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The
year is 2024, and following World War IV the Earth has been
reduced to a desolate wasteland. Vic is a young nomad, wandering
the land in search of food. His telepathic dog, Blood, depends
on Vic for food, but Vic needs Blood to find something far
more precious: women to lay. When Blood psychically sniffs
out a particular female, she lures Vic to an underground world
where the old ways of life have been re-created. However,
there is a catch...
Does
my use of the word "lay" seem a bit misanthropic to you? Well,
that's the tone of much of the dialogue between Vic (Don Johnson)
and Blood (voiced by Tim McIntire).
The
portrayal of women as little more than victims ripe for sexual
conquest or, even worse, rape or murder is partly an indicator
of the movie's age (1974) but it does also help to drive home
the degenerate level to which humankind has stooped in the
aftermath of World War IV. Vic's animalistic view of life
- driven entirely by the desires to eat, sleep and screw -
is in fact rather more refined than the behaviour of many
of the other desert-dwellers he encounters. By deliberate
contrast, Blood is by far the more cultivated of the two travellers.
Indeed, he is responsible for what little education Vic has
had.
Based
on a novella by Harlan Ellison, this is a rather eccentric
story. The presence of a telepathic dog might have tipped
you off to that fact. Things get even stranger when Vic ventures
into the underground "utopia". Seventies sci-fi is full of
bizarre futures, from the soulless sheltered world of THX-1138
to the artificial social boundaries of Zardoz.
There are elements of both THX and Zardoz in
this movie, as the clown-faced, bible-bashing denizens of
the subterranean realm seek to exploit the virile savage Vic
for their own ends.
Featuring
an energetic early performance by future Miami Vice
star Don Johnson and an excellent vocal turn by Tim McIntire,
this is an enjoyably cynical little movie once you get into
it.
However,
Arrow and Fremantle's presentation leaves much to be desired.
The source print has clearly not been cleaned up at all, and
shows much dirt and some evidence of minor film damage. Worse
still, the sound is awful: the higher pitched sounds crackle
annoyingly throughout the movie. There are no special features,
not even - as I have come to expect from Arrow/Fremantle -
any subtitles.
It's hard to choose a mark out of the ten for this product.
It's a good movie, but I expect a better standard of presentation
than this on a DVD.
Richard
McGinlay
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