[Note from the author: Apologies for the rather dodgy quality of the screen captures. The DVD for the movie appears to be a full-screen direct-from-VHS transfer.]

In the wake of the dual successes of Mad Max and its sequel The Road Warrior, it was only a matter of time before the international B-movie circuit latched onto the series and churned out a ton of knockoffs. A bunch of Mad Max rip-offs came out of the Philippines and Spain, South Africa got in on it, and there were some made stateside, but really, most of them came out of Italy.

Ah, good old Italy. If there was ever an enterprising film industry that knew how spot a hit formula and immediately run it into the ground, it would be Italy. From the tons of zombie films made in the wake of Dawn of the Dead, to cheesy post apocalyptic action flicks (like today’s feature), to Jaws knockoffs as far as the eye could see, Italy was probably the prime distributor of cheesy B-movies based on American hits in the late ‘70s and ‘80s.

Warrior of the Lost World premiered in 1983, and it’s rather unique in that they were able to get some actual names on the project, as opposed to the standard Italian cast given American sounding names, with one or two notable-but-down-on-their-luck actors thrown in. Yes, this cast was actually doing fairly well at the time the movie was made!

It also seems to be one of those movies where they came up with the poster before the script was even written.

Robert Ginty of The Paper Chase and the Exterminator movies plays Rider, the strong, silent, loner hero of the piece, who’s aided by a rather annoying souped-up motorcycle that talks. Persis Khambatta, the bald chick from the first Star Trek film, is on hand as his love interest.

Donald Pleasence shows up as Prossor, our evil ruler, and Fred Williamson puts in an appearance too, making for a surprisingly strong cast given the type of movie we’ll be watching.

This film is probably best known for an appearance on season five of Mystery Science Theater 3000 (a fan request, in fact), and if you thought Joel and the Bots made this funny, you really need to see it without them. It’s frigging hilarious on its own. We get tons of explosions, endless action scenes (though not in a good way), plenty of actors who all left this off their resumes, and enough ‘80s cheese to last two films.

Interestingly enough, like Time Chasers, this is a film that appeared on MST3K despite not being really all that bad, at least compared to some of the other films they tackled. But it’s not really all that good, either (as a matter of fact, it’s quite terrible in many ways), but that’s not necessarily a deal-breaker for me.

I give it 6 out of 10 “Joel Silver on a budget”-level explosions. Let’s check it out.

We begin things on a wonderfully cheesy note (literally) as a synthesizer kicks in over a black screen. Yes, it just wouldn’t be an early to mid ‘80s post apocalyptic movie without a soundtrack provided by the Casio keyboard that the composer bought for his kid for his tenth birthday.

In another staple of the genre, text scrolls up the screen that basically tells us what every other opening scroll has ever told us: the world is screwed, an oppressive ruler has taken over one particular area, and there’s only one person who can stop him.

Here’s what it says in more detail: The world has gone through a huge war that has pretty much decimated everything. The bad guys are the Omegas, led by some dude named Prossor. They’re opposed by the Outsiders, who are trying to restore order along with help from the Mystics, who live in the mountains. There’s a forbidden zone called the Wasteland, full of tribes of barbarians, and of course, there’s only one man who can bring an end to all the chaos.

Got all that? Good, because this is all the backstory you’re going to get. Plot isn’t this movie’s strong point.

Like any good Road Warrior knockoff, we begin on an abandoned stretch of highway, as a lone man on a motorcycle rides towards us out of the ripples of heat. It’s actually a rather neat effect that would look better with a larger budget. Here though, it sort of looks like the focus puller nodded off for a minute.

The man speeds down the highway, and we eventually see he’s being played by the late Robert Ginty. Ginty had a pretty decent career in the ‘70s, but by 1983, he was stuck in B-movie purgatory. This role came in between the first and second Exterminator movies, which are basically sleazy Death Wish knockoffs, which is pretty impressive considering how sleazy the actual Death Wish films are.

Here, it’s fairly clear Ginty just didn’t give a shit, as he mumbles his way through the film showing little to no personality.

The guy is creatively named “Rider”, and we follow him for a while, getting a good long look at his bike, which is the standard souped-up ‘80s bike with guns mounted up front, and a “futuristic” control panel. It also comes with a talking computer named “Einstein” whose words are shown on a small screen and spoken in a digitized voice. While the MST3k crew was annoyed to death by this thing, I’m mildly amused... for now.

He blasts past an Omega cop car, and I wish I was more of a car and motorcycle geek so I could accurately identify each vehicle. Sure, I would only use this knowledge to bump up the word count, but still!

The Omega’s computer flashes a notice to the driver, and proves to be the first computer I’ve ever seen that’s mildly dyslexic. (And no, the spelling and grammar check on MS Word doesn’t count; it’s just stupid and ignorant.)

The Omega pounds on his steering wheel to start up his car (I hear this was actually a feature on American cars in the early ‘80s, though not intentionally) and a long chase ensues, with two Omegas on motorcycles joining in. Naturally, the cop car has a futuristic siren, and we hear a cultured British man ordering the cops to “overtake and terminate”, so I guess in the future it’s still harder than hell to get out of a traffic citation.

Einstein warns Rider by flashing “Bad Mothers” on his screen. In a rather odd reversal, Einstein will prove to be exactly as useless as KITT is useful. Not often you get that kind of synchronicity. Wait, yes it is. Never mind.

Rider tells Einstein to take the bike to “subsonic”, and after the bike remarks, “Hold onto your ass!” (though strangely, the “ass” part isn’t shown on screen), he speeds up. The pursuing bikes go to “ultimate velocity” (God, I love this shit) and catch up with Rider, shooting guns mounted on their bikes at him.