Duelos Mortais

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.

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.

Wow, this is italian exploitation flicks at it's best. Guess this one came because of the post-apocalyptic hype after "Escape from New York" and "Mad Max", and got stuff like "Rollerball" also in it. Of course it's an awful movie full of missing links. But here is simply no need for explanations, this question would be stupid. It's the full atmosphere of 80ies italo exploitation thrash: good explosions (gas!gas!gas! - nothing digital! I reminisce in nostalgica), crazy overacted characters, some bare breasts, a setting full of cheap dirt. Those movies are so honest in their cheasiness and roughness, I love 'em. - And the eighties were best! Italy full ahead! A pitty the video-market got down and what is left is filled by the majors with hollywood-cheapos exploiting themselves with their own cheap ripp-offs which have no life of it's own; a pity, no good exploitation-scene nowadays...

And hey, wow, this one has them all in it: Joe d'Amato, Al Cliver, Laura Gemser, Michele Soavi and George Eastmen. - A Fest! Gets a nerdish 7 out of 10!

A grizzled veteran of a futuristic battle game who is undefeated for 22 matches, is hired by a group of telepathic humans to take them to a safer location out of New York where they won't be persecuted. He gets together a band of five skilled warriors to act as their bodyguards, and they set out on the trail. Along the way, they have various encounters with perverted mutants and blind warriors, along with a army general and his platoon who is determined to find out just what the hell is going on. Can anyone save these poor bedraggled creatures from a life in a laboratory? Their saviour may yet turn out to be (surprise, surprise) a five year old boy with an extraordinary talent.

You can either take 'Endgame' one of two ways: as a reasonably effective post-nuke thriller with passable action scenes and a half-decent plot, or as a laugh a minute B-movie filled to the brim with laughable dialogue and bad special effects. Either way, it works. Me? I sit somewhere in the middle, there were some moments where I got quite involved in the action, and others where I could have almost slapped my forehead at the cheesiness of the whole affair. (Best moment: Our hero says goodbye to his sort-of girlfriend at the end with a true howler of a line: "Lillith, look inside me. You are the future, I am the past!" YUCK! Suddenly he doesn't seem to tough..) It certainly isn't a masterpiece but if you take the film for what it is I'll bet you'll find it quite enjoyable. There is just one thing that confuses me though..

One battalion of mutants that accost our protagonists on their way deserves further discussion. To all intents and purposes, they look the same as any other bunch of freaks: tattered clothing, old-fashioned weapons, inability to speak proper English. But check this out: mounted on their leader's tank like a couple of war trophies is TWO TOPLESS GIRLS. Now, usually this wouldn't be a problem, I love a bit of random nudity. But these ladies are UGLY. The kind that originated the phrase Coyote Ugly. (You know, when you'd chew your own leg off to get out of bed with them..) You'd think being the boss of these mutants he would have his pick out of a million pretty ladies, and he chooses those two trollops. Unbelievable. The radiation from his mutation must have fried his brain. Anyway, just thought I'd get that off my chest.

What? You're wondering why I bothered wasting a whole paragraph on that? Listen sister, this is my review, and if I wanted to discuss the Stock Exchange while discussing the finer points of E.T, it's my decision. SO THERE! *Blows raspberry at invisible critic and walks off in a huff* 5/10

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.