Reasons why this clunker rates as a hilariously horrendous hoot and a half

Woodyanders

1.) Jack Smight's fumbling (mis)direction, which combines stop'n'go pacing, clumsily staged action set pieces, and extremely variable acting with positively jaw-dropping cruddy results. 2.) The script by Alan Sharp and Lukas Heller is pure hogwash; it's a horribly sanitized bastardization of Roger Zelazny's superbly gritty award-winning novel. 3.) George Peppard as the uptight Major Eugene Denton sports a sidesplitting and strangely effeminate Truman Capote does Tennesse Williams wispy faltering Southern accent. 4.) The infamous flesh-eating killer cockroaches; clumps of them are obviously rubber bugs being yanked on strings. 5.) Jan-Michael Vincent looks mighty hunky as long-haired nonconformist protagonist Tanner, who's without a doubt one of the lamest, most squeaky-clean, and hence unpersuasive so-called "rebels" to ever grin his way through a film. 6.) The uproariously awful (far from) special effects boast some of the worst blue screen and miniatures you'll ever witness in a major mainstream studio release. 7.) Paul Winfield as token jolly and eminently expendable black guy Keegan suffers his single most ignominious death scene (he's eaten by the killer cockroaches). 8.) The Air Force officers at the base are a bunch of hopelessly inept clods: They survive a nuclear war, but are dumb and klutzy enough to kill themselves with a propane gas explosion. 9.) Dominique Sanda sure looks mighty foxy as token French babe Janice. 10.) The marvelously ridiculous sequence at the Las Vegas casino, where Tanner and Keegan go to town on the slot machines just because they can. 11.) The rusty tin-eared dialogue (all-time favorite line: "All the dead are dead -- and the living are dying"). 11.) Jackie Earle Haley is mighty annoying as token scrappy kid Billy. 12.) A painfully tone-deaf rendition of the popular religious tune "Will the Circle Be Unbroken?" sung by Vincent and Winfield. 13.) Robert Donner as an evil mountain man looks just like Charles Manson with his absurdly fake beard and long greasy unwashed hair. (Seamon Glass, the state trooper in the amazing end-of-the-world gem "This Is Not a Test," plays another one of the evil mountain men.) 14.) Jerry Goldsmith's first-rate robust and rousing score, which sounds like it belongs in another (much better) picture. 15.) Murray Hamilton's "what the hell is he doing here?" uncredited nothing minor part as General Landers; he primarily stands around looking mopey and hardly utters a single word. 16.) The Landmaster vehicle is genuinely gnarly. 17.) The simply astounding "you got to be kidding me!" preposterous happy ending where it appears that our ragtag group of determined survivors have stumbled across the most atrocious ersatz Norman Rockell painting of heartland America imaginable. A delectably dreadful doozy.

score 10/10

Woodyanders 16 September 2011

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2489376/