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Based on the reputation of director Joe D'Amato, who's primarily known for an endless number of pornography movies and perverted exploitation flicks, and a shallow first look at the VHS cover and stills, I was expecting "Endgame" to be an extremely low-keyed and virtually worthless piece of Italian 80's trash but I'm glad to announce that it actually is a pleasantly engaging Post-Apocalyptically themed Sci-Fi experience. It's a piece of 80's trash nevertheless, of course, but one of the most enjoyable kinds. "Endgame" belongs in the extended category of Italian produced "Escape from NY" knockoffs and it can easily compete with the most successful and notorious accomplishments in there, like Sergio Martino's "After the Fall of New York", Ruggero Deodato's "The Atlantis Interceptors", Lucio Fulci's "The Fighting Centurions" and Enzo G. Castellari's "The New Barbarians". These titles probably don't mean anything to 'normal' film lovers, but to true fans of Italian exploitation cinema they form an excellent source of comparison. The main story lines are very familiar and D'Amato isn't too ashamed to add in one clichéd plot twist after the other, but the film is extremely fast-paced, spectacular and indescribably violent, so who really cares about originality? Al Cliver plays a terrific Snake Plissken clone, but the show is obviously stolen by the almighty George Eastman as the arch enemy. It's the years 2025 and everybody eagerly awaits the new edition of a popular TV show, called "Endgame", in which a couple of bloodthirsty hunters go after a human prey. Ron Shannon wins the game, but only thanks to the help of the telepathically gifted mutant Lilith (D'Amato muse Laura Gemser). The government systematically exterminates all the mutants, and thus Shannon swears to help Lilith and her other mutant friends flee out of the city. Along with a troop of recruited mercenaries, Shannon guides them out of town but the group successively encounters hugely challenging ordeals like a community of blind cannibalistic monks (a splendid homage to "The Omega Man" perhaps?), an army of bewildered mutants and Nazi-like government soldiers. "Endgame" is glorious and priceless 80's entertainment like they just don't make it anymore. The battling sequences are extended and body count is enormous, with literally hundreds of bad guys and the occasional good guy dying left and right and in highly imaginative ways. In spite of the obviously low-budgeted production values, D'Amato managed to gather together some excellently apt set pieces and flamboyant vehicles and even the make-up effects are far above average. Director Joe D'Amato stated that this is his own personal favorite of all the movies he directed, and he's probably right although I personally have even bigger soft spots for "Anthropophagus" and "Beyond the Darkness". This is somewhat also a very atypical D'Amato film and that's a positive comment. For once, he could keep his viewers alert and fascinated with actually content instead of through showing nudity and sleaze. I mean, Laura Gemser stars in this film and she barely takes her clothes off! George Eastman also stars and he doesn't even attempt to rape a woman! This is just a perfectly entertaining Italian post-apocalyptic Sci-Fi movie with all the necessary ingredients: action, bloodshed, gimmicks, costumes, silliness and a terrific freeze-frame end shot.

Despite the slow-going and uninteresting first half, ENDGAME really picks up when a group of telepaths and mercenaries hired to guard them leave in a caravan to escape the city. The group's adventures in the wasteland are quite entertaining, beginning with an exciting low-budget battle sequence when a huge force of blind cultists with a vast array of odd weapons attack. Naturally, these blind types aren't the best at aim (or tactics) and are summarily mown town in waves much like ZULU or THE ALAMO. However, this scene alone is quite funny and stands out as a reason to see this movie above most of the rest of Post-apocalyptic dirge the Italians flooded out in the early 80's to capitalize off of MAD MAX 2.

Lots of cool shootouts, lots of cheesy gore and makeup, and a lot of silly dialog make this movie a winner for fans of Italian C-movies. On top of that, the cast is hard to beat with an odd assortment of Spaghetti Western, Polizioteschi, and Sexploitation movie veterans not seeming too out of their element wearing goofy costumes and fighting each other in the same abandoned rock quarry. Massacessi, who began and ended his career making smut, had a brief period in the 80's where he really tried hard to make non-lowest-common-denominator-type movies largely on his own under his Filmirage company (of which this film is one of the first and best examples). Eventually though the law of diminishing returns took hold and one of the company's final productions would be the legendarily noxious TROLL 2.

This film is pretty hard to find though, which is a bit of a shame, as with a cleaned up transfer may play a little better than the gritty old VHS tape.

My review was written in January 1986 after watching the movie on Cinemax.

"Endgame" is a rather weak entry in the crowded post-WW III series of Italian action films made circa 1983. Emanating from the Helen Sarlui pic stable (though she does not take a screen credit), item was mulled for a while as a New Line theatrical release but went instead to pay-tv and home video.

Misleading opening reel establishes a tv game in the year 2012 called "Endgame", quite similar to Robert Sheckley's concept used in the classic "The Tenth Victim" (and recently updated in another Italian pic, "The Final Executioner"). Al Cliver toplines as a successful warrior in the killing game who is recruited by a telepathic mutant Lilith (Laura Gemser) to help her band of mutants leave the city (where they are subject to extermination by storm trooper-styled soldiers) to set up a new community.

The tv game is over in 20 minutes, with the remainder of the film given over to fights en route to delivering the mutants. Action scenes are perfunctory, with none of the thrills to the model for this genre, "The Road Warrior".

Given the poor dubbing of these pictures, "Endgame" benefits from its telepathy gimmick, which allows many dialog scenes to have staring faces with no lips moving as the thoughts are voiced-over on the soundtrack. Acting is stilted, with the ubiquitous husband-and-wife team of Laura Gemser and Gabriele Tinti both credited with different "real" names, Moira Chen and Gus Stone, respectively. Freeze-frame non-ending is poor.

This was not as bad I expected...

The first half of this film is very boring and it is suitable to use the fast forwarding on your remote, because the last half is so much better. You can see easily that the budget for this film has been very low, but the action scenes actually work rather well. The post-WW3 vehicles are creatively constructed from existing cars and motorbikes. The car with no doors is my favorite. I wonder where they get all the gas and spare parts for those things in a destroyed world?

The acting isn't so bad. The telepath girl looks good and carries her role very well. The only scene of her I laughed out loud was that where a telepath makes a big stone floating up. You can easily spot the wire holding the styrofoam-stone in the air, it's just so goofy.

I gave this 5/10.

I really don't like using the word "cheesy", but it seems to be the one that applies best here. "Endgame" is likely to be picked up only by post-apocalyptic fantasy fans, or Joe D'Amato completists. So what do they have to look forward to? Some good ideas (the hero at one point acknowledges that men like him, living by their fists and guns are "the past"), some cliched ideas (the hunting game that's the most popular show on TV, the "Magnificent Seven"-type enlisting of the hero's sidekicks), and some weird ideas about telepathy: apparently the hero is not telepathic, and he can't read people's minds, yet he can communicate telepathically with a "gifted" woman. Get it? (*1/2)