I’m a huge fan of post-apocalyptic movies. In fact, next to humorous horror / gore movies (that’ll be my next list), I think they’re my favorite. This is a subject that my longtime friend and fellow movie enthusiast (as well as ex-video store co-worker) Sean Holland and I have discussed at length. In fact, this is eventually to the be subject of our first podcast. So as not to spoil the content of said podcast, I’m just going to give a list with minimal detail as opposed to a complex description of my reasoning.
5. Shawn of the Dead. England. Pubs. Zombies. Funny. What is not to like?
4. A Boy and his Dog. A talking dog, Don Johnson and a drive to get laid. This one is funky and cheesy but totally list worthy.
2. Damnation Alley. If you’ve not seen this, find it and watch it. It’s campy and cheesy but amazing at the same time. Jan-Michael Vincent, George Peppard, Dominique Sanda and Jackie Earle Haley, giant cockroaches and a badass vehicle. I always wanted a toy of that truck.
2. Escape from New York. This one was very close to being #1 on my list. Once I got drunk and drew the snake tattoo on myself. This movie is amazing in every way. I often ask myself “What would Snake Plissken do?” and take that into advisement. It’s 1980’s cheese but fantastic at the same time. The sequel was a pile of crap and as far as I’m concerned does not exist.
1. The Road Warrior. The Second of the “Mad Max” trilogy. Probably the first of this style that I ever saw. Also my favorite. Max is the tortured hero that somehow kinda does the right thing but it no one to be trifled with. Watch this with commentary on for a really interesting take, but if you’ve never seen it, watch it undisturbed first. Great movie, I can watch it over and over.
Honorable mentions:
The Book of Eli. I’m not a Denzel fan. At all. I had almost zero expectation of this movie. I was very surprised and entertained and actually went back and watched it a second time to make sure it was not a fluke of some kind. Even given the religious overtones, which I also generally don’t like, I enjoyed this movie.
Mad Max beyond Thunderdome. Also great. Now that I’m writing this, I may choose to replace Shawn of the dead with this flick. I actually saw this one before the road warrior as a kid, but that didn’t change it at all, once I saw the road warrior I rode my bicycle to the video store and rented this for another go. It just made it better. Angry Anderson is the subtle star as “IronBar”.
I have a huge list of more that I need to watch and re-watch, so this list will probably change. In particular, I want to see Six-String Samurai, La Jatee and a handful of others I was not familiar with.
