Highly Overrated But Still Good

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Absolutely Fantastic

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

This changes most things about the book, getting rid of the anti hero elements, the reason for the journey, the back story and the reasons fighting, to leave a fairly clean cut apocalypse crew to drive across the US for no real reason. That said, I like it because whilst it does no justice to the book, it does add some ideas of its own of merit - the cockroaches, for example. But it blows it all on an ending that solves all the not very difficult problems of the apocalypse in a ridiculous fashion.

"Damnation Alley" didn't win any Academy Awards and it's not on any list of the greatest movies, but it is a gritty tale of survival in a post-nuclear war world and has several good scenes.Lt. Tanner (Jan-Michael Vincent), Keegan (Paul Winfield) and Maj. Denton (George Peppard) are Air Force personnel who survive a nuclear war in their California bunker. The nuclear explosions have tilted the earth's axis, causing the sky to change colors and flash bright lights. The group receives transmissions from Albany, New York so they take off through dangerous "Damnation Alley" in a futuristic vehicle (a so- called Landmaster) to reach civilization. Along the way they pick up an obnoxious teenager (Jackie Earle Haley) and a young woman (Dominique Sanda). Keegan is unconvincingly killed by mutant cockroaches and the group battles hillbilly survivalists along the way. Eventually the four survivors reach Albany and safety.The film's producers should have spent more money on the special effects, because they're pretty bad in places. Giant scorpions and cockroaches are almost laughable, and the models of the Landmaster just aren't very well done. Still, this is a pretty good film if you forget about its shortcomings. Peppard was at a career low when he made the film but is good anyway, and Jan-Michael Vincent does his "young rebel" routine quite well. The film suffered because it was released in the shadow of "Star Wars", and was quickly forgotten but I think it's very watchable.

The end of the world is here and some guys travel around in a fancy bus-type vehicle.Jerry Goldsmith did the music and the above plot sounds great...so this should be a classic...but it is not! What went wrong? The following year Goldsmith did great scores for The Swarm and Capricorn One, this is the sort of music that was needed for this movie, so where is it Goldsmith??The plot is interesting but the cast don't hold the movie together. A short-lived 1976 TV series, Ark 11, did this whole plot-line a lot better with more pleasing actors/music/costumes.But anyway, Damnation Alley is still worth watching as I love road movies, but you will be shaking your head saying "this could have been so much better".

I liked the movie, don't get me wrong, but didn't like the ending. After a nuclear war and only two years later, we find people in Albany, NY, running around like everything is fine. Albany, I'am sure, would have been wiped out. Along with every other major city, considering 60% of Russian nukes got past at the beginning. I do agree that it could be remade with a lot of work, and yes, follow more by the book. I know my city, here in Tennessee, was leveled. There are plenty of great actors around that would be great in the character roles, but would probably want too much money. The movie, itself, would need plenty of support from fans and studios to make it possible.