It's truly unfortunate and even mildly depressing how your personal perception changes over the years. I remember seeing this film on late night television when I was a young lad and I instantly loved it for life … or at least I thought I would at the time. "Damnation Alley" has a lot of elements to appeal to young and naive audiences, especially 15 to 20 years ago, when computer generated effects didn't dominate cinema yet. It has the impressive heavily armored truck, gigantic mutated scorpions and carnivorous cockroaches, funnily colored skies and a massive number of explosions. Moreover, the film starred not one but two of my childhood TV idols (George Peppard of "The A-Team" and Jan-Michael Vincent of "Airwolf"). I finally re-watched "Damnation Alley" now, and what mostly astounded me was how amateurish, clumsy and boring the film is seen through the eyes of an adult! This is one seriously incoherent mess of a film, and even though the 'Landmaster' truck still remains an ultra-cool method of transportation, the rest of the scenery and special effects are pathetic and not the least bit convincing. Allegedly, Roger Zelazny's novel is a masterwork of Sci-Fi, but the movie adaptation most definitely is not. The first fifteen minutes are unimaginably dull and handle about absolutely nothing, really. Bunch of military guys, including the three male protagonists, sitting comfortably in their base camp whilst nuclear bombs kill 99.9% of the earth's population and even tilt the freaking planet off its axis. Later, an even stupider accident wipes out the remaining survivors at the army base so that only four people are left alive. They decide to undertake the dangerous coast-to-coast journey from California to Albany in their Landmaster truck, because they picked up vague radio signals hinting there may be other survivors. The posse quickly loses a member but also pick up a woman and a kid during, and each time they make a stop there's a different menace to face. There's the earth's unbalanced and wacky climate, cannibalistic insects and – of course – the biggest horror of them all: fellow dehumanized survivors. The premise sounds like the ideal post-apocalyptic Sci-Fi stuff, and it is, but the elaboration and Jack Smight's sense of direction literally bring this film down. Being a fan of low-grade and obscure genre movies, I can tolerate bad special effects and a lack of continuity in the script, but there's a whole lot more wrong here. The characters are wooden statues and none of the actors seem really interested in providing them with emotional or intellectual depth. Tanner and Keegan are supposedly best friends (they even sing cheesy songs together),yet when Keegan dies Tanner shows no reaction or doesn't even mention his name anymore for the remainders of the film. There's almost no development in the relationships between the original travelers and the survivors they pick up along the way and throughout the entire film there isn't a single dialog that is properly written out. The sequences with the flesh-eating cockroaches and the encounter with the savage rednecks generate a few isolated peaks of suspense and thrills, but overall "Damnation Alley" is mostly uneven and tedious. And, just when you presume the film couldn't possibly sink any lower, you're faced with the most implausible and infuriating climax in the history of cinema. I can honestly say I've never witnessed a more pathetic forced happy-ending in my life.

A series of adventures following US Air Force soldiers Jan-Michael Vincent & George Peppard(and Paul Winfield for a while)as they must leave a military installation destroyed after cigarette ash ignited leaking gas, hoping to find support across the country in Albany, NY. The earth has become thrown off it's axis thanks in part to a nuclear war where America tries to avert a cataclysmic disaster after a warring country fired missiles towards the United States. They encounter a woman in Vegas(Dominique Sanda)and a kid not long after(Jackie Earle Haley)as they journey to their destination. Along the way, the group come across giant Scorpions(bad, bad, bad special effects, even terrible by 70's standards including what appeared to be a woman riding with Vincent as he must evade the creatures, obviously an actress, later proved to be a mannequin and this effect is never convincing),flesh-eating beetles(poor Winfield doesn't come out so great),radioactively diseased humans with malicious intent, and a devastating storm which causes a giant washout as Peppard attempts to find parts in a Detroit auto graveyard. The military tank van is rad, and it's cool hanging with Peppard and Vincent for 90 minutes, so DAMNATION ALLEY wasn't too difficult to endure. It lags in places because the crew must drive for long periods, and the low budget hurts more than helps at times in the special effects. You could say this was an early audition role for Peppard's A-Team role, as his commander in charge, is mostly in control..of course, Vincent's hot shot daredevil can't help himself sometimes, especially when he hops on his motorcycle.

This cheap but effective sci-fi yarn acts as a precursor to the wave of post-apocalyptic movies that would sweep the world in the early '80s as a result of the success of MAD MAX 2, and this film is indeed ahead of its time. There are many similarities between this film and the ones that came later, but the most obvious is the custom-designed all-terrain vehicle in which our heroes travel across the deserted nuclear wastes; such vehicles would become a staple of the post-apocalyptic genre in later years.

DAMNATION ALLEY is one of those films in which our heroes embark on a perilous journey and encounter many obstacles and dangers in their path. This kind of story harks back to the classic tales of Homer and his hero Odysseus battling the Sirens and the Cyclops, and has been a staple of the genre since cinema began and those silent adventurers took part in A TRIP TO THE MOON. DAMNATION ALLEY is certainly no classic film, and there are definite pacing problems in the second half, but there is enough excitement and danger to make it worthwhile viewing.

The initial advent of nuclear war is portrayed in a tense, frightening way, even if all you see is some old stock footage of mushroom clouds. Once our heroes embark on their journey in their armoured truck, the fun begins, and the film is solid entertainment for about forty minutes. At around this time, the pacing does flag a little, but events are wrapped up neatly for an upbeat ending. The special effects used are limited but they still work. For instance, the images of skies glowing blue, green and red are crude yet colourful, and impressive due to their consistency.

The acting is fine for a B-movie like this; not brilliant but passable. George Peppard is fun as the older, leading man, to whom everybody else looks up; he has just the right balance of authority, pomposity and charisma. In comparison, Jan-Michael Vincent has the young, handsome square-jawed hero type role and fits the bill well: his acting may be poor but he's a likable screen presence here. Dominique Sanda lends a bit of sophistication and is a pretty face to have on board, while Paul Winfield (THE TERMINATOR) shows up as the token black guy. The only miscasting, in my mind, is that of the young boy who joins our travellers; future star Jackie Earle Haley is one of the most irritating, snotty child performers I've ever seen.

The perils our heroes encounter are numerous and varied. Things start off with some cheesy giant scorpions which are actually real scorpions, just enlarged. In the film's best scene, our heroes arrive in a deserted ghost town where they discover rusting cars and skeletons that have been picked clean; this scene offers up a real sense of fear and foreboding, something that runs throughout the film but is strongest here. Eventually it turns out that the town is infested by flesh-eating killer cockroaches which proceed to devour one of our heroes in a spectacularly gruesome scene (turns out that this was only a PG film, but they were definitely pushing the boundaries of the rating with the brief bloody scenes on display here). Later, they must face freak storms, a sudden flood and a gang of diseased rapists while on their way to Albany. These things make DAMNATION ALLEY a lot of fun to watch, and recommended to anyone with an interest in these types of pictures.