2020 Texas Gladiators (1983)

Quick Synopsis

In post-apocalyptic Texas, a group of warriors battles a fascist regime determined to seize control of the remaining survivors.

Quick Review

Feeling veryyyyyyyy much like Endgame (1983), we have ourselves another Italian Road Warrior ripoff to join the pantheon of others – Stryker, Battletruck, 1990: The Bronx Warriors, Escape from the Bronx, Warriors of the Wasteland, Steel Dawn, The Exterminators of the Year 3000, and America 3000.  Though, one could argue 2020 is less Road Warrior and more spaghetti western.  This one, written by Anthropophagus‘s George Eastman, is actually rather enjoyable and fun, that is if you can get past all the rape.  There’s like 5x attempted/actual rape scenes.  We get it, it’s the Italian-movie Apocalypse, but holy cow.  All that aside, it IS a fun action movie, with an insanely tense Russian Roulette scene and absurdly abrupt final showdown.

Trivia

• Although Joe D’Amato received the official directing credit, George Eastman reportedly directed most of the dialogue scenes. D’Amato later explained that Eastman was uncomfortable handling the action sequences, so D’Amato took over those portions of the production. Eastman was openly dismissive of the post-apocalyptic films he made during this period. In a 1996 interview, he criticized their poor production values and lack of originality, and said he wrote them primarily for financial reasons.

Availability Today

2020: Texas Gladiators is currently on a 3-disc (!) 4K UHD from Severin, which includes the featurette Shoot Me: The Real Story of the Italian Texas Gladiators that has archival interviews with director Joe D’Amato, assistant director Michele Soavi, screenwriter Luigi Montefiori (George Eastman), and actor Al Cliver.