Stryker (1983)

Cirio H. Santiago’s first (of several – Wheels of Fire (1985), parts of Future Hunters (1986), Equalizer 2000 (1987), The Sisterhood (1988), Dune Warriors (1991), Raiders of the Sun (1992)) contribution to the cycle of films that took their inspiration from George Miller’s Mad Max 2 (1981) may have been shot in the Philippines by a Filipino crew but was entirely co-financed by Roger Corman’s New World Pictures.

In the aftermath of a stock footage nuclear holocaust, those most resilient of survivors – leather workers and manufacturers of metal studs – have once again kitted out the stock band of road warriors who this time are squabbling not over the oil of Miller’s original but control and supply of water. American TV actor Steve Sandor takes the title role, the usual man of few words who roams the blighted wastelands just wanting to be left alone but who ends up a reluctant hero when he leads the efforts to rescue a young woman (Andrea Savio from Death Screams (1982)) who alone knows the location of the last natural supplies of clean water.

There’s a lot going on in Stryker, most of it familiar to anyone who’s seen Mad Max 2 and Giuliano Carnimeo’s Il giustiziere della strada/Exterminators of the Year 3000 (1983) (which was filmed at roughly the same time), and it’s certainly never dull. The dubbing is lousy, the performances at best perfunctory and the dreadful synth score is the sort of thing that gives electronic music a seriously bad name, but for all it’s busyness Stryker really isn’t any good – which will come as no surprise to many I’m sure.

“The nuclear holocaust wiped out any semblance of rhyme and reason” the opening narration tells us and that may go some way explaining a lot of the silliness that follows. Questions abound but answers are in short supply. Why is water so scarce given how cloudy it always seems to be? What exactly is the relationship between Stryker and his enemy/sidekick/passing stranger Bandit (William Ostrander, who later turned up in David Lynch’s Mulholland Dr. (1999))? What are the Jawas from Star Wars (1977) doing here? And where does Stryker’s cowboy hat keep disappearing to between shots?

The film culminates in an extended chase scene involving a tanker, just in case you hadn’t made the connection with Mad Max 2 already. Some tanks turn up along the way (Santiago must have some useful contacts in the Filipino military) but they do little to add any excitement to the proceedings.

Sandor (Star Trek: The Gamesters of Triskelion (1968)) is given even less dialogue than Mel Gibson got in Mad Max 2 but where Gibson still managed to give Max a dash of charisma, Sandor’s just a non-entity, sporting the one expression throughout and possessing all the charm and magnetism of a plank of wood. His non-performances is thrown into sharp relief by the bizarre turn from Sid-Haig lookalike Mike Lane (Frankenstein 1970 (1958), Ulisse contro Ercole (1962), Curse of the Crystal Eye (1991), Demon Keeper (1994)) as the hook-handed villain Kardis. Lane’s peculiar intonation makes Kardis more laughable than fearsome though it is by far the most entertaining thing in Stryker. Philippines based American actor Ken Metcalfe, who turns up here as Stryker’s brother Trun, later wrote and appeared in another Filipino Max clone, Warriors of the Apocalypse (1985). It was, if anything, even worse than Stryker.