Linbeymusol Wonderful character development!

Pacionsbo Absolutely Fantastic

Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

nickboldrini This changes most things about the book, getting rid of the anti hero elements, the reason for the journey, the back story and the reasons fighting, to leave a fairly clean cut apocalypse crew to drive across the US for no real reason. That said, I like it because whilst it does no justice to the book, it does add some ideas of its own of merit - the cockroaches, for example. But it blows it all on an ending that solves all the not very difficult problems of the apocalypse in a ridiculous fashion.

mrb1980 "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. The nuclear explosions have tilted the earth's axis, causing the sky to change colors and flash bright lights. The group receives transmissions from Albany, New York so they take off through dangerous "Damnation Alley" in a futuristic vehicle (a so- called Landmaster) to reach civilization. Along the way they pick up an obnoxious teenager (Jackie Earle Haley) and a young woman (Dominique Sanda). Keegan is unconvincingly killed by mutant cockroaches and the group battles hillbilly survivalists along the way. Eventually the four survivors reach Albany and safety.The film's producers should have spent more money on the special effects, because they're pretty bad in places. Giant scorpions and cockroaches are almost laughable, and the models of the Landmaster just aren't very well done. Still, this is a pretty good film if you forget about its shortcomings. Peppard was at a career low when he made the film but is good anyway, and Jan-Michael Vincent does his "young rebel" routine quite well. The film suffered because it was released in the shadow of "Star Wars", and was quickly forgotten but I think it's very watchable.

swotdo-1 I liked the movie, don't get me wrong, but didn't like the ending. After a nuclear war and only two years later, we find people in Albany, NY, running around like everything is fine. Albany, I'am sure, would have been wiped out. Along with every other major city, considering 60% of Russian nukes got past at the beginning. I do agree that it could be remade with a lot of work, and yes, follow more by the book. I know my city, here in Tennessee, was leveled. There are plenty of great actors around that would be great in the character roles, but would probably want too much money. The movie, itself, would need plenty of support from fans and studios to make it possible.

MBunge I can personally guarantee that if you saw this thing in 1981 when you were 10 years old, you thought it was the coolest thing ever. Outside that rather limited demographic, Damnation Alley is just another 70s flick that has aged badly. From an assload of stock footage to an ending that feels like they just cut off the last 30 pages of the script when the production ran out of money, this movie is a reminder that schlock has always been around in Hollywood.After an opening 10 minutes that plays out like the alternate ending to War Games, we find the Earth devastated by a nuclear war. At one lone remaining outpost in California, Major Eugene Denton (George Peppard) has finally gotten ready to launch an expedition to the only other place he's gotten any sign of life from…Albany, New York. Joined by Tanner and Keegan (Jan-Michael Vincent and Paul Winfield), two former officers who ditched the military when the world went up in smoke, they clamber aboard a military superbus and set off on the only cross country path not steaming with radiation. This brave new world includes giant scorpions, flesh-eating cockroaches, super storms and gun-toting hillbillies, yet much of the movie consists of very undramatic driving scenes underscored by extremely dramatic music from Jerry Goldsmith. Our intrepid trio find a surviving female in Las Vegas and the future Rorschach in a shack, only to have all their problems solved when the Earth suddenly heals itself overnight.The highlights of Damnation Alley are George Peppard admirably making an effort to do more here than just cash a paycheck and the aforementioned superbus, which the even more aforementioned 10 year old in 1981 absolutely thought was the neatest thing he'd ever seen. With a missile rack on top, a flexible middle and a tri-wheel drive system that appeared to actually work in real life, the superbus was an pre-adolescent's dream car. I would also guess building it consumed about 75% of the budget for this motion picture. At least that's the only acceptable reason I can come up with for the incredibly cheap look of everything else.The lowlights include what may be one of the first "black guy as designated victim in a sci-fi/horror film" roles, Jan-Michael Vincent trying to play an edgy rebel and giving the character all the emotional anguish of a Tiger Beat cover boy, and that anachronistic 70s thing where big screen films now look like bad TV movies. I'm not sure why or how it happened, but a lot of 70s cinema was made with bad sets and hackneyed camera work. You don't see it in the 60s, where even low-budget crap is still recognizable as intended for the big screen. You don't see it in the 80s, where a sheen of technical sameness crept over the industry. But in the 70s it became weirdly common to see sets that look like something out of the Carol Burnett Show and direction that screams "I was an intern for one season on McMillan and Wife!"Unfortunately, Damnation Alley doesn't sink so low it qualifies as "so bad it's good". This is just plain old bad, poorly plotted dreck. Unless you're a 10 year old in 1981 somehow reading this review through a space-time vortex, find something better to watch.