Damnation Alley

Plot synopsis:
First Lieutenant Jake Tanner (Jan-Michael Vincent) shares ICBM silo duty at an American air force missile base in the Californian desert with Major Eugene "Sam" Denton (George Peppard), who is requesting not to work with him. On their way to duty, Denton talks to Airman Tom Keegan (Paul Winfield), an aspiring artist. When the United States detects incoming nuclear missiles from the Soviet Union, Tanner and Denton launch part of the retaliatory strike. The United States is hit hard, although it manages to intercept 40% of Soviet missiles.
Two years later, the Earth has been tilted off its axis by nuclear detonations of World War III; radiation has mutated giant scorpions, the planet is wracked by massive storms, and the sky is in a perpetual aurora borealis-like state. Tanner has resigned his commission and has been scouting Barstow while Keegan, who has also left the Air Force, has been painting as an artist in one of the base's out-buildings. Mutated giant scorpions menace the area. Later an airman falls asleep in a bunk and drops a lit cigarette onto a pile of Playboy magazines, which causes the entire base to catch fire and explode, killing most of its inhabitants including the base commander, General Lander (Murray Hamilton). Keegan and Tanner are unscathed, as are Denton and Lieutenant Tom Perry (Kip Niven), who were in an underground garage bunker.
Denton has been considering going to Albany, New York to find the source of a lone radio transmission. He and the remaining others set out in two Air Force "Landmasters," giant 12-wheeled armored personnel carriers capable of climbing 60-degree inclines and operating in water. They must cross "Damnation Alley," considered "the path of least resistance" between intense radiation areas thus named by Denton. Along their journey one of the Landmasters becomes disabled in a storm (which also kills Perry) and they encounter mutated "flesh stripping cockroaches" in the ruins of Salt Lake City which eat Keegan alive. Denton and Tanner also pick up two survivors: a woman in Las Vegas, Janice (Dominique Sanda), and a teenage boy, Billy (Jackie Earle Haley), discovered in an abandoned house. Later they fight off a band of crazed gun-toting mountain men they encounter in the ruins of a gas station. Denton uses a rocket launcher to destroy the gas station.
As they continue their journey, the Landmaster develops a problem with its drivetrain and they head to Detroit. Denton comments that it was "designed to use spare truck parts", semi-trucks in particular. In Detroit they enter a large wrecking yard in search of the needed parts. A large storm comes upon the group and they take shelter in their vehicle just as a tidal wave washes them away. After the storm passes, they are adrift in a large body of water and it appears that the Earth has returned to its normal axis as the sky is clear. Using the Landmaster's amphibious capability, they reach land. As they are making repairs, they hear a radio broadcast of music and an attempt to reach survivors. After making contact, Tanner and Billy set out on to locate the source of the broadcast. In the final scene, they reach a surprisingly intact Albany and are greeted by its inhabitants.

Tags: cult

Review:
The trouble actually doesn't add up to much (look for roaches!) and the acting and storyline are at a minimum....BUT!!!!!!The following things kicked ass!:Beginning!--->creepy slow suspense as the world faces nuclear destruction!Score!--->Great music sets the tone for the scenes (saving many)Sky FX!--->tripped out!
The careful, measured tones coming from the missile base loudspeaker announcing the progress of "the war" belie the fact that at that moment scores of millions of people are being atomized as the bombs fall.However, the aftermath seems to be typical post-nuclear mis-adventure, with the survivors from the base starting out on a cross-country road trip.
Wild weather, crazed hermits, and killer cockroaches require a little suspension of disbelief, but still keep the pace going.Fans of "The A-Team" will like seeing George Peppard in a lead role, as the by-the-book superior officer who tries to keep the non-conformist junior officer (Vincent) in line.
Killer cockroaches, Jan Michael Vincent, Paul Winfield, George Peppard, giant scorpions, ultimate SUV's, inbred hillbilly types and dusty old Las Vegas where the slots still work...all combine to make a fun little, albeit cheesy, flick.As a kid this movie was a fun Saturday matinee movie and to this day, still a fun Saturday Matinee movie...grab a big bucket of popcorn, turn your brain off and have some cheesy fun....
One of the cool things is to watch two actors Jan-Michael Vincent who of course did Airwolf and George Peppard who was also on TV about the time doing The A-Team both in the movie is awesome.
Damnation Alley is set in a post apocalyptic America in world war three a band of survivors led by air-force major dent-on George Peppard following an accident at their base travel in style in a land-master which essentially is a deluxe camper van which is capable of traveling over rough terrain it has to be seen to be believed!
Jan Michael Vincent before he became famous with air-wolf the wisecracking Token black guy Paul Winfield, who suffers a fate worse than death when runs afoul of 'said Killa cockroaches' French actress Dominque Sanda as a Vegas show girl along for the ride and a Pre -breaking away Jackie Earle Haley as a waif who is adept at throwing rocks at disgruntled hillbillies!
No, you'd be better off watching an episode of either of those shows, but unfortunately I'm describing "Damnation Alley", the wildly unfaithful movie adaptation of the novel by brilliant Sci-Fi author Roger Zelazny.Now, I'm sure few Zelazny fans would disagree that "Alley" is one of the least of his works, but this film takes Zelazny's somewhat decayed fruit and manages to squeeze onto the floor whatever juice it had in it, leaving only the decay.All that remains of the book is the basic setting, the cross-post-apocalyptic-country road trip plot device (though with the book's suspenseful motivation for the trip replaced by a vague "let's see what's over there"), the "Run the storm or dig in?" scene, and a main character named Tanner.
What we get instead is mostly some people riding around the country and encountering dangerous situations that could be successfully transplanted to any time period.I likewise must disagree with those that said that the movie did a good job portraying the experience of the military officers who witnessed the end of the world at the beginning of the film.
Pretty much the only expression of angst or concern we get is when Jan-Michael puts his head in his hands at the end of the sequence, but his portrayal could serve equally well for some other movie's 50th-billing character Man With Headache.Other random things I must criticize: George Peppard's accent isn't particularly badly done, I guess, but it sure is annoying.When the one reasonably likable character makes an exit, the other characters seem not to care very much, and seem not to display any sign afterwards that they remember such a character had ever been around.As others have also alluded to, one of the most anticlimactic endings ever.But the film is not wholly devoid of charm.
The sky effects are indeed pretty neat-looking, and I'm sorry I didn't get to see them on the big screen, though the near-complete failure to try to maintain registration between moving (or even stationary!) ground and sky elements is very jarring and fake-looking.Speaking of the sky, the film also does a commendable job of recreating the bizarre, scary, and vengeful weather depicted in the book.The score is certainly not among Jerry Goldsmith's best work, but it's better than the material it underscores, and it has some kewl analog synth squawks you don't get to hear in his other work.The truck is also pretty cool, though the stretchy material connecting the two halves looks comically flimsy in the harsh environments the truck rides through.
Not surprised to hear that's the one element that does not survive on the show vehicle today.But I have to say that if you insist on watching a movie where the main characters venture out from one of the remaining safe pockets of humanity in a dangerous post-apocalyptic world in their heavily armored, missile-firing truck, and occasionally drive dirt bikes out of the back of it, you would do much better to watch George Romero's "Land of the Dead" instead.
4) Jan-Micheal Vincent has his eyes open, and George Peppard was still in his pre-"A-Team" form.But seriously, this is one of the better sci-fi "survivors versus the world" movies.
George Peppard and Jan Michael Vincent lead the cast, as two U.S Air force soldiers who survive a nuclear holocaust caused by WW3, causing the earth to tilt on its axis creating freak weather patterns (storms, floods) and mutated insects.
So a film about the end of civilization was bound to be a hit.btw if you read the original novel 'Damnation Alley' then I can't recommend this film, because the tie-in is VERY tenuous back to the film - WWIII devastates the planet, and a group of survivors from a military base build a seriously tasty all terrain vehicle with which to explore the remains of the planet.
We then jump right into the world after the war, which apparently show us that the only people surviving nuclear winter will be "B" actors-go figure.George Peppard, Jan-Micheal(Hiccup!)Vincent, and Paul Winfield head off on a road trip to stop a home made porno from reacing George's girlfriend in...wait...that's not right.
Oh yeah, they go to Albany, NY-the last bastion of civlization (snicker snicker)  And on the way they meet many strange settings...well George and "Hard Livin'" Jan-Michael do...Paul gets offed by a bunch of blood thirsty cockroaches-see I told you the only thing to survive would be "B" actors.They soon meet up with a slu..I mean a woman of questionable repute in Las Vegas and a young man who I believe to be that possum looking kid from deliverance.
One revolting sequence involving blood-sucking cockroaches might have become a classic among splatter aficionados had the special effects budget been larger (when the roaches, en masse, chase Jan-Michael Vincent on his cycle, it looks like a carpet being pulled along by a wire).
''The Day After'' seemed to imply that all living things would eventually die in the aftermath of nuclear war.''Damnation Alley'' is not my favorite movie by no means, but i watch it every time it happens to be shown on one of the cable channels..
So all you people who are giving this flick 1 star, obviously you never saw the flick in the 70's when I did, with its very cool post apocalyptic scenes and its very cool RV that had missiles and could go over oceans in raging gales, and Jan Michael, and of course one of those lines you can't get iota your head, George Peppard screaming "We Got Us Some Killa Cockroaches Here!".
OK, In some ways I can see why people hate this movie, especially if it is viewed nowadays since the new era of digital movie-making.The acting was acceptable but could have been better.The cinematography was ok and, yes the "special effects" were cheezy; let's be honest here; the scorpions were back projected, and the cockroaches were plastic props dragged on the ground by strings.
Jan-Michael Vincent and George Peppard star in this movie, but the kid that turns up in the film was Jackie Earle Haley who was in Watchmen as Rorschach and suffice to say, you can definitely tell that it is him!
The effects are not the greatest in the movie, but they do make the world seem like it is in the aftermath of a nuclear war, that is, until the end where it looks like everything is pretty much normal.
There is nothing redeeming about this movie - special effects are terrible, dialogue stinks, each turn of events is so implausible that you get mad at everyone involved.SPOILER (not that it matters...) Final ridiculous turn - the entire world has been destroyed by nuclear war, but they find one area that wasn't targeted by a nuke and therefore is still a beautiful green sunny place, with no radiation and no nuclear winter and little children playing ball.
It is a perfect film for a rainy day.Future Airwolf star Jan Michael-Vincent teams up with future A-Team star, the late George Peppard as two soldiers stuck in a post-nuclear holocaust world.
I haven't read Damnation Alley but I've read some books by Roger Zelazny that I really liked - Bridge of Ashes, Isle of the Dead, Lord of the Light, and the entire Amber series - so I decided to watch Damnation Alley.I decided to give Damnation Alley 2 stars instead of one because it is mercifully short, at just over 1.5 hours long, and because it has an interesting premise even if the execution is not very good.
I had fond memories of this movie having seen it as when I was young in the early 80's, and then I made the huge mistake of watching it again recently.There is no real plot to speak of, it's a straight story of a trip from point A to point B, the acting, what little of it there was, was fairly bad, and the special effects were anything but special.I must assume most of the budget was spent building the Landmaster, because the effects were horrible, even for the period when this came out, especially when you consider Star Wars came out the same year.I would say give this a miss, especially if you saw it as a child..
It was quite effective on the big screen with stereo sound but, sadly, loses much of its potence on television.The special effects are mostly cheap looking with obvious sets in many scenes."Damnation Alley" is not even a good time waster.
If you watch Damnation Alley imagine how mindblowing Star Wars was to have appeared at that time when things like Damnation Alley were considered acceptable movies..
A short-lived 1976 TV series, Ark 11, did this whole plot-line a lot better with more pleasing actors/music/costumes.But anyway, Damnation Alley is still worth watching as I love road movies, but you will be shaking your head saying "this could have been so much better"..
The film looks very dated, taking all the cliché's about pop culture from the 1970's, CB-Radio Jargon, pour in Cold War  Atomic War hysteria and mix with bad writing and hooky special effects and you can just about imagine what a "terrific" film this is.Damnation Alley has that feeling that it was made for the Lowest Common Denominator, yet 20th Century Fox spent almost twice as much on this film as they did on Star Wars  Episode IV: A New Hope.
No big special effects, except for some stock footage of nuclear explosions, some pyrotechnics and varied color flavors in the sky (supposed to represent the variations in the Earth's atmosphere).Sometimes, for a movie to be good, you simply don't need millions, just simply a solid story and fine acting.
The special effects here are embarrassingly bad; for a frame of reference, consider that this is the same year that the studio, 20th Century Fox, also released "Star Wars."Still, this ridiculous movie rises above its failings with some elements that were damn good.
Wikipedia has some interesting information on the back ground for "Damnation Alley" -- the radioactive skies effect actually took up 10 months of post- production, despite a final result that paled in comparison to "Star Wars." It was a troubled production, and its story is interesting reading.Seriously, I had fun with "Damnation Alley." If it isn't quite a "classic," the it's at least a really fun movie to which I'm sure I'll return.
The characters include domineering tough guy Denton (George Peppard), cheerful Tanner (Jan-Michael Vincent), leading lady Janice (Dominique Sanda), easygoing Keegan (Paul Winfield) and teenager Billy (Jackie Earle Haley).The odd lack of continuity creates some guffaw-inducing WTF moments; watch as switches are made from real people to dummies.
If my memory serves me right, then in 1977 the mighty Fox had two Sci-Fi projects in production, one being this manure, for which for the reasons that my mightily limited upper head cannot possibly fathom, the aforementioned Fox honchos had lavished with literally sacs of money, probably expecting it to become the number one blockbuster hit of, well, eternity, and the other one, so the legend goes, for which one George Lucas had to literally beg on the street corners, probably also having to perform in the circuses like some sort of a beastly apparition from the freaky incidents of nature around the states to finance and secure what eventually turned out to be the cinematic phenomenon that has turned H-Wood on its head, setting new standards for this business to say the least Well, to go back to the topic at hand, namely, this ultra-ugly duckling of a film, The Damnation, claiming to derive its premise on some sort of a Sci-Fi literary classic penned by R.Zelazny, is your ultimate pleasure killer, that long sought-after missing link in the Parnassus of the dreadful,wasteful, a product of such disgustingly low taste that it is inconceivable what kind of ˝humanoid˝ could denigrate himself so much to sit and watch this for, well, 30 seconds It is supposed to be a post-apocalyptic road-movie, you know, after a nuclear Armaggedon , a bunch of four soldiers, decide to go to Albany in order to find survivors, and on their way they experience the following incredible events: they find a woman (no sex is even hinted at, naturally, these guys are totally de-sexualized), a teen boy, a car junk yard, and, as a sole 'action' scene, they manage to survive a biblical flood that happens suddenly and totally illogically-it must have something to do with the Earth's axis being tilted or something, and ,finally, arrive to their desired destination with people cheering and having fun, as if the nuclear exchange hasn't occurred, and the movie ends !
Despite this calamity, a group of survivors at a missile bunker(among them George Peppard & Jan Michael Vincent) must take to the road in armored RVs after the bunker is accidentally destroyed, where they encounter weird weather, hostile people, and killer cockroaches...all the while trying to reach the safe haven of New Jersey.Strange film has a good cast, and effective action scenes(not to mention an impressive RV, the film's highlight) but an ultimately silly and absurd story, that doesn't bother with things like plausibility and scientific accuracy.
Based on the post-apocalyptic novel "Damnation Alley" by Roger Zelazny, the film version shares almost nothing with the book other than the title.In the film, a band of World War III survivors from the 123rd Strategic Missile Wing in the California desert set out across a devastated America in an armored, 12-wheeled "Landmaster" vehicle in search of a faint radio signal from Albany, New York.
Along the way, they encounter freak storms, ragged survivors, and yes, those infamous "killer cockroaches.""Damnation Alley" definitely has its strong points, most notably the first 20 minutes, which features perhaps one of the most chilling depictions of the start of World War III , as the crew of the 123rd SMW  watches helplessly as the war begins and ends in a matter of minutes before their eyes.On the down side, the film also has a wealth of weak points, most of which are after the survivors begin their  journey.
We see Jan Michael Vincent ride back to the base on a motorbike with a girl riding on the back, when they get attacked by giant scorpions, a special effects sequence that is one of the most embarrassing I've ever seen in a movie.
Another thing we never actually see happen in the movie, although later he is offered to drive the armoured vehicle.We then get the inevitable evil survivors scene, where they run into three hicks who survived the nuclear war as well, and who try to rape the lady they picked up in Vegas.
Along the way Winfield and Niven are lost and Peppard and Vincent pick up Dominque Sanda and Jackie Earle Haley best known for the Bad News Bears.Other than some special effects that were OK, nothing more, there's not much else to recommend Damnation Alley.
George Peppard (The A Team) and Jan-Michael Vincent (Airwolf) star in this post apocalyptic road movie.
Star Wars cost half as much to make as Damnation Alley, was produced in the same year and makes this turkey look like an amateur film made by high school students.
Damnation Alley is what you get when you try to make a post-apocalyptic movie on a very low budget.The story takes place after a nuclear war, something that was chillingly real back in the 70's.
"Damnation Alley" didn't win any Academy Awards and it's not on any list of the greatest movies, but it is a gritty tale of survival in a post-nuclear war world and has several good scenes.Lt. Tanner (Jan-Michael Vincent), Keegan (Paul Winfield) and Maj. Denton (George Peppard) are Air Force personnel who survive a nuclear war in their California bunker.