The New Gladiators (1984) Lucio Fulci

Framed for the murder of three guys who killed his wife by an all-powerful megalomaniacal master computer, nice guy reigning "bloodbike" champion Drake (the ruggedly appealing Jared Martin) is forced to engage in a ferocious only one winner allowed mass televised old Rome-style gladiatorial combat game called "The Battle of the Damned" that offers just the right amount of nasty and copious real-life bloodshed the jaded future TV audiences need in order to get their violence fix. Whipped into fierce fighting shape by sadistic trainer Raven (a robustly evil Howard Ross) and befriended by token compassionate chick Sarah (the lovely Eleanor Gold), Drake has to mix it up in lethal combat on elaborately made-up motorcycles with a savage bunch of barbarians who include Al Cliver as a scruffy ape, Hiruiko (Al) Yamanouchi as a feral mohawked chopsocky demon, and almighty blaxploitation bad-ass Fred "the Hammer" Williamson as a cool, composed, cocky and swaggering smooth dude.

A most uncharacteristic self-criticizing sci-fi/action picture departure by famed Italian horror movie specialist Lucio Fulci, this suitably violent and gory outing offers a barbed, cynical, corrosive commentary on the bloodthirsty gorehound viewers who enjoy watching Fulci's gruesome fright features by showing a bleakly amoral futuristic society where warring TV stations try to score high ratings by broadcasting excessively brutal and barbaric fare like "The Danger Game," a particularly gross simulated atrocity offering which crassly caters to the lowest common denominator by going heavy on the mondo fake bloodspilling. Fulci co-wrote the acrid, biting script with frequent screenwriter Dardano ("Zombie,""The Beyond") Sachetti, Cesare Frugoni and Elisa Briganti. Riz ("Don't Torture A Duckling,""Cannibal Holocaust") Ortolani supplies a booming, wildly wailing, hard-grooving Goblinesque score. Joseph Pinori's gaudy, luminescent, loud bright color-saturated cinematography gives the film a garishly ornate, glittering, dazzling look that's in equal parts florescent Christmas tree lights glow and blinding pinball machine arcade high-gloss sheen. Fulci stages the killbike sequences with wired, heart-racing gusto, with guys astride motorcycles slicing'n'dicing each other with swords, lances, spiked clubs and hammers. Unique in its genre due to its pointed, self-recriminating exploration of using violence as a cheap titillating device and an obvious precursor to "The Running Man," this funky item makes for a refreshingly unusual and oddly thought-provoking addition to the sci-fi/action genre.