Exterminators of the Year 3000 - www.post-apocalypse.co.uk

The simple opening credits have no sound at all, I suspect when they put the English titles on they just didn’t get around to putting audio over it too. Eventually we get a view of the desolate rocky cliffs and hills, much of which is probably filmed in a quarry as is dictated in the PA rulebook. Patrolling this dusty landscape is a cop car with the largest warning lights I have ever seen. Two cops are patrolling in their excessively mucky vehicle, one of them wears large shades with only one lens and the other wears a motorcycle helmet, presumably he's ashamed to show his ugly face. An automated message on their radio calls for them to respond, which they ignore. Soon the message changes telling them to return to base. They ignore the order. “Let’s show them what real cops can do” Helmet Guy tells his partner. Soon enough they pull up by the roadside to check out an abandoned car and caravan with two snake-riddled skeletons inside. While investigating, another car drives up.

Callously, the driver starts attacking the cops, trying to run them down. The guy with the motorbike helmet is the first to bite the dust, knocked to the ground where his head collides with a rock, ouch. Seems like the helmet was a waste of time. The other cop runs into the desert. The Exterminator slowly heads after him. The cop tries to shoot the driver but the driver uses the camera to navigate with his windscreen armor down. The driver pops his head out of the sunroof of the car and kills the cop. This guy (Robert Jannuci) is supposedly our hero, but for the majority of the movie he spitefully attacks people and plots to get what he wants. Still, I guess it’s dog-eat-dog when water is so scarce. Alien (yep, that’s his name) gets out of the Exterminator to take the cops' water stored in the back of the cop car. He’s wearing the typical small leather jacket, no shirt, and a toothed necklace. While he's busy collecting water somebody sneaks up, gets in the Exterminator and drives away. Alien gives chase in the cop car. The chase is reasonable but you don’t have to watch too closely to see that the drivers really aren’t going very fast, with the close-camera shots making it look faster than it actually is. This is one problem that plights most of the chase sequences in the film. Eventually, the Exterminator proves too strong for Alien's cop car and he crashes, flipping over onto its roof. Things don’t look too good for Alien, but for now we must leave him and move on with the plot (there is one, honest).

Cut to a well fortified base on a rocky hillside, covered in barbed wire and chaps with machine guns. Inside the base is a long haired kid (11 or 12) called Tommy (Luca Venantini) with his pet hamster. He’s waiting for his father to return with the precious water that the community needs, both for drinking and their plants. Unfortunately, most people seem to think he has been gone too long and isn’t coming back. The other kids even tease Tommy that his father is dead. In caves in the hill the people are growing plants and arguing about the decreasing humidity. A middle-aged guy called John tries to persuade the town's senator (surely if there's a senator then there must be a senate somewhere?) to send out another group to travel to the water well 180 miles away through the lawless lands. Eventually, the senator puts two and two together realizes that they will all die if they don’t have water, so he gives the green light for a second expedition.

Now it's time for possibly the best action scene of the film (I can't resist truck battles). The task force sets off in three lorries, one carrying an empty tanker and the other two with men in the back. John is driving the tanker truck and soon realizes that Tommy has snuck aboard with his pet hamster. John is obviously a little annoyed “The Exterminators will attack at any moment.” he says, and, speak of the devil; here they come from the rear. Crazy Bull (Fernando Bilbao) is the guy in charge of these barbarians, and a pretty good understated leader he makes too, although I will give anybody who constantly calls his men “mothergrabbers” extra marks. "Charge! Once more into the breach, mothergrabbers!” he cries (Wellington would be so proud).

Crazy Bull’s team consists of three or four small trucks and numerous dune buggies and motorcycles, all with just enough modifications to qualify as PA vehicles. Actually, it’s a pretty substantial task force, much bigger than the usual low-budget PA can muster, and I was glad to see an abundance of oversized shoulder pads on the gang. There are no calls for surrender or anything like that, just straight into battle. The two defensive trucks pull back from the tanker to hold the gang back, who start off by firing grenades. Superbly, the townsfolk retaliate by dropping a succession of bombs off the back of the truck like depth charges. Boom!

I don’t know why, but battles in motion are always much more enjoyable than their static-based brethren. Soon enough the machine guns start too and a full blown battle kicks off. It seems that, similarly to petrol, bullets are easy to get hold of in the year 2033 (sorry, 3000). Highlights include a slow motion flip of one of the dune buggies, where the driver/stunt man must have surely suffered some kind of injury, and a motorcycle stunt where the gang uses a ramp mounted on the back of one of their buggies to jump onto one of the defending trucks. A couple of grisly deaths and explosions later and the two defending trucks are vanquished, leaving John, his co-driver and Tommy to fend for themselves. Soon enough somebody climbs on the back of the truck and coincidently knows exactly where to go to cut the brake hydraulics, bringing the tanker to a standstill. The co-driver is killed and John is threatened to tell them where the water is “Water, Water, Water! By the beard of the profit.” Bull is pretty pissed when he realizes the tanker is empty. John says nothing and is also killed. Tommy managed to hide with the map to the water in the back of the cab and miraculously manages to sneak away.

After some trekking through the desert, Tommy stumbles upon Alien, who is still stuck in the overturned cop car. Alien promises to help Tommy get the water for his town if he helps him get out of the car. Tommy helps but Alien soon ditches him and walks off. Tommy follows and they exchange the odd friendly argument. “You’re a barbarian” Says Tommy, “that’s the difference between you and me”. Walking through a valley, Crazy Bull turns up and surrounds the two. It seems the Exterminator originally belonged to Bull and he wants it back. He is about to kill Alien when Alien offers to strike a deal. He tells Bull he has information about the location of lots of water and he will tell him in exchange for a motorbike and his freedom. Shockingly, Crazy Bull agrees (must be why they call him Crazy). They bring a motorbike forward and Alien gets on. Where’s the water? “Ask the kid” says Alien who drives off as fast as he can, leaving Tommy behind. What a hero! Bull threatens the kid and twists his arm but Tommy refuses to say anything. Time for something a little more drastic.

Cue night time, and the part of the film where I was saying to myself “no they wouldn’t, wait a second, ooohhh, they did”. They tie Tommy up to two motorbikes, one arm to each bike. That’s right they pull one of his arms off. But it’s not all bad. It turns out Alien does have a bit of a conscience after all, as he rides back in and rescues Tommy. “Don’t forget my arm” says Tommy and we now realize that it’s a robotic arm. Phew! What I must ask is, if Alien didn’t know it was a robotic arm, surely his little rescue was just a little bit too late if it had been a real arm?

Soon enough the motorbike runs out of petrol, or whatever they use in the future, and they have to walk. Alien hilariously sticks Tommy’s arm back on with some duct tape (the glue that holds the universe together). It's as good a time now as ever to mention the music. Absolutely a-typical synth, which sounds extremely like the kind of stuff you would get in a Super Nintendo game. Nothing too annoying but instantly forgettable.

Alien, Trash and Tommy head back to the tanker to find it empty. They rush back to the water well, knowing that the townsfolk must surely be close to death by now, but they are just in time to see the place (well, a model of it) blown to pieces. We see the hooded figure who did it, but why is never explained (just like the guy who originally stole the Exterminator from Alien and how Papillon ended up with it). It’s madness, I tell you! The kid is obviously distraught and even Alien appears to be crying, but wait! No. It's not tears but rain. That’s right; it’s a suspiciously perfectly-timed miracle. I just hope it's not radioactive.

Original Title:	Gil Sterminatori dell'anno 3000
Alternative Title(s):	Exterminators of the Year 3000 (UK, US). Exterminador de la carretera, El (Spain). Death Warriors (supposedly used in Europe). The Executor (Germany).
Year of Release:	1983
Duration:	USA/UK: 103 min (Spain: 83 min).
Country of Origin:	Italy/Spain
Tagline(s):	'Planet Earth: 3000 AD. A thousand ways to die. One way to survive. Meet the new breed of road warrior'. US VHS re-release. 'Set in the barbaric future, one man stood alone' UK VHS. 'Into the battlefield of nuclear mutants and vicious bikers come.... EXTERMINATORS' EMI VHS Release.
Reviewed Version Rating:	UK Pal VHS pre-certificate.
Review: By Michael Petch March 07	Firstly, before we go any further, let’s get the date right. I can’t imagine that all these 70’s and early 80’s vehicles will still be running in the year 3000. Most of them probably won’t work even now, just 25 years later, never mind in a millennium. I’m guessing the film is set about 50 years in the future, so I'm therefore changing the name to Exterminators of the Year 2033. Italian PA’s have used 2019 (2019 After the Fall of New York) and 2020(2020 Texas Gladiators) as well, so there’s no shame in 2033. 3000 was probably a publisher's decision anyway. Right, what else should we get clear before we start? Exterminators was released in 1983, two years after Mad Max 2 and slap bang in the heart of the golden age of Italian post-apocalypse films. As the Italian PA’s were the original motivation for the creation of this site, I had very high expectations for this movie, and boy were they fulfilled. A few of the actors were previously in The New Barbarians (Superb) and the Bronx movies and most were regulars of the Italian rip-off movie industry, and at this point they seemed to be running like a well-oiled machine churning out a new movie every couple of months. Exterminators offers very little innovation to the genre but manages to take a lot of successful ideas and melds them into an enjoyable little movie that has more heart and character than you would expect. The simple opening credits have no sound at all, I suspect when they put the English titles on they just didn’t get around to putting audio over it too. Eventually we get a view of the desolate rocky cliffs and hills, much of which is probably filmed in a quarry as is dictated in the PA rulebook. Patrolling this dusty landscape is a cop car with the largest warning lights I have ever seen. Two cops are patrolling in their excessively mucky vehicle, one of them wears large shades with only one lens and the other wears a motorcycle helmet, presumably he's ashamed to show his ugly face. An automated message on their radio calls for them to respond, which they ignore. Soon the message changes telling them to return to base. They ignore the order. “Let’s show them what real cops can do” Helmet Guy tells his partner. Soon enough they pull up by the roadside to check out an abandoned car and caravan with two snake-riddled skeletons inside. While investigating, another car drives up. I couldn’t tell you what kind of car it is, but it has certainly been through the standard PA modification process and received grills and spikes at the front and back, grills around the wheels, and more importantly, a grill over the windscreen that can be open or closed to protect the driver from bullets. This should render the driver blind but there happens to be a little camera mounted on the front so the driver can use the onboard TV to navigate. It’s a reasonable PA lead vehicle, although there's too many beeping and computer-related noises when onboard, considering it’s a pretty standard car. Later we find that the car is nicknamed the Exterminator, so I may as well start calling it that now. The exterminator is suitably tooled up. Callously, the driver starts attacking the cops, trying to run them down. The guy with the motorbike helmet is the first to bite the dust, knocked to the ground where his head collides with a rock, ouch. Seems like the helmet was a waste of time. The other cop runs into the desert. The Exterminator slowly heads after him. The cop tries to shoot the driver but the driver uses the camera to navigate with his windscreen armor down. The driver pops his head out of the sunroof of the car and kills the cop. This guy (Robert Jannuci) is supposedly our hero, but for the majority of the movie he spitefully attacks people and plots to get what he wants. Still, I guess it’s dog-eat-dog when water is so scarce. Alien (yep, that’s his name) gets out of the Exterminator to take the cops' water stored in the back of the cop car. He’s wearing the typical small leather jacket, no shirt, and a toothed necklace. While he's busy collecting water somebody sneaks up, gets in the Exterminator and drives away. Alien gives chase in the cop car. The chase is reasonable but you don’t have to watch too closely to see that the drivers really aren’t going very fast, with the close-camera shots making it look faster than it actually is. This is one problem that plights most of the chase sequences in the film. Eventually, the Exterminator proves too strong for Alien's cop car and he crashes, flipping over onto its roof. Things don’t look too good for Alien, but for now we must leave him and move on with the plot (there is one, honest). Cut to a well fortified base on a rocky hillside, covered in barbed wire and chaps with machine guns. Inside the base is a long haired kid (11 or 12) called Tommy (Luca Venantini) with his pet hamster. He’s waiting for his father to return with the precious water that the community needs, both for drinking and their plants. Unfortunately, most people seem to think he has been gone too long and isn’t coming back. The other kids even tease Tommy that his father is dead. In caves in the hill the people are growing plants and arguing about the decreasing humidity. A middle-aged guy called John tries to persuade the town's senator (surely if there's a senator then there must be a senate somewhere?) to send out another group to travel to the water well 180 miles away through the lawless lands. Eventually, the senator puts two and two together realizes that they will all die if they don’t have water, so he gives the green light for a second expedition. Nice hat. Now it's time for possibly the best action scene of the film (I can't resist truck battles). The task force sets off in three lorries, one carrying an empty tanker and the other two with men in the back. John is driving the tanker truck and soon realizes that Tommy has snuck aboard with his pet hamster. John is obviously a little annoyed “The Exterminators will attack at any moment.” he says, and, speak of the devil; here they come from the rear. Crazy Bull (Fernando Bilbao) is the guy in charge of these barbarians, and a pretty good understated leader he makes too, although I will give anybody who constantly calls his men “mothergrabbers” extra marks. "Charge! Once more into the breach, mothergrabbers!” he cries (Wellington would be so proud). Crazy Bull does not get enough screen time which is a shame. Crazy Bull’s team consists of three or four small trucks and numerous dune buggies and motorcycles, all with just enough modifications to qualify as PA vehicles. Actually, it’s a pretty substantial task force, much bigger than the usual low-budget PA can muster, and I was glad to see an abundance of oversized shoulder pads on the gang. There are no calls for surrender or anything like that, just straight into battle. The two defensive trucks pull back from the tanker to hold the gang back, who start off by firing grenades. Superbly, the townsfolk retaliate by dropping a succession of bombs off the back of the truck like depth charges. Boom! The best scene in the film involves lots of explosives. Nice! I don’t know why, but battles in motion are always much more enjoyable than their static-based brethren. Soon enough the machine guns start too and a full blown battle kicks off. It seems that, similarly to petrol, bullets are easy to get hold of in the year 2033 (sorry, 3000). Highlights include a slow motion flip of one of the dune buggies, where the driver/stunt man must have surely suffered some kind of injury, and a motorcycle stunt where the gang uses a ramp mounted on the back of one of their buggies to jump onto one of the defending trucks. A couple of grisly deaths and explosions later and the two defending trucks are vanquished, leaving John, his co-driver and Tommy to fend for themselves. Soon enough somebody climbs on the back of the truck and coincidently knows exactly where to go to cut the brake hydraulics, bringing the tanker to a standstill. The co-driver is killed and John is threatened to tell them where the water is “Water, Water, Water! By the beard of the profit.” Bull is pretty pissed when he realizes the tanker is empty. John says nothing and is also killed. Tommy managed to hide with the map to the water in the back of the cab and miraculously manages to sneak away. Crazy Bull was not happy to find all the tanker empty. Use your brain Bull. Why would they sneak water out of the base? After some trekking through the desert, Tommy stumbles upon Alien, who is still stuck in the overturned cop car. Alien promises to help Tommy get the water for his town if he helps him get out of the car. Tommy helps but Alien soon ditches him and walks off. Tommy follows and they exchange the odd friendly argument. “You’re a barbarian” Says Tommy, “that’s the difference between you and me”. Walking through a valley, Crazy Bull turns up and surrounds the two. It seems the Exterminator originally belonged to Bull and he wants it back. He is about to kill Alien when Alien offers to strike a deal. He tells Bull he has information about the location of lots of water and he will tell him in exchange for a motorbike and his freedom. Shockingly, Crazy Bull agrees (must be why they call him Crazy). They bring a motorbike forward and Alien gets on. Where’s the water? “Ask the kid” says Alien who drives off as fast as he can, leaving Tommy behind. What a hero! Bull threatens the kid and twists his arm but Tommy refuses to say anything. Time for something a little more drastic. Alien soon ditches the kid to save himself. What a hero! Cue night time, and the part of the film where I was saying to myself “no they wouldn’t, wait a second, ooohhh, they did”. They tie Tommy up to two motorbikes, one arm to each bike. That’s right they pull one of his arms off. But it’s not all bad. It turns out Alien does have a bit of a conscience after all, as he rides back in and rescues Tommy. “Don’t forget my arm” says Tommy and we now realize that it’s a robotic arm. Phew! What I must ask is, if Alien didn’t know it was a robotic arm, surely his little rescue was just a little bit too late if it had been a real arm? Soon enough the motorbike runs out of petrol, or whatever they use in the future, and they have to walk. Alien hilariously sticks Tommy’s arm back on with some duct tape (the glue that holds the universe together). It's as good a time now as ever to mention the music. Absolutely a-typical synth, which sounds extremely like the kind of stuff you would get in a Super Nintendo game. Nothing too annoying but instantly forgettable. Eventually they arrive at Papillon’s place. Papillon (Luciano Pigozzi) is an old bearded chap who seems to know Alien quite well but doesn’t really trust him. Eventually they turn out to be old friends and luckily Papillon is a technical wizz who somehow managed to get hold of the Exterminator. Alien gets him to mend Tommy’s arm. “This is not factory made, this is an imitation” protests Papillon. “Shit” says Alien “weren’t you meant to be an astronaut?” “It’s so long ago I can’t remember how to get to the moon” is Papillon’s wacky reply. It turns out that Papillon has been to Mars and Venus and, even better, he remembers rain! Papillon gets to work on the arm in his trailer workshop. Hilariously, they get the kid drunk as an anesthetic! The kid get drunk. Alien heads out to check the Exterminator. While there he's ambushed by a beautiful blonde (Alicia Moro) who turns out to be an old girlfriend of Alien's who he long ago ditched saying he would be back soon. She’s pretty pissed off, and even booby traps the car to try and get him, but they soon kiss and make-up. Her name is Trash (Italian PA names never fail to hit the spot).Trash (Alicia Moro) soon turns out to be equally competent to Alien in the traditional wanderer of the wasteland vital skills. Soon enough they are all bonding like a family and Tommy is bending steel with his fixed robotic arm. Papillon claims that Tommy’s arm may not be perfectly fixed yet so he won’t let him go and get the water. Therefore, Alien and Trash head off alone with the Exterminator and Papillon’s handily-available tanker truck. A quick note that now the music has moved up a level. It’s no longer Super Nintendo and more like Goldeneye on the Nintendo 64. Honestly, it’s just like the level in the Russian statue park. Still pretty poor, though. Alien stops to tell Trash that he wants the water for himself. Tommy only told Trash where it was hidden because he didn’t trust Alien. Trash knows about the people who are waiting for the water and refuses to help Alien in his schemes, so they continue on to get the water for the town. The water plant seems quite modern and certainly not well-hidden. Alien and Trash break in using a far-fetched ultrasonic key. They are attacked by some radiation-suit wearing guys who have both flamethrowers and huge spiky logs (honestly) in their arsenal. Alien and Trash soon dispose of these unexplained foes. The final guy has his mask ripped off to reveal a supposedly radiation-ravaged face. Soon enough they find the water. Alien still wants it for himself so Trash knocks him out with her Ultrasonic Key and heads back to Papillon’s with the water. A superb cardboard spiked log swings over our heroes, and Alien is shocked to see a radiation scared man. Alien wakes up to find the water gone and his tires slashed. Luckily, the Exterminator has hidden powers like KITT in Knight Rider. One button and the tires re-inflate themselves. Time now for the final showdown. Alien finds Trash heading back in his direction, as she's being chased by Crazy Bull and his gang. Alien again switches his loyalty and this time he's ready to help Trash and the townsfolk. Bull spots Alien. “Do I see Alien in my borrowed Exterminator? Make weapons ready for battle!” he cries. Two goons, one regular guy and one black woman, who could quite possibly be Bull's second in command or love interest, head off after the water. The rest stay for the fight with Alien. “Into battle my merry mothergrabbers!” There are a few explosions and collisions and they try their best to make the battle exciting, but in the end it's simply loads of vehicles going round in circles chasing after Alien in the invincible Exterminator. There’s plenty of badly-edited explosions where it cuts from a shot of the moving vehicle, back to Alien, then back to said previously moving vehicle, now static instantly blowing up. Alien constantly hides behind his bullet-proof windscreen grills. We leave Alien now to see what’s happening with Trash and the all so important water. The woman on the motorbike uses a mini-crossbow to hit Trash’s tire and stop the Tanker. They are about to kill Trash when Papillon and Tommy turn up in yet another truck. Tommy’s arm is now totally fixed and with the power of a cannon he throws a stone at the motorbike guy, killing him instantly. The woman threatens to kill Trash and in an awkwardly-worked move Papillon is somehow mortally wounded along with the woman. It turns out Papillon wants Alien to know that he loved him like a son. It would have been nice if he showed it once in a while! “Old astronaut’s never die” proclaims Trash just before the old astronaut does, in fact, die. Tommy and Trash rush off in Papillon’s truck to help Alien, leaving the tanker behind for later. Unfortunately, it turns out that Bull's woman isn’t quite dead and as Trash drives off we see the woman use her last ounce of strength to open the release tap on the water tanker. For the audience, Crazy Bull is certainly a bad guy who keeps giving despite his minimal screen time. “Blow the motergrabber into bits and pieces”. Alien has disposed of many of the bandits now but it looks like he has bitten off more than he can chew as Bull moves in for the kill. Luckily. just as it looks hopeless. some of the barbarians start blowing up. From the hillside we see Tommy throwing dynamite with his bionic arm, destroying most of the remnants of the gang. Soon enough it’s just Alien Vs Bull (sounds like a fun new installment in the Alien movies saga). Unfortunately. it’s not the fairest of fights. Alien has his super car and a futuristic gun and Bull has, well, a sword. I liked the Bull. He seemed like a no-nonsense boss who knows what he wants and just gets on with it. I was surprised to find myself cheering on the Bull in this fight but inevitably it was not to be. Sword versus gun. Place your bets. Alien, Trash and Tommy head back to the tanker to find it empty. They rush back to the water well, knowing that the townsfolk must surely be close to death by now, but they are just in time to see the place (well, a model of it) blown to pieces. We see the hooded figure who did it, but why is never explained (just like the guy who originally stole the Exterminator from Alien and how Papillon ended up with it). It’s madness, I tell you! The kid is obviously distraught and even Alien appears to be crying, but wait! No. It's not tears but rain. That’s right; it’s a suspiciously perfectly-timed miracle. I just hope it's not radioactive. It's a miracle! I bet they were annoyed when it turned out to be acid rain. Continue to page 2

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