Deathsport

DEATHSPORT

D: Allan Arkush, Henry Suso (1978); with David Carradine, Claudia Jennings, David McLean.

After the Great Neutron Wars, society is divided into two camps: the Statemen (living in sprawling city-states) and the Range Guides, who inhabit what seems to be reclaimed strip-mine land. The favorite hobby among Statemen is hunting down Range Guides and forcing them to participate in Deathsport, a gladiator-style duel to the death, for their evil amusement. Their top banana, the tyrannical Lord Zirpola (McLean), is suffering from an unspecified brain disease and also has his own private strip club/torture chamber that consists of Christmas lights hanging inside plastic tubes. The Statemen have Honda motorcycles with armor that seems to be made of heating duct and an oversized red taillight that vaporizes anyone behind them. Armed with klieg-lamp vaporizers and Daisy BB pistols, they hunt down Range Guides Kaz Oshay (Carradine) and Playmate Claudia Jennings for Zirpola's brutal competition. The pair have to contend not only with the Statemen goon squad but also the Mutants, miscreants who drape themselves with minnow nets and communicate with burping noises. They are further burdened with a whiny deadweight teenager and declare, "Our union is weak/Our union is strong" until you wonder which local they belong to and if they're paid up on their dues. The soundtrack is a one-Moog affair, a reminder that the synthesizer was still fairly novel in the late Seventies -- a particularly gooshy synth noise is used to torture Zirpola's victims (and the audience). It's also worth noting that the motorcycles make a noise suspiciously like Tie Fighters from the first Star Wars. This embarrassingly stupid, cheap, and hokey film owes huge and obvious debts to Seventies gems Death Race 2000 and Rollerball, but with none of the brains or budget of those films. The best way to enjoy Deathsport is to get a case of cheapo beer, invite some friends over, and have your own personal MST 3000 session with it. Sample line: "Funny, with a name like O'Shea, he doesn't look Irish!"