The Film:
Post apocalyptic movies have long been a staple diet for many fans of cinema and whilst there are hundreds of low budget films in the genre there are few well known 'end of the world' films. One of the most well known directors of the budget post apocalypse films is one Enzo G. Castellari who made a series of films in this genre back in the early eighties that included 1990: The Bronx Warriors from 1982 and The Bronx Warriors 2 from 1983. Usually made with an extremely low budget, these movies have become cult classics and some of the most loved films from Castellari's vast filmography that covers many genres. After viewing Another World Entertainment's DVD release of The New Barbarians and Stomp Visual's release of 1990: The Bronx Warriors I can see why these have received such followings.
The New Barbarians starts with a massive explosion in order to tell us that something has happened to Earth, killing many inhabitants. Despite this, there were a few survivors, most of whom have set themselves into small groups to try and find other people. However, like with any civilization, you get your nutjobs aswell and in this movie it's a bloke called One (George Eastman - Baba Yaga, Rabid Dogs) who has set up a group of men called The Templars who believe it is their duty to finish off mankind once and for all, hunting for small groups to murder. Their biggest foe is Scorpion (Giancarlo Prete - Ladyhawke), a mercenary who along with Nadir (Fred Williamson - Black Cobra), fight to end The Templars murderous rampage.
Made on what is obviously a very low budget, The New Barbarians is an extremely fun movie. Amongst the best scenes in the film is one of the cars owned by The Templars which has a very small helicopter blade style weapon come out of the side so they can drive next to people who are running away and lop their heads off. We also have some pretty bizarre characters, most noticeably a mechanic (Giovanni Frezza) who has a penchant for fixing cars and making bizarre looking bulletproof vests, yet is no more than ten years old. He also uses a catapult to fire small bombs just to add to the madness. In essence, the acting is pretty bad, the dialogue laughable and the sets and cars hilarious. This movie was made for having a few mates round with some beer. Very enjoyable.
The DVD:
Video:
Another World Entertainent have given us an anamorphic transfer at a 2.35:1 aspect ratio. As I have become accustomed to with AWE's releases, the picture quality found here is pretty damn good. It suffers from a small amount of edge enhancement, some light grain and occasionally slightly washed out colours but the overall product is pretty damn good.
Audio:
The audio is pretty much what I have come to expect from Another World Entertainment with an English Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo track being provided here. Seperation is minimal yet noticeable and I didn't really notice any major problems at all. There was the occasional crackle and some very minor background hiss, but dialogue was always clear and volume levels consistent. With all the action scenes in the film, I am left wondering why a 5.1 track wasn't provided though. The disc contains subtitles in Danish, Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish.
Extras:
We start the extras off with an interview with director Enzo G. Castellari which lasts a lengthy 19 minutes and 36 seconds. It appears to be the third part of an Italian television show and looks at more movies than just The New Barbarians including The Bronx Warriors and Badlanders. He talks about the differences between this film and Keoma and how he was trying to make The New Barbarians into a futuristic western. He also throws in a few interesting facts aswell including the fact that the bow used by Nadir in the film was later used by Sylvester Stallone in Rambo.
All the rest of the extras are pretty unsubstantial, yet great to have included. Rather than go into detail of all the extras seperately I'm just going to list them due to them being self explanatory:
Here's what we get:
Filmographies:
- Enzo G. Castellari
- Fred Williamson
- George Eastman
Slideshow (2:05)
Bonus Trailers:
- "Cannibal Holocaust" (2:57)
- "Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals" (2:32)
- "Zombie Flesheaters" (3:36)
- "New York Ripper" (3:11)
- "Keoma" (3:36)
- "Re-Animator" (2:03)
- "Torso" (3:31)
Theatrical Trailer (3:18)
