All Rise...

Judge David Johnson would hate to see the size of the rats in the year 3000.

The Charge

The post-apocalypse, Italian-style.

The Case

Years and years ago, when I was but a cockeyed college student home during a school break, I found myself wandering the halls of the Pharmhouse, a local department store that was soon to be nothing more than a West Utica memory. Heralding the store's impending closure, the video rental section was the first to go, with a host of the catalog perched on the bargain bin rack. It was like a dollar a pop for such VHS masterworks as Punk Vacation, Monster High, and the immortal Voyage of the Rock Aliens. Buried in that haul was a tape purchased solely on account of its title and case art.

Exterminators of the Year 3000. Now that sounds awesome.

The set-up: it's post-nuclear future and it looks about the same as all post-nuclear futures in movies like this, i.e. a big-ass desert. Water is a scarcity, since the nukes destroyed the ozone layer (or something), and the last vestiges of mankind adorned in their usual leather vests and gauntlets wage unending battle against each other for control over the H20.

Caught in the middle is, you guessed it, a grizzled loner (Robert Iannucci) in an awesome muscle car. At first he's all about survival, but when his heart is moved by the pleas of a bionic orphan, he decides to help out with a daring water retrieval plan. Standing in the way of proper hydration: a psychopath and his gang of vehicular marauders.

As you can see, not a ton of originality piped into this early-?80s Italian production. All the necessary genre elements are here: plucky kids, tricked-out cars, deranged bald men with swords, and huge chases involving a tanker truck. Hard not to draw comparisons to The Road Warrior. Heck, the hero even has a bolo that can decapitate guys (not unlike the killer boomerang).

But whatever. Exterminators of the Year 3000 was just one entry in a long list of post-apocalyptic also-rans and if you're a fan of this particular period in film history this release probably belongs on your shelf somewhere.

Not because it's a good movie. The dubbing is brutal, the hero is a floppy-haired jock, the robot kid is just bizarre and the story is utterly derivative. On the other hand, there are a lot of cars crashing around, a mutant blows up and the heroes dance around in slow motion in the rain at the end. (Oh, spoiler.)

If this sounds like your bag, Shout! Factory served up a solid Blu-ray restoration. The audio/visual specs aren't bad, kicking off with a serviceable 1.85:1, 1080p transfer. Audio comes from an okay DTS-HD Master Audio Mono track. Extras: an audio commentary and interview with Robert Iannucci.

The Verdict

It's dumb and familiar but what can I say: I have a soft spot for weirdoes T-boning each others' cars in a nuclear wasteland. Not guilty.

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