Le monde des maudits

Land of Doom definitely has one of the better titles going for it in recent cinematic history, but that's about all it can muster.

Take your normal plot. Let's use some symbolism, and have it be a puppy. During the movie, you watch the puppy grow. There are exciting parts, like when the puppy chases some squirrels around, or sad parts, where the puppy whizzes on your favorite Duran Duran album. By the end of the movie, the puppy has become an adult dog, hopefully soon to spawn other puppies, AKA sequels.

Land of Doom, unlike a normally aging dog, is basically a set of drunk dogs, wandering aimlessly, bumping into walls, and not only whizzing on your Duran Duran albums, but also the Mona Lisa and all vestiges of modern civilization. By the end, instead of a healthy, happy dog whom you love, you're stuck with a brain dead puppy who is busy chewing off its own tail. Pathetic, yes. But that's Land of Doom.

Don't see this movie. Seriously, it just wants your soul. I mean, it doesn't even actually end. You know how a movie reaches the point where you know the big climatic fight is about to begin? In Land of Doom, that moment arrives, the heroes run away, roll credits. Thanks, movie!

Slight redeeming factor: Jawas. There are Jawas in this film. Also, the end theme is so the exact opposite of a titular song for this movie that it has to be heard to be believed.

Rating 1/10 - My eyes! My poor eyes!

In a sort of Sweeded version of the Mad Max films, Harmony (who really dislikes being touched) and Anderson roam the Turkey landscape chased by an insipid ragtag group of post-apocalyptic 'ruffians' . Longing to have a budget as big as say a 'Hell comes to Frogtown' sequel this film is marginal more silly/awful than any such film(s). The bikes alone are utterly ridiculous, not to mention the do-it-yourself make-up, the worst Frenchman impersonation since Holy Grail (but unintentional this time) and make-shift Star Wars-esque creatures.

If I'm making this film sound good in any way, shape or film, I'm sincerely sorry. It's not even good as a drunken guilty pleasure film. And this was somehow based on a book, how??

Plenty of reviews to the quality of the movie already that are pretty accurate.

One classic part was where the guy drove the motorcycle off the cliff. He makes a face like "oh no" and you see him jump off and the bike goes over... to explode of course. But the the shot back up and he has fallen over the cliff and is just hanging on, where he was on the ground several feet behind it.....

And no one has commented on the pants the star wears. What's with the giant black V think that looks like a big thong on the outside? It made her backside look pretty big.. And then there was the cave girls. The villain has four women in slightly skimpy clothes we only see briefly.... but they really needed MORE clothes. Obviously someone doesn't understand the idea of background scenery in sci-fi.

A few people knocked the music, but the last 15 minutes or so during all the fight scenes the music was very inspired, if you like cheesy action stuff. Bit of batman, intro to baywatch, maybe a little A-team or incredible hulk fight scenes. The composer did a good job ramping it up to try to give it some energy, needed since much of the fight scenes were dumb at best.

And then there's the theme song that plays at the end. It has lyrics including: "talkin' bout, warriors of rape, of death and hate, killing for fun" "cannibalists, living amidst, are hunting man" How can you not give that a thumbs up. If you search it's available on u tube with a whopping 8 comments. Maybe go there and add one...

Anyway, have to upgrade this from a 1 to a 2 for the music in the last 15 or 20 minutes. The music achieved the fun cheese that the rest of the movie was never able to...

I'm a longtime fan of cheezy foreign knock-offs of THE ROAD WARRIOR and such. Often times that kind of exploitive, badly dubbed, low budget trash makes for high entertainment. Sadly, LAND OF DOOM brings no such entertainment. It's the future again, and it's post-apocalyptic. The world is ravaged by plague and evil bandits (sound familiar?). A woman named Harmony and her rugged hero partner (she won't let him touch her) try to escape from the Land of Doom to a fabled paradise. Some overlord villain type, who wears a lot of fake chromed armor and studded leather, tries to stop them. The best part of the whole movie is the opening shot of a dawn over a bleak looking landscape, accompanied by some appropriate music- Harmony's explanatory narration begins and it's all down hill from there. Some creatures that look suspiciously like the Jawas from STAR WARS appear and some things explode. LAND OF DOOM is oddly short on the over-customized junk cars that usually roam the post-apocalyptic wastelands of these pictures. Naturally, all the dialogue is awful as are the attempts at sexual tension between our two heroes. Plague victims sport painted on sores and behave like zombies. Much more frightening is the ineptness of the production and the performances. The ending is left wide open for a sequel that never came. Over the end credits runs a horrid tune called "Harmony's Land of Doom" which tries to sound like a modern pop song, but is just as dull and low key as the movie. In short: skip it and rent 1990: THE BRONX WARRIORS instead.

Director: Peter Maris Cast: Deborah Rennard, Gerry Dowhen, Daniel Radell

Adventure, Sci-Fi, Thriller. Throw in a bunch of explosions, more cool leather costumes than you can shake a stick at, some awesome Turkish desert locations and rad-tastic old cars outfitted for combat Mad Max style and you can see how this one hits all the right notes... so long as you look at it from the proper skewed, underdeveloped perspective. Its hilarious.

Land of Doom is dumb in every way a movie like this should be dumb, but it's pretty entertaining if you're in an undemanding mood and hankering for leather, explosions, flamethrowers and guys with metal arms and face plates. Deliciously low budget . I had fun with it. 6/10