She Wolves of the Wasteland (1987)

What do you get when you combine big hair, big guns, big, um...personalities! and a serious lack of wardrobe? She-Wolves of the Wasteland, a post-apocalyptic classic that features women--lots and lots of women--who leave little to the imagination as they battle each other in various junkyards and gravel pits to determine the fate of the entire world. Leave your brain behind for this shamelessly sinful sexploitation romp with a plot you won't remember...but plenty of eye candy you won't forget! Product Description

Scantily Clad Girls with lots of guns... Awesome!

This movie is terribly awesome, with an emphasis on terrible. Sometimes I like watching bad movies; they're just fun to watch. This movie made in the late 80's is definitely a gem and worth the entire zero dollars I got for it thanks to Amazons four for three deal! Despite the fact that this was awesomely bad, I can't in good conscience give it the same rating I would to a real five star film like the first Matrix. It's just not on the same scale and since Amazon doesn't differentiate, I am forced to resort to just one. For a B-movie this was just fun and funny and probably a three or four stars based on the B-movie spectrum.

As far as B movies go I thought this actually had a really cool story premise. I'm kind of a sucker for Post-Apocalyptic films, because I think it's interesting to see how people perceive the human race struggling to survive once society has been demolished. It's obviously so influenced by Mad Max it's not even funny. However, there's an added twist. There are no longer any men in the lands and society has turned into this estranged matriarchal styled government/society. The Reverend Mother of this society has strange powers for some reason and has lived an unusually long life by draining people of their life essence. At least that's what I'm assuming, the whole general background behind how things got this way is kind of skipped over.

The major issue with me is that the story is so loosely put together it's kind of annoying and I had a lot more questions than answers half the time. Also time seems to pass in years, but for the viewer it feels like a few seconds. So society has just turned into shambles and the Reverend Mother's iron grip has everyone living a less than fulfilling life. However, there's this breeding situation that the Reverend Mother also controls and the movie opens with two escapees from her facilities. One of which is carrying a male child. This is shocking because that male child could change the face of the human race! So that concept alone was pretty interesting. However, when a bounty hunter is about to capture the girl, Keela, Pheonix comes out of nowhere and saves her. No reason why, no explanation, it just happened... So they escape and go back to Pheonix's Sandtrapper camp. Which features topless girls in waterfalls; this is really all you get for nudity in the film, so people buying it for this reason will probably be rather disappointed. However, when Pheonix picked up Keela she didn't look pregnant at all... but when they're back at the camp the next night she's giving birth. You figure it out, I can't explain it. Oh did I mention that Keela played by Peggy McIntaggert displays probably some of the worst acting I've ever seen... I know she is featured in Playboy and so forth and I probably shouldn't expect much, but seriously when she's giving birth she sounds like she's having an orgasm, not giving birth. Seriously, they're not the same thing! Pheonix played by Kathleen Kinmont at least was a little more convincing. I mean, I obviously wasn't expecting top notch acting, but most of these people did a fairly decent job despite being amateurs, but McIntaggert was overacting every single scene she was in.

So anyway, you've been forewarned to some of this film's misgivings. A few other key points is that the girls rarely hold the guns right when they fire them, especially one scene featured with a girl firing a sawed off shot gun, no you don't hold that at your waist. Also there is one scene where Pheonix is trying to sneak back into camp after hearing gun fire and she's holding her M-16 by the top handle... like it's a briefcase. So after you hear shots being fired you're going to hold your gun by the top handle... genius! Honestly, I'm not going to cry over this because I wanted to watch a movie with scantily clad females firing guns, and this movie delivers that in wonderful amounts! Anyway, there is a scene where they get captured and Pheonix has to fight in an arena. Yes, I saw this in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome... and they're just repeating that, with an emphasis on Roman gladiatorial combat concepts (maybe that makes it more original?). In another scene they come across this television cult that essentially sacrifices people to the airwaves and for prayer they list off TV shows. It's hilarious and that concept is awesome. Yes, I am aware it's a variation on the people lost in the desert in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome as well.

This movie was painfully done on the cheap, since amidst all the desert wandering all the towns have the same exact population of the same exact girls. Doesn't matter, I wasn't expecting high budget and no one else should either. I thought this movie was pretty decent for what it is and the either intentional or unintentional comedic factor is totally worth it. It is replete with bad acting, girls with less clothes than makes sense, and lots of gun fights between aforementioned bikini clad females. Glorious, if you ask me. That's what I wanted and that's what I got. The movie conceptually is fairly decent and as far as B-movies goes it's probably not that bad, but I can't give this much more than this. What can I say, I wanted to see an awesomely bad movie and this delivers, don't expect a huge amount from this film and you'll probably be greatly amused like I was. May 15, 2008

Sit down and check your brain at the door.

Oh my goodness where to start ? Let's just say that She Wolves of the Wasteland aka Phoenix the Warrior is one rare gem of a B movie.Someone was trying to cash in on the Mad Max/Road Warrior craze of the 80's and came up with this one.To it's credit She Wolves knows it's limitations and plays off them.The film stars the stunning Kathleen Kinmont as Phoenix a post apolcalypse survivor/huntress.Anyone familiar with Ms.Kinmont's body of work ( tv's Renegade series,Halloween 4 ) knows that she's a competent actress with a great look.Her sidekick is Keela played by former Playboy Playmate Peggy McIntaggert.They are being pursued by the evil Cobalt who works for the diabolical mutant known as the Reverend Mother.Cobalt is played by the late Persis Khambatta who unfortunatly passed away back in 1998.Persis is best known as the "bald chick" from the first Star Trek movie and as Rutger Hauer's terrorist sidekick in Sly Stallone's Night Hawk movie.Reverend Mother is played bt Sheila Howard who is channeling Emperor Palpatine from the Star Wars saga.I won't try and explain the plot as it's inane to say the least and downright hilarious in spots.I suspect that Kinmont knew what she was in for and played Phoenix to the hilt.And she looks way too hot to be a survivor of the Apocalpyse.Persis chews the scenery bigtime as Cobalt obviously knowing that this is what was required for the film.McIntaggert's acting ability was close to nil but she looked good in skimpy clothes as well.I will say that Road Warrior is obviously the movie that She Wolves apes most.There's even a little boy and a broken music box like in Road Warrior.The boy Skyler says no lines and is most likely grateful for it.Hey all I can say is if you love campy B movies like me then you'll really want to check She Wolves of the wasteland out.There's some cool dune buggy chase scenes and some mutants that recite Tv Guide verbatem that you've got to see to believe.I will admit though to being disppointed in the lack of female nudity-hey guys it's a T&A flick where's Kathleens obligitory nude scene ?Overall a much better buy than those lousy Italian made flicks like the Bronx warriors are. April 22, 2008

Disapointed

From the other reviews it sounded hot, but it could not keep my attention. As far as nudity, there is only one brief scene with partial nudity. The hot women staring in the film never get naked. The action and fight scenes are so cheezy, you can't even mention a comparsion with the epic "Mad Max". March 20, 2008

what a dissapointment

This movie is stupid. I got it because I was looking for porn, and no. This movie was the opposite of porn this movie was just a cheep rip-off of mad max. It's only R rated because there's one scene with women with very nice but that is one small scene and the rest of the movie sucked. March 15, 2008

Post apocalyptic heaven!

In the future, the male population has been destroyed by nuclear war, leaving only the women, all of whom are hot young babes. Hair care products also seem to have survived intact, but clothing has been reduced to tattered bikinis and other Mad Max style gear. As the movie begins, after the obligatory action sequence of a mortar-firing dune buggy chasing a smaller dune buggy, we find our heroine Kathleen Kinmont rescuing a girl from the clutches of the evil babes. Soon she learns that this young girl is pregnant, the only pregnant girl on the planet. So the evil babes are very anxious to get her back. Turns out the evil babes are ruled by the "Reverend Mother", and old hag who sits in a room and apparently has a scientific laboratory stashed away somewhere where she conducts genetic experiments.

Anyhow, Kinmont and her pal make it through a variety of gunfights, gladiator battles and even survive being run over by a truck. They meet up with a man, by which time the pregnant girl has already given birth to a son. I suppose the odds of the girls who have the only male child on earth meeting up with the only other man on earth are fairly slim, but hey, it never violated my suspension of disbelief. Eventually of course they are captured and brought before the Reverend Mother, for the exciting, or well, for the showdown.

This is '80s cheese at its best. Acting is bad, sets are cheap and reused over and over, the babes are hot and plentiful, and there's all the chuckle-inducing low budget action you can handle. Typical '80s music suitable for an aerobics class plays throughout. This movie was always know as Phoenix the Warrior until it was renamed for DVD release. January 9, 2008

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