The movie starts with global thermonuclear war and features a desperate quest, by a handful of survivors, to reach a place of (relative) peace and wellbeing. Now this is a very tone-deaf movie : parts of it are so emotionally poor and arid that they seem to have been made not by human beings but by computers or by octopoids from the planet Zorgbll. Watch out for the scenes, at the very beginning, where enemy missiles come in and rain atomic hellfire on American cities. In a specialised command centre, USA military personnel tries to keep track of the losses : city X is gone, city Y is gone, city Z is threatened, etc. No one falls on his knees, sobbing, or shouts things like : "Washington DC ! That's where my sisters live !" or "My wife and children ! They're burning to death !" Instead, the various characters mainly look somewhat pained and annoyed, as if learning that the Christmas office party has been postponed. So it's clear that the movie has little to offer, when it comes to psychological depth or emotional riches. Sadly, it doesn't have all that much to offer, either, in terms of surprise or tension or excitement. It's pretty much a stew of (post-)apocalyptic stereotypes and tropes : giant mutant animals, hellish landscapes, hard-bitten survivors returning to savagery, etc. Moreover, the quality of the visual and special effects is uneven, meaning that it's difficult to maintain a suitable suspension of disbelief. Even now and then the viewer sees a scene of weird beauty - watch out for those damaged skies - and then suddenly it's giant scorpions that... Giant scorpions that... Don't get me started on the giant scorpions - please.If you're unfamiliar with Roger Zelazny's work : don't let this movie keep you from exploring and enjoying his fine books and novellas. "Damnation Alley" was one of his minor creations and, what's more, the makers of the movie went medieval on their source material, gutting and disemboweling it with slavering savagery. This is pretty much the Adaptation From Hell.An interesting question : why do people acquire the rights to a novel, only in order to gut it like a fish ? I suppose it's a case of conspicious consumption, similar, say, to a French haute couture designer buying the superb furs of rare creatures, and then proceeding to dye the furs bright yellow or tartan-striped scarlet, grey and navy.

Nothing in common with the book by Roger Zelazny except the title and a cross-country expedition. And even the book was one of Zelazny's weakest, which he admitted. In book, story starts years after the war. Reason for expedition cross-country change. Destination change. Characters added. Principal character drastically changed. Events along route change. Ending had no relationship with original story. Star of the film became the Landmaster versus the actual story and characters. This movie shows how Hollywood Sci-fi movie budgets of 1950-2000 period usually influenced most Sci-fi scripts, usually for the worse. Putting special effects ahead of the story.

George Peppard (The A Team) and Jan-Michael Vincent (Airwolf) star in this post apocalyptic road movie. Don't expect a "Mad Max" style film with high adrenaline no heartbreaking emotions like in "The Road" This post apocalyptic film from 1977 has nuclear survivors travelling cross country from Bakersfield, CA, to Albany, NY, via Las Vegas, Detroit and Salt Lake City in a all terrain Nuclear bunker/ Winnebago/ mobile home. There are oversized irradiated scorpions, flesh eating cockroaches, and even mutated rednecks. The opening of the film is the best part of the film, lots of tension with cutting music as nukes and counter nukes knock the planet off its axis causing the world's atmosphere to dramatically change and the sky to ripple with luminous colours. If the nukes haven't wiped humanity out then the weather will have. The film was supposed to be a massive Sci-Fi spectacular, if only a small film called "Star Wars" hadn't been released only weeks before this was released. This is a bit of a cheesy relic and drags at times. I can't say it's only dated due to being released in 1977 because of Star Wars being released the same year. Nothing exciting really happens and while the journey is clearly defined there aren't any twists and turns to keep you on the edge of your seat. I can't say I particularly enjoyed this but I can see a lot of potential, it's just a pity that that potential wasn't realized or utilized fully. 3 out of 10.

I can personally guarantee that if you saw this thing in 1981 when you were 10 years old, you thought it was the coolest thing ever. Outside that rather limited demographic, Damnation Alley is just another 70s flick that has aged badly. From an assload of stock footage to an ending that feels like they just cut off the last 30 pages of the script when the production ran out of money, this movie is a reminder that schlock has always been around in Hollywood.After an opening 10 minutes that plays out like the alternate ending to War Games, we find the Earth devastated by a nuclear war. At one lone remaining outpost in California, Major Eugene Denton (George Peppard) has finally gotten ready to launch an expedition to the only other place he's gotten any sign of life from…Albany, New York. Joined by Tanner and Keegan (Jan-Michael Vincent and Paul Winfield), two former officers who ditched the military when the world went up in smoke, they clamber aboard a military superbus and set off on the only cross country path not steaming with radiation. This brave new world includes giant scorpions, flesh-eating cockroaches, super storms and gun-toting hillbillies, yet much of the movie consists of very undramatic driving scenes underscored by extremely dramatic music from Jerry Goldsmith. Our intrepid trio find a surviving female in Las Vegas and the future Rorschach in a shack, only to have all their problems solved when the Earth suddenly heals itself overnight.The highlights of Damnation Alley are George Peppard admirably making an effort to do more here than just cash a paycheck and the aforementioned superbus, which the even more aforementioned 10 year old in 1981 absolutely thought was the neatest thing he'd ever seen. With a missile rack on top, a flexible middle and a tri-wheel drive system that appeared to actually work in real life, the superbus was an pre-adolescent's dream car. I would also guess building it consumed about 75% of the budget for this motion picture. At least that's the only acceptable reason I can come up with for the incredibly cheap look of everything else.The lowlights include what may be one of the first "black guy as designated victim in a sci-fi/horror film" roles, Jan-Michael Vincent trying to play an edgy rebel and giving the character all the emotional anguish of a Tiger Beat cover boy, and that anachronistic 70s thing where big screen films now look like bad TV movies. I'm not sure why or how it happened, but a lot of 70s cinema was made with bad sets and hackneyed camera work. You don't see it in the 60s, where even low-budget crap is still recognizable as intended for the big screen. You don't see it in the 80s, where a sheen of technical sameness crept over the industry. But in the 70s it became weirdly common to see sets that look like something out of the Carol Burnett Show and direction that screams "I was an intern for one season on McMillan and Wife!"Unfortunately, Damnation Alley doesn't sink so low it qualifies as "so bad it's good". This is just plain old bad, poorly plotted dreck. Unless you're a 10 year old in 1981 somehow reading this review through a space-time vortex, find something better to watch.