Damnation Alley: the movie that Lost to Star Wars before it even started (film retrospective).
Damnation Alley (1977)—that peculiar love letter to post-apocalyptic survival, roaring vehicles, and questionable screenwriting. If you’ve never seen it, congratulations; you’ve either dodged a bullet or missed out on one of the most delightful trainwrecks of science fiction cinema. Based—loosely, and we do mean loosely—on Roger Zelazny’s 1969 novel of the same name, Damnation Alley is a case study in what happens when Hollywood takes a gritty, cerebral book and decides, “You know what this needs? Giant killer scorpions.”
Let’s start with the source material. Zelazny’s novel is a grim, introspective journey across a ruined America, as the protagonist, Hell Tanner, navigates a hellscape of radioactive storms, deadly wildlife, and existential dread to deliver a vaccine that could save humanity. It’s gritty, layered, and has that typical Zelazny magic of blending pulp with poetry. The movie, on the other hand, takes that plot, puts it through a car crusher, then polishes whatever’s left with 70s cheese until it glistens like a disco ball.
The film stars Jan-Michael Vincent as the hunky, rebellious hero, George Peppard as the gruff, pipe-smoking leader (because what screams “post-apocalypse” more than a corn cob pipe?), and Paul Winfield as the guy you just know isn’t making it to the end credits. The crew traverse the wasteland in the Landmaster, a gloriously absurd vehicle that looks like a Transformer got stuck halfway through transforming. The Landmaster is arguably the real star of the movie—its 12 wheels and modular design make it look so capable that it’s almost a shame it’s stuck in this movie. If Mad Max’s Interceptor exudes raw, chaotic cool, the Landmaster looks like your nerdy cousin’s attempt to join the party after a weekend of DIY mods.
The post-apocalyptic America of Damnation Alley is a strange beast. In Zelazny’s novel, the world feels tactile and terrifying. In the movie, it’s more like someone slapped some orange filters on the lens and called it radioactive. The sky is perpetually a sickly shade of technicolor nightmare, and the dangers are laughably inconsistent—one moment, you’re facing giant scorpions (impressive in a “we spent half the effects budget on this” kind of way), and the next, you’re battling a herd of homicidal cockroaches that look suspiciously like someone dumped a bag of plastic bugs on the set.
The narrative itself is as erratic as the survivors’ journey. The original novel’s quiet existential dread and gritty moral ambiguity? Gone, replaced by canned heroics, cheesy dialogue, and a contrived love interest. Zelazny’s Hell Tanner—a criminal anti-hero whose journey is one of reluctant redemption—is reimagined here as a cookie-cutter good guy, his sharp edges sanded down until he’s as generic as the canned food they presumably eat.
What really seals Damnation Alley’s fate is its unshakable devotion to mediocrity. Released just months after Star Wars redefined the science fiction blockbuster, it was doomed to be a footnote from the start. George Lucas showed audiences galaxies far, far away with groundbreaking visuals and a sense of wonder. Meanwhile, Damnation Alley showed them killer cockroaches and a protagonist who looked like he’d rather be anywhere else.
That said, it’s not all bad. There’s a certain charm to the film’s hokeyness, an endearing earnestness in its attempt to deliver an epic tale with a shoestring brain and an effects budget that clearly ran out halfway through production. It’s the kind of movie that’s so bad it loops back around to being good, a cult classic that earns its fans through sheer audacity. If you love watching a post-apocalyptic road trip where the real apocalypse might just be the script, this one’s for you.
Ultimately, Damnation Alley is a fascinating relic, a cinematic time capsule of an era when science fiction didn’t yet know whether it wanted to be art or spectacle—or, as in this case, neither. It’s a reminder that adapting a book isn’t about slavishly copying every plot point; it’s about capturing the spirit of the story. Zelazny’s novel had grit, danger, and poetry. The movie had a Landmaster and a script seemingly written by someone who skimmed the first ten pages of the book before heading out for cocktails.
But hey, let’s not be too harsh. As a spectacle of 70s schlock, Damnation Alley succeeds beautifully. Just don’t go in expecting Zelazny’s brilliance, and you might just find yourself grinning at its absurdity. After all, sometimes it’s fun to take the low road, even if it leads straight through the damnation of Hollywood’s alley.
