The New Barbarians Review

MPAA Rating: R
Released: 1982

Prepare, brave souls, for a post-apocalyptic world where cheesy acting, amateurish scripts, repugnant characters and terrible special effects set forth to destroy any remaining vestiges of cinematic decency. Prepare, dear readers, for the Italian early 80's wonder that is known as The New Barbarians…

It's the year 2019 and the remnants of a world devastated by a nuclear holocaust attempt to survive the harsh wasteland dominated by killers, vicious gangs, scavengers and other assorted baddies. A band of peaceful survivors are holed up in an oil refinery, but they cannot relocate to a place where civilization is suspected to still exist because their oil truck must first be repaired. Luckily there is a rogue traveler in town, and his name is Mad Max… errr wait… wrong movie. This dude's name is Scorpion. The rest remains about the same, though.

If it sounds like a rip-off of the classic post-apocalyptic film The Road Warrior, well… it is! The success of films like Mad Max and Escape from New York brought forth a rash of cheap post-apocalyptic Italian B-movies that tried to capitalize on the success of their far superior peers. Some, like 2019: After the Fall of New York, managed to succeed in overcoming the handicap of a limited budget, whereas others like The New Barbarians failed miserably.

As The New Barbarians opens we see a group of violent psychopaths called the Templars brutally slaughtering a band of innocent travelers. Why would they do such a thing, you might ask? I'll let One (George Eastman), the leader of the Templars, answer the question for you.

One: The world is dead. It raped itself. But I'll purify it with blood. No one is innocent. But only we, the Templars, are the ministers of revenge.

In a nutshell they are a band of killers pretty ticked off that folks killed each other in the past. So to punish the killers of the past, they are determined to kill the innocents that never killed anyone. If it still doesn't make sense, just let it go…

Shortly after the One shares his enlightening speech and motivations we are introduced to Scorpion (Giancarlo Prete), a wanderer that drives around the wasteland in a car featuring a skull on its hood and a glowing green dome on its roof. It's basically a cross between Mad Max's vehicle and the Batmobile. Apparently his car is having some difficulties, so he pulls over, gets out of the vehicle and proceeds to have a shootout with an eight or nine year old kid armed with a slingshot! Don't worry, empathetic parents, no need to worry about the kid's welfare. They're buddies, you see, so they're always trying to kill each other.

But to be honest, five seconds after the kid opened his mouth I was kinda wishing that Scorpion did actually shoot him. The smart-mouthed bugger was one of the most irritating little sods I've seen on film; so offensive, in fact, that he could easily have become the next poster boy for the merits of abstinence. Now before I get any angry mothers kicking in my front door I will admit that he was probably a darling boy in real life that was cursed with a horrible script, no talent and a role in The New Barbarians.

Anyhow, after Scorpion was done exchanging bullets with the little brat he drove off in search for another adventure. And wouldn't you know it, that's exactly what he finds when he stumbles across a group of Templars dragging a hapless woman around in a net attached to a car. Naturally he decides to jump into the fray to rescue the woman, but what would have been a somewhat entertaining battle becomes an exercise in patience instead.

Remember that skull adorning the hood that I spoke of earlier? Well, apparently the director wanted to make sure you didn't forget about it, so throughout the battle the camera shows a close-up of the skull again… and again… and again, each time accompanied with a grating sound effect that made me want to plug my ears with cotton, glue or anything else nearby that could work in a pinch.

When the tides of battle turn against Scorpion another wanderer named Nadir (Fred Williamson) comes to his rescue, armed with a bow and explosive arrows. Naturally One finds out about the defeat and deaths of some of his Templars, so he gives another rousing speech.

One: So I say to you Templars, hate, hate! With all your hearts, hate. Hate and exterminate!

Wow, he's a poet and he doesn't even know it! After the typical display of villain machismo, he forms a hunting party to chase down Scorpion, and after bodies and cars fly all over the place he succeeds in capturing him. One's henchmen bind him up in preparation for some sort of ceremony that One wishes to perform:

One: I, One, am the high priest and executor of your initiation.

With that, he steps behind the immobile form of Scorpion, releases his buttocks from the confines of his pants and… well, you get the idea. It's the same sort of initiation that's all the rage in maximum-security prisons.

Once finished, One takes his band of miscreants out on a mission to assault some peaceful people in a nearby oil refinery, leaving behind three gang members to kill Scorpion. Nadir arrives right in the nick of time to again rescue his fellow warrior (wow, who couldn't see that coming), nurse him back to health and assist in the final showdown with One and his band of Templars.

Now I'm the first to plead guilty to enjoying many of the 1980's cheap post-apocalyptic Italian B-movies, but The New Barbarians is one film I had a hard time stomaching. The acting was pretty bad overall, the special effects were lame, the sound effects were atrocious and the script was grade school level – not the markings of a good film!

If you are a diehard fan of the post-apocalyptic genre, or you enjoy collecting/viewing the cheap Italian offerings that flowed like water during the early 80's, chances are you'll want to watch The New Barbarians anyways. You might find it entertaining in some twisted, cheesy sort of way. But if you're expecting a high-budget professional film along the lines of The Road Warrior, avoid this one like the plague.

One: There's no more soul. There's no more hope. There's only one fate.

Yep, you got it bud. All hope for a good rating was abandoned about ten minutes into the movie. Instead The New Barbarians is fated to be awarded a pathetic…

Movie rating: 3 stars

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