2024. Rather dim-witted and impetuous, but loyal teenage boy Vic (a sturdy and credible portrayal by a pre-fame Don Johnson) and his much smarter telepathic dog Blood (sharply voiced with fierce caustic aplomb by Tim McIntire, who also composed the folksy score) depend on each other to find food and females in a hostile post-apocalyptic wasteland. Complications ensue after Vic meets and falls for the seductive, yet conniving and deceitful Quilla June (a nicely charming performance by Susanne Benton), who convinces Vic to venture underground where a bizarre community that replicates vintage Topeka (!) require Vic's virility to impregnate their women.
Writer/director L.Q. Jones, adapting Harlan Ellison's classic novella, offers a truly odd, but ingenious and inspired blend of stark savagery and biting satire that has a marvelously off-kilter vibe which in turn gives this movie its own highly distinctive idiosyncratic identity. Moreover, Jones does a masterful job of creating and presenting a harsh and darkly amoral world populated by a rich assortment of nasty and grotesque people.
Without a doubt this film's key triumph is the often perversely funny and sometimes strangely moving central relationship between Vic and Blood that slyly subverts the special bond between a boy and his dog in which it's painfully clear that the more cunning and sarcastic canine is calling the shots for the subservient and stupidly impulsive kid (in essence, Blood's the brain to Vic's brawn). Jason Robards, Helene Winston, and Alvy Moore are wickedly amusing as the serenely strict committee who run the stifling subterranean conformist society, Ron Feinberg contributes a memorably ferocious turn as the brutish Fellini, and Tiger does excellent work as Blood. As for that infamous uncompromisingly nihilistic ending, let's just say that it packs one hell of a deliciously vicious punch. Wholly deserving of its stellar cult status.
Writer/director L.Q. Jones, adapting Harlan Ellison's classic novella, offers a truly odd, but ingenious and inspired blend of stark savagery and biting satire that has a marvelously off-kilter vibe which in turn gives this movie its own highly distinctive idiosyncratic identity. Moreover, Jones does a masterful job of creating and presenting a harsh and darkly amoral world populated by a rich assortment of nasty and grotesque people.
Without a doubt this film's key triumph is the often perversely funny and sometimes strangely moving central relationship between Vic and Blood that slyly subverts the special bond between a boy and his dog in which it's painfully clear that the more cunning and sarcastic canine is calling the shots for the subservient and stupidly impulsive kid (in essence, Blood's the brain to Vic's brawn). Jason Robards, Helene Winston, and Alvy Moore are wickedly amusing as the serenely strict committee who run the stifling subterranean conformist society, Ron Feinberg contributes a memorably ferocious turn as the brutish Fellini, and Tiger does excellent work as Blood. As for that infamous uncompromisingly nihilistic ending, let's just say that it packs one hell of a deliciously vicious punch. Wholly deserving of its stellar cult status.