Week 14 (Sept. 20 – 26) – THE END! Post-Apocalyptic Cinema: Make sure to pull the ladder up on the way out
God is Dead. Hell Still Exists.
Well, that’s a great tagline and an even better poster.
As for the movie, well…it tries.
In the future, society is divided into a strict class structure with the lowest caste being the undesirables known as Subgrades. They aren’t allowed to hold jobs, marry or have children. That means people in higher castes use them to satisfy their basest desires. And if you’re a Subgrade who isn’t gettingpounded, being caught outside of the futuristic structure where the whores are kept—known as a House of Pleasure—means death. Any police suspecting a Subgrade of cavorting illegally with a woman will demand to see his junk to make sure it’s not suspiciously engorged.
Yes, this is the only post-apocalyptic movie I’ve seen with dick looking.
Actually, this movie is super horny.
Executive produced by Roger Corman, who came up with the original concept, Crime Zone (also known as Calles Peligrosas in Peru) was shot in Lima to take advantage of favorable exchange rates. Directed by Luis Llosa, who would go on to make Anaconda, the film stars David Carradine as Jason, a cigar-chomping, suit-wearing mystery man who recruits Bone (Peter Nelson) and Helen (Sherilyn Fenn in a pre-Twin Peaks role, looking, well, nuclear hot with short blonde hair) to pull off a heist for him. Bone is a guy who was just fired from his job as a security guard at a cryogenics facility, busting him back down to Subgrade. Helen is a prostitute who catches Bone’s eye. And after an illegal love affair blossoms, Jason offers them passage to Frodan—a rival nation at war with Soleil—in exchange for stealing records from a secure facility.
Once they successfully deliver the information, they immediately become Soleil’s most wanted criminals. In the first twist of the movie (which surprises only a Subgrade named Bone), Jason turns out to be a high-ranking government agent and police chief who lets us in on the conspiracy: the police have been so efficient that major crime has become almost extinct. Therefore, he has to recruit citizens to go on government-sponsored crime sprees to justify the existence of the police state.
While Bone and Helen try to cook up a plot to steal a helicopter with their old military pilot buddy Alexi to fly to freedom, Creon (Michael Shaner) plays spoiler, bullying J.D. into a deadly double-cross. Is he in love with his fellow gang member? Seems like it. Finally, our heroes fly to freedom! Or do they? Landing in the territory of Soleil’s enemy, they find only a decayed airfield littered with skeletons. And who is waiting in the hangar? Holy crud, it’s Jason again! In the second exposition-heavy reveal, Jason explains that the war with Frodan ended twenty or thirty years ago and the plague zone is just radioactive fallout. The state needs to pretend the enemy is still around to keep the military budget up, and the stolen computer disc is his own personal insurance policy. He thanks them, lets them walk off along the Frodan coast into an uncertain future and heads back to Soleil alone.
Crime Zone tries to create a future that looks like an experiment in style that went wrong—even the derelicts in the plague zone drag portable neon lights around, and the cryo-tubes in the Gardens of Hibernation are simply plastic sheets with little lighted collars. But there’s enough neon and near-film-noir moments to get you through. Bone is a complete moron, but trust me, this is worth it all because of Fenn.
Shouldn’t the Subgrades have to do actual work? Because that’s a real punishment.
You can watch this on Tubi.
