Damnation Alley

Released by: Shout! Factory
Released on: 7/12/2011
Director: Jack Smight
Cast: George Peppard, Jan Michael Vincent, Paul Winfield, Dominique Sanda, Jackie Earle Halley
Year: 1977
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The Movie:

Alan Sharp and Lukas Heller's adaptation of Roger Zelzany's novel Damnation Alley doesn't offer up a whole lot of character development and ends on a bit of a limp dick note, but you know what? It's got giant scorpions, killer cockroaches, George Peppard doing the worst Southern accent in screen history and Jan Michael Vincent on a dirtbike. It also features a really young Jackie Earle Halley, here still a mere boy and nowhere near the Rorschach-voicing-Freddy-Kruger screwing-up Hollywood guy he is now.

Set sometime in the future, the film begins when our worst nightmares come true and the nukes are let loose. America, and we assume the rest of the world, is pretty much leveled as the Earth is literally knocked off of its axis. Thankfully deep in a military bunker there are a few survivors - Major Eugene Denton (Peppard), a buy the books military man; Tanner (Vincent), a footloose and fancy free dirtbike loving yahoo; Keegan (Paul Winfield), Tanner's buddy; and Lieutenant Tom Perry (Kip Niven), who is basically a younger version of Denton. Together they get into two giant tank-like vehicles dubbed LandMasters and decide to drive east to Albany of all places - they haven't gotten any readings from that area and figure it must be safe.

Of course, this journey will be fraught with nuclear peril, if the giant scorpions that Tanner narrowly avoids on his dirtbike don't get him first. Along the way they stop in Las Vegas and pick up a chick named Janice (Dominique Sanda), deal with some killer cockroaches in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah, and pick up a smart young kid named Billy (Haley) who has managed to survive on his own all this time. Some of them will survive, some of them will almost get raped, and at least one of them will be tackled by Jan Michael Vincent before it's all done, so long as their truck doesn't break down and they don't get obliterated by the crazy nuclear storms that are ravaging the countryside - Albany had better be worth it, but if you've been there yourself you know it isn't.

Directed by the same man who gave us such seventies oddities as The Illustrated Man, Smight's film moves at a good pace taking us easily from one weird set piece to the next. Those enamored with old school effects will have a good time with this one, with plenty of optical tricks making their best effort to convince us with varying degrees of success that the world shall surely be plagued by oddly colored electrical storms once the bombs are dropped. The cockroach scene is handled surprisingly well here and briefly takes the film out of post apocalyptic sci-fi movie territory and lands it in horror movie land, but it doesn't stay there too long.

The movie benefits from a fun cast. Vincent is good here long before his substance abuse problems with pretty much destroy his career, while Peppard is fun even if his drawl is phonier than a three dollar bill. It's amusing to see Haley show up here and Winfield is his usual likeable self, while Sanda, who has been excellent in films like Bertolucci's The Conformist, is basically wasted here as the token female, really serving as nothing more than a plot device.

While the film ends not with a bang but with a wimper, it's still entertaining in spite of its many flaws. Made while Cold War paranoia was still very real it's certainly a relic of its time but there's enough action, adventure, and (sometimes unintentional) comedy here that, if nothing else, Damnation Alley stands up well as a good, goofy popcorn movie.

Video/Audio/Extras:

Damnation Alley is presented in a 2.35.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer taken from a print that looks to have been in pretty good shape despite some cigarette burns and other mild print damage present throughout. The transfer is pretty heavy on the grain but aside from that Shout! Factory has done a good job here. The colors, which are very important to the look of the movie, are replicated quite well and skin tones generally look good. There aren't any edge enhancement or compression artifact issues to complain about.

Surprisingly enough, Shout! Factory has given Damnation Alley a DTS ES 6.1 audio mix, a Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound mix and included the original Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo mix as well. All three tracks are in English, no alternate language options or subtitles are offered. The remixes are fun and do a good job of spreading the effects around throughout the soundstage, while the 2.0 track sounds a little more legitimate. All three tracks are nice and clean, well balanced, and problem free.

As far as the extras go, there's quite a bit of supplemental material here starting with a commentary track from producer Paul Maslansky. This is a pretty interesting talk about how this project came together, how the various cast members were signed up, trouble they ran into during the shoot with some of the effects, locations, and more.

From there, check out the first of three featurettes, Survival Run (11:33), which is an interview with co-screenwriter Alan Sharp who talks about how he was brought on board to help with the dialogue and to tweak the script a bit after Lukas Heller did the initial adaptation of the novel. Sharp's got a good sense of humor about his work here, noting the film's notoriously weak ending and delivering some frank and honest feedback about his work on the film.

Road To Hell (13:21) puts producer Jerome Zeitman in front of the camera to discuss the problems that they ran into while making the film. Zeitman nonchalantly talks about how he became involved in the film, the effects heavy production, and how important it was that they got financing and studio commitment before moving forward. He talks about how he made a deal to get Jack Smight to direct, how they got the various cast members on board, and how the LandMaster turned out to be one of the true stars of the show.

The third and final featurette is LandMaster Tales (10:13), which is an interview with Dean Jeffries, who worked as the stunt director and car designer on the movie and who talks in quite a bit of detail about what made the LandMaster a unique vehicle, how it was built, problems that they ran into with it and more.

Animated menus, chapter stops, a theatrical trailer and a TV spot round out a very nice selection of well made extra features for this release.

The Final Word:

Damnation Alley sure does show its age but you can't really fault it for that. For entertainment value, it does pretty well and if it's not as smart or as deep as it could have been, at least it's fun. Shout! Factory's DVD debut for the film offers it up with a pretty solid transfer, good audio and more extras than you probably ever expected - all in all, a very good release of a quirky seventies genre movie that's hard not to enjoy.