. Not even a cheesy shower scene helps. The cast are amateurish in the extreme and the fight scenes nonsensical. It's home movie night through and through and it's a film difficult not to fall asleep through. Amazingly, a proper sequel – EMPIRE OF ASH III – followed, so somebody somewhere must have liked it... but why?