After a biological war has annihilated all the males on earth and most of the females, those few women who survive are left to fend for themselves in an effort to stay alive. Many of them soon gravitate to a particular evil sorceress known as "the Reverend Mother" (Sheila Howard) who mysteriously manages to impregnate some of the women but ensures that no males are born. Until, that is, one specific woman named "Keela" (Peggy Sands) becomes pregnant with a "male seed". Realizing that the Reverend Mother is determined to kill her unborn child, Keela attempts to escape from her domination. During the attempt she encounters a "sand trapper" named "Phoenix" (Kathleen Kinmont) who provides protection and support both before and after the child is born. Now, obviously with a title like "She Wolves of the Wasteland" a person probably shouldn't expect too much. And they would be fully justified in feeling wary as this film consists of bad acting, cheap sets and corny dialogue. It does, however, have an abundance of bimbos in skimpy attire which may be a good thing or a bad thing depending on your particular mindset. I personally didn't mind the acting of Kathleen Kinmont or Persis Khambatta (as "Cobalt") or the skimpy attire on any of the young ladies. However, skimpy attire or not I could only take so much of the bad acting and awful combat scenes. But that's just me. In short, this movie might be good with a friend or two and lots of beer. Otherwise, it might be best to let this one go by. Below average.
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Uriah4317 July 2013
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Scarecrow-8817 June 2009Putrid hellspawn of Conan the Barbarian and Mad Max has Kathleen Kinmont as a female warrior(..indeed quite a stretch, although she's smokin' in animal skins)on a mission to keep a boy child away from an evil witch who wishes to use his youth to gain power over the remaining civilization(..the entire male race was wiped out, save one, by a bacterial virus that ravaged the land, leaving only a small number of females to fend for themselves). The Reverend Mother(Sheila Howard in hideous make-up with feeding tubes and wires in her head, hooked to a machine which is keeping her alive)orders, from a room decorated with plastic sheets, her second-in-command Cobalt(Persis Khambatta, over-the-top in an unflattering performance)to find the boy. Phoenix(Kinmont)joins forces with Keela(Peggy McIntaggart), impregnated with a seed that soon is carried to term, with them attempting to remain out of the clutches of Mother and Cobalt which is not easy since the fiends have an armament of ugly foot-soldiers on the prowl. Cobalt's village(..with buildings built from scrap metal) provides necessary supplies for survival out in the desert wastelands which occupy the area all around them. Soon Phoenix and Keela discover an actual man(James Emery)when they intrude upon his shack not knowing it was his. The trio, along with Keela's boy child, will form a unit that will attempt to overthrow Reverend Mother, Cobalt, and their female thugs, hoping to end their terrible reign so peace can exist. That will not be easy.
The film's key novelty, in my opinion, is that the cast is comprised mostly of women. They are dressed in as little as possible, adopt attitudes, and fire automatic weapons at each other, with essentially two factions emerging..those who are under Reverend Mother's command and the "trappers", those who oppose her regime and wish to be free from her tyranny. There's even a scene featuring gladiatorial combat between Phoenix and Cobalt's hand-picked warriors. There's a very bizarre tribe of severely deformed humans with ghastly faces whose voices offer a strange frequency when they talk..they worship the television gods(!)and offer up captured Phoenix and Keela for a sacrifice..it's good that Phoenix made a friend in her temporary prison with a warrior she was forced to engage in combat, Neon(Laurie de Nuccio). The filmmakers try hard convincing us that Kinmont could make a legitimate female warrior, but Brigitte Nielsen she's not. Her battles with other adversaries are laughable, and Kinmont's eventual confrontation with Khambatta couldn't be more lame. She sure is nice to gaze upon even if the movie itself can be difficult to stomach. McIntaggart isn't gonna win any acting awards herself, but she is also quite a tasty dish.
I'm honest when I say that renting She-Wolves of the Wasteland had more to do with the idea that women would be occupying the screen time in a sub-genre known more for starring men with bulging biceps beating the hell out of each other with giant(..often quite sharp)weapons. The rough female brutes that often cause our heroines problems are a direct opposite of Phoenix and Keela, they have a tendency to be uglier with crazy hair styles. If you are wondering about the nudity, never fear, Phoenix and Keela meet a female group, in face paint, hiding out on the other side of a waterfall(..why aren't more of these women here?!?!)who bathe naked and dance, soon falling prey to Cobalt for lending their enemies refuge..I wish it would've been Kinmont, but why argue.
Phoenix's introduction should provide amusement..while two thugs attempt to harm Keela, Phoenix tosses an apple she was eating in the air, catching their attention temporarily, blasting them, catching the fruit afterward! Don't expect anything of quality whether it be action sequences or hand to hand combats because everything is clumsily staged. Cobalt and her cronies drive dune buggies as transport! Bizarre sequence where Phoenix, Keela, the child, and the man cross into the graveyard of the "TV people"(..dressed in robes)where television sets accompany skeletal remains lying in unfolded recliners! -
cujoe_da_man9 June 2022With a forumla like that, how could you go wrong? A lot of ways. This is one of the most amazingly bad Mad Max rip-offs I've ever seen. There's a moment where the kid is given a music box and he just tosses it away, an obvious nod to 'The Road Warrior', but then literally tossed away. Also can't forget the 'Thunderdome' inspired "arena" which is just some sticks and barbed wire.
When you've seen one Mad Max inspired movie, you've seen them all, but this one adds a feminist touch... and it touches all the wrong places. It wouldn't be so bad if the writers working on the script actually took the time to think about what they were writing and why.
The plot is simple, all men are dead, women inherited the Earth.
The reverend mother has somehow developed magic powers that are never fully explained and only serve as a plot device to further the story when it's most convenient. Seriously, she apparently has telepathy, but is unable to find the child until she's given a toy he was playing with (a toy car that has somehow survived all this time). Seems kind of odd because she could sense when he was born and knew where he was. Hmm, strange. Most of the plot is like this, nothing is explained, there's no real exposition and you're left asking "why" and "how" to everything you see. If not for the year it came out, I'd almost swear they were doing a rip-off of 'Waterworld' because it suffers from many of the same issues... but Waterworld was at least entertaining and fun.
It is nice to see that women in this barely post apocalyptic world be able to keep their manicures nice, their hair perfectly permed and skin flawless. There also seems to be no shortage on gas, bullets, water and modern clothing, mostly consisting of spandex and aerobics workout outfits and a pair of Levi's. It makes it hard to really understand just how far in the future this should be (the plot itself is over a period of six years as it is).
This movie truly suffers with how boring it is. Even the grotesque amount of scantily clad babes wielding guns and swords (none of which I have any issue with), you're just waiting for the movie to be over with. The acting is atrocious. I'm almost certain everyone was just reading queue cards off screen that were written in crayon. The only one that seemed to have any kind of experience acting was Persis Khambatta, but even she isn't enough to balance so much wooden acting that you could build a fence. Though, I will give them credit, the dialogue was probably written by pre-teen girls who thought this was what the future would be like.
Fight scenes are laughable with how fake they are, never actually landing a hit or attempting to make it look like their punches and kicks have any kind of power behind them. There's even a scene in the arena where they don't even hide the fact that the opponent has fallen onto a soft mat, they literally leave it in the shot! Gun fights are ok... if you like watching swimsuit models pretend to know how to wield a firearm. I've seen women shoot guns before and they do it very well when properly trained, but this is just embarrassing to watch.
If you're a fan of T&A movies or Mad Max style movies, you'll mostly be disappointed, but it's still fun to watch and see what bad movies like there were inspired by. -
ijdavidson9 March 2022Poor Persis Khambatta. This stunningly beautiful actress did not leave us with a long (or even a short) catalogue of exceptional films. She will always be remembered as the Deltan Lieutenant Ilia in 1979's "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" (which, let's face it, wasn't that great of a movie either), but other than that, she appeared in a handful (12, to be exact) of films that were mostly eminently forgettable. And none of them was more forgettable than "Phoenix: The Warrior," aka "Warriors of the Wasteland." As one of the film's thumbnail summaries puts it, "Big hair, big guns and a serious lack of wardrobe. A post-apocalyptic story that features women who leave little to the imagination as they do battle in junkyards and gravel pits."
It's tough to review a movie when what's bad about it is everything. Where do you start? The preposterously nonsensical plot? The hopelessly flat-footed dialogue? The even more hopelessly amateurish acting? The grotesque hair? The clownish makeup? The hysterically skimpy costumes? The bad-home-movie production values?
Why did Khambatta take this role? Was it to pay the bills? Was it the only work she could get, at least in the States? It's so sad: She had a disastrous combination of a chain-smoking habit and bad genes that led to her needing a coronary bypass operation at the age of 35. Despite the operation, she went on to die of a massive heart attack only 10 years after she made this dismal dog of a movie. R. I. P. -
PHOENIX THE WARRIOR is set in the future, after a plague has killed off the entire male population. Only women have survived, roaming the Earth in leftover costumes and vehicles from THE ROAD WARRIOR.
Led by an old hag with tubes and wires sticking out of her head, known as the Reverend Mother (Sheila Howard), these ferocious female bounty hunters need a male. Fast!
Enter Phoenix (Kathleen Kinmont), who is on the run from these bounty hunters, due to their not taking kindly to her killing them. She's hunted by a team led by Cobalt (Persis Khambatta). Phoenix has inadvertently taken off with a woman who is pregnant with a male child!
After some leisurely, naked sunbathing, a child is born. Cobalt finds them, resulting in gunfire and poorly-realized karate. The old saying, "Never bring a sword to a gunfight" comes to mind.
Years pass. Miraculously, everyone looks the same, except for Skyler, who is now in post-apocalyptic kindergarten. Almost-as miraculously, an adult male with premature baldness is discovered. Cobalt reemerges! More gunfire! More neo-cavewomen! More awesome hairdos! Just who does these women's hair out in the wasteland is a well-guarded mystery. Have no fear. There are women sporting hefty mohawks as well.
Oh no!
Phoenix must now be subjected to a battle in "the pit"!
Infra-schlock such as this is rarely witnessed by mere mortals! The thudding, synth-o-matic musical score somehow manages to make it even less awe-inspiring! Listen to the grunts whenever anyone takes a bullet to the gut. Now, that's music!... -
bensonmum29 January 2018If I remember correctly (and I may not - it's been years), I think Phoenix the Warrior (or She-Wolves of the Wasteland) was standard fare on the old USA UP All Night movie show. At the time, I thought it was a decent enough time waster, but then again, I was usually pretty inebriated when I watched it. Re-watching it last night, sober as a judge, I've changed my opinion drastically. What a bore! An hour and a half of the deadliest dull film I've seen in a long, long time. The acting is atrocious, the special effects are horrible, the music is annoying after about 3.4 seconds, the dialogue is cringey, and the sets are as cheap as you'll find. Throw in some really crappy, amateurish fight choreography and a plot that comes across like it was written by a drunken badger and you end up with one sorry excuse for a movie. I watch a lot of bad movies, but Phoenix the Warrior is too much. I really can't imagine enjoying something much less than I did this movie. It's a disaster!
Based on other comments I've read, I'm sure this one will get voted down on IMDb. It seems there is an audience out there who enjoys Phoenix the Warrior for the titulation it provides. I really feel sorry for anyone who watches this dreck for that reason. I suggest looking elsewhere. -
scott_w_martin6 February 2009The movie is basically about a society of women in a post apocalyptic setting who hunt down the last remaining men and kill them in order to promote the goals of their leader who appears to be a very old borg/emperor palpatine love child. They do so in order to bring about her ultimate "goals" which are never really revealed. The only explanation the movie offers is that she is wanting to create her own race of humans, but how she plans on doing so without men is kind of left up in the air. To put it simply this was a total blue ball movie. A complete build up with absolutely no release. There are only two nude scenes back to back (one involving child birth which totally takes away from the awesomeness of the nude female figure) and before you know it everybody is fully clothed, acting badly, and running around hopelessly looking for the end. And that's just the people watching watching it. Oh bazing! Many times during this movie I found myself screaming for the female warriors of the waste to get naked and start doing each other, but unfortunately that never happens. If you want a good mad max sexploitation movie, then keep looking. This one is NOT it.
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ChrisInMiami5 March 2022Kathleen Kinmont plays a desert tracker that gets unexpectedly stuck helping a pregnant woman escape an all female cult. I am a lover of low budget post apocalyptic and sword and sandal flicks but this is bottom of the barrel. Rates down with Sandahl Bergman's 'She' and David Carradine's 'the Warrior and the Sorceress'.
The acting is non existent and the sets were built with the contents of my recycling bin. Fight choreography is non-existent. There's a little TnA reminiscent of scrambled playboy channel in '86. -
BandSAboutMovies28 June 2018Look at that Boris Vallejo poster! Between that and Persis Khambatta (Megaforce), this seemed like one of those movies I had to see. Even better, it's alternate title, Phoenix the Warrior, is awesome!
Starring Kathleen Kinmont as Phoenix (she's also Kelly Meeker in Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers) and Khambatta as the evil Cobalt, this film is all about a pregnant woman who gives birth to one of the few men on earth. There's also a Reverend Mother who is in control of all the sperm and has a religious hold over all of the women.
Oh yeah - there are also the Rezules, who worship television. How awesome would it be that if instead of zombies, they were dressed up like characters from famous TV shows? Archie Bunker ruling the Badlands of the end times? This movie could have made that happen.
When I was a kid, I wrote a comic book called Cola War (get it, Cold War?) where there was no water so everyone only consumed soda and religiously followed the soda that they drank. It was a great idea until someone explained to me that to create soda, you needed water. None of that logical thinking was applied to this movie.
That's one of the downsides to watching so many movies. You get yourself excited and then, the chase is, as Lemmy taught us all, often so much better than the catch.
For a film packed with naked women and lesbian religious gangs, you kind of wish that it was a lot more entertaining. Well, you can't get everything, I guess. -
historycruiser18 April 2005Excellent scene where Kinmont and another babe are tied to a wooden cross and chastised by radioactive mutants!!! What else could you ask for ...heavy cheese factor here but worth the wait to see that scene! This flick is along the lines of Spacehunter : Adventures in the Forbidden Zone; again hot babes captured by weird mutant freaks. There were a lot of Science Fiction exploitation films that came out during the 1980's and Phoenix is one of the best. Very dark backgrounds, a post apocalypse futuristic location and an overall orange atmospheric scenery gives the film a look as if the world has gone mad or at the very least, out of control. I gave this a 10 for the babe factor alone.
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unbrokenmetal25 January 2008"She-Wolves of the Wasteland" belongs to the "post-nuclear war" movies wave that followed "Mad Max". Provided with a typical 80s disco keyboard soundtrack, its most unusual element is the cast which comprises almost entirely of females. Did I hear anyone complain? No! One tribe lead by the mutant "Reverend Mother" and the warrioress Cobalt (Persis Khambatta from "Star Trek" and "Megaforce") tries to find the (possibly) last male on earth, but he is on the run with Phoenix (gorgeous: Kathleen Kinmont)... What do we get from this movie? Quite a lot of fun, for example there is a mutant tribe whose gospel includes the holy words "Sesamy Street" from a mysterious distant past, and obviously with all the babes around: exploitation with a capital S. These girls are so violent, when they run out of ammo, they pick up swords to cut throats - or even tear each other's hair! Yes, it's silly, but compared to other flicks of the genre that have too many gladiator fights and car races, it's one of the better trash movies around and worth checking out!
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filmo7015 May 2003You are the last man on Earth and lots of scantily clads babes rule the wasteland. Wow, this is my type of story line and if its your to then this will be a winner.
This movie was a mainstay of USA Networks former weekend show UP ALL NIGHT. Simply put this is great late night cheese well worth checking out. I have seen the video box (Boris cover art I believe) at several video stores, so no excuses.
P.S. Watch for the well endowed axe wielding babe in the prison fight. Super! -
Facts4you15 February 2020I enjoyed the strong women without males concept .. hunting each other wasn't the prettiest but the movie was worth watching.
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tarbosh2200016 October 2014In yet another post-apocalyptic future, men have been eradicated. The surviving women left alive on the planet battle for supremacy. The head baddie in this manless future is Reverend Mother (Howard), sort of a cross between The Emperor from the Star Wars movies and Plughead from the Circuitry Man movies. She has a way of impregnating people, but she doesn't want any male children born. She's kind of like the opposite of China. When Keela (Sands) becomes pregnant, she goes on the run. A baddie-ess named Cobalt (Khambatta) faithfully executes the orders of the Reverend Mother. Thankfully, Keela meets up with a warrior chick (also called a "Sandtrapper") named Phoenix (Kinmont) so they can both battle all the goons that are after them. Along the way, they find the last man alive, not surprisingly named Guy (Emery), and they face many trials and tribulations as they fight to stay alive. What will happen? It's not Warriors of the Wasteland, it's She-Wolves of the Wasteland, so, you know, let's keep that in mind. (Though, to be fair, this did come out on VHS as Phoenix The Warrior). For an American post-apocalyptic slog, this is modestly entertaining, and the pace isn't that bad. It's not terribly different from others of its kind, but the main twist in the formula, if you want to call it that, is the 98% female cast on display. If nothing else, you can always gawk at the eye candy. There's certainly no shame in that - heck, what else would you be gawking at if not for that? Many of the post-apocalyptic mainstays are here: riding around a desert setting in dune buggies, characters with torn/bizarre outfits, wacky makeup/hair, narration in the opening that sets up why there was an apocalypse, but never comes back to explain anything else, and of course, some shooting and blow-ups. By definition this time around, all the fights are cat-fights, though that description may be demeaning to Kinmont as the noble heroine. She doesn't need a man around, much less Lorenzo Lamas. Persis Khambatta as the baddie is tough too, however - she even has an Andrew Scott-style necklace of ears. Women love necklaces and earrings so this really saves time. Khambatta is also listed as an associate producer, and she does seem intensely into her role as Cobalt. We applaud her professionalism in the face of low-budget silliness.
There are some organized prison fights to the death (THIS close to Punchfighting but not quite, mainly because swords and other weapons are used instead of fists, and we don't see anybody clutching the cash in their hands), and of course where would we be in life if there wasn't a Final Warehouse Fight? Interestingly enough, in the future, bizarrely deformed mutants will use TV Guides as religious articles and remembrances of TV shows are the new religion. Ideas like that help propel the movie along. And it is comforting to know that in the future, after the apocalypse, hair crimpers will still be widely available.
God bless you, AIP, you've managed to wring some last droplets out of the post-apocalyptic genre. We knew we could count on you. -
Dragoneyed36319 August 2008First of all, this is not the most well known movie, haha. It is also not that great of a movie if you are looking at it too critically. Then again, this movie is not meant to be perceived in that way, at all. My friend and I like to enjoy these obscure little movies sometimes and he told me this one was definitely worth seeing. If you can handle it for what it is, it is indeed a must-see.
The movie itself is very campy, as anyone can tell from the film cover. There are mixed performances ranging from very good to very bad, very fun to very boring. The storyline, which I don't recall much of, is a contender for Best Screenplay indeed, and the movie altogether is just one big mess, but a very enjoyable one at that. No doubt this was made for those types of movie-goers who look for campy, nothing movies. However, I myself tend to be that type of movie-goer at times and this was just what I ordered when I was in the mood for it. Like I said in my summary, it's a poor movie when it all boils down to it, but it really doesn't matter because it is so fun to watch. -
The summary says it all: What do you get when you combine big hair, big guns, big, um...personalities! and a serious lack of wardrobe? She-Wolves of the Wasteland, a post-apocalyptic classic that features women--lots and lots of women--who leave little to the imagination as they battle each other in various junkyards and gravel pits to determine the fate of the entire world. Leave your brain behind for this shamelessly sinful sexploitation romp with a plot you won't remember...but plenty of eye candy you won't forget! Found it in the bargain bin--it's been released on DVD for the first time, finally
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bikemat21 May 2018How can anyone compare this movie to Mad Max I'll never know. This a great Sci-Fi B movie that rates right up there with Attack of the Bee Girls. It's an apocolyptic T&A movie and nothing more. Not much of a plot and acting is just god awful. The fake machine guns act better than most of the other actors. So put the kids and the wife to bed, grab a few beers and a few bros and MST3K the hell out of this movie! Just a great romp thru the Mojave Desert!
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Phoenix the Warrior (1988) is a movie that I watched on Tubi. The storyline follows a post apocalyptic society where tribes of women fight for survival. Men are in short supply but when a young lady is found pregnant and absorbed by a tribe the tribe becomes a target.
This movie is directed by Robert Hayes (Task Force 2001) and stars Kathleen Kinmont (Bride of Reanimator), Persis Khambatta (Star Trek: The Motion Picture), Roxanne Kernohan (Critters 2) and Karen Russell (Dick Tracy).
The makeup, masks, attire, settings and props were pretty solid. The women fight scenes were great and there's a tremendous waterfall sequence in this. The black dancer is a smoke show and the entire strip club sequence was great. Some of the shootouts and special effects were weak; however, the villain was solid.
Overall, this is an average but fun addition to the apocalyptic genre. I would score this a 5.5/10 and recommend seeing it once.