Leave it to the unsparingly pathetic Fred Olen Ray to spit out one of the worst, most hideously drab and annoying two-cent post-nuke sci-fi action snorefests to ever feebly limp its way across your TV screen. A haggard, burnt-out, desperate hack actor for hire David Carradine assumes stoically rugged heroic duties as Dow, a cranky DNA-enhanced synthetic super warrior who wanders the arid, infertile nuclear fallout devastated desert lugging around Ammo, a gnarled, prune-like malformed talking head with spindly arms, a mouth full of snaggle teeth, and constantly rolling googly eyes who's forever ripping into Dow with an endless barrage of tiresomely witless caustic quips (Ammo's trebly, piercing tenor whine is pure murder on the ears). You see, Dow wants to get both his hot honey wife (slinky minx Brinke Stevens) and a cowed, spineless gene-splicing scientist (meek Robert Quarry) back from the wicked, megalomaniacal the Warlord (grandly overplayed with trademark leering, lip-smacking élan by Sid Haig, who also served as 2nd unit director), a sleazy gun-running greedy mercenary (gravel-voiced Ross Hagen, who in better days directed the 70's grindhouse hoot "The Glove"), and the Warlord's loyal army of disfigured mutants (actually just a bunch of extras in tattered rags and dimestore gas masks). Dow's aided on his brave mission by profoundly unappealing smartaleck distaff survivalist Danny (an insufferably peevish Dawn Wildsmith, Fred's buxom, blowzy redhead former real-life wife) and Colonel Cox ("Repo Man" 's Fox Harris doing his standard flaky in-his-own-singular-orbit shtick), who's an incessantly jabbering bicycle-carrying fruitcake.
This is your characteristically substandard by-the-numbers dreadful Fred Olen Ray bilge, replete with flat, graceless cinematography, a grindingly trite cookie cutter script, a noisy, blaring, guitar-screeching trash-rock score, lousy sarcastic dialogue ("Would you slow down, I'm gonna be sick!," a captured lass yells to her abductors in a speeding automobile), lethargic pacing, slackly staged action (mostly crummy shoot-outs, uninspired car chases, and tired hand-to-hand fisticuffs, with a few brightly exploding cars saved for the pitifully unexciting "let's blow what's left of the paltry budget" last reel finale), deeply irritating and hopelessly unfunny sardonic, insult-laden rat-a-tat-tat banter between Dow and Danny, a light sprinkling of gratuitous nudity (perpetually topless B-picture starlets Michelle Bauer and Debra Lamb briefly appear so their shirts can get torn off to expose their bare breasts), no semblance of style, facility or distinctive individual flair to be discerned from the nondescript direction, disconcertingly over-familiar Bronson Canyon locations (Al Adamson's old shooting grounds, no less), slipshod editing, cheap, not-convincing-for-a-second (way less then) special effects (the cheesy matte painting at the start of the film is atrocious, while the laughable, rubbery phony puppet noggin Ammo takes the booby prize), and the sad, spirit-deflating sight of watching a handful of weary, washed-out veteran thespians embarrass themselves royally for the sake of a quick, easy paycheck. So bad it's not even enjoyable on a something-for-nothing schlock movie level, this unbearably talky, hardly-any-story, skimpy-on-action, but heavy-on-tedium low-budget loser like nuclear war itself should be avoided at all costs.
This is your characteristically substandard by-the-numbers dreadful Fred Olen Ray bilge, replete with flat, graceless cinematography, a grindingly trite cookie cutter script, a noisy, blaring, guitar-screeching trash-rock score, lousy sarcastic dialogue ("Would you slow down, I'm gonna be sick!," a captured lass yells to her abductors in a speeding automobile), lethargic pacing, slackly staged action (mostly crummy shoot-outs, uninspired car chases, and tired hand-to-hand fisticuffs, with a few brightly exploding cars saved for the pitifully unexciting "let's blow what's left of the paltry budget" last reel finale), deeply irritating and hopelessly unfunny sardonic, insult-laden rat-a-tat-tat banter between Dow and Danny, a light sprinkling of gratuitous nudity (perpetually topless B-picture starlets Michelle Bauer and Debra Lamb briefly appear so their shirts can get torn off to expose their bare breasts), no semblance of style, facility or distinctive individual flair to be discerned from the nondescript direction, disconcertingly over-familiar Bronson Canyon locations (Al Adamson's old shooting grounds, no less), slipshod editing, cheap, not-convincing-for-a-second (way less then) special effects (the cheesy matte painting at the start of the film is atrocious, while the laughable, rubbery phony puppet noggin Ammo takes the booby prize), and the sad, spirit-deflating sight of watching a handful of weary, washed-out veteran thespians embarrass themselves royally for the sake of a quick, easy paycheck. So bad it's not even enjoyable on a something-for-nothing schlock movie level, this unbearably talky, hardly-any-story, skimpy-on-action, but heavy-on-tedium low-budget loser like nuclear war itself should be avoided at all costs.