Yor, The Hunter From The Future (1983)
Time has a way of taking the edge off of our memories. Happy and sad moments alike - none are spared the inevitable dulling of the passing years. We are then only pebbles, hewn into a boring smoothness by that unceasing temporal river that washes over of us all. By the time we have seen our sixtieth year, we no more than look back on the assorted events that have transpired in our lives with a vague disinterest. Unless you have an unhealthy obsession with living in the past. Which I do.
It was August 19, 1983. My family was taking a trip out of town. With the exception of visits to various grandparents, my family never went anywhere or did anything. I suppose it had something to do with the fact that we all hated each other, but is that really any reason to deprive a child of the occasional vacation? Really, if I'm going to have to watch my parents scream cuss words at each other, can't I just as easily do it while riding Space Mountain as in my own crappy house?
Somehow though, in spite of what transpired during our last family trip to Chicago back in 1981 (Cubs fans + baseball strike = divorce threats), there we were, on our way to the Big City. Or at least Kansas City, Missouri. In defense of my parents, it wasn't like they were taking us to Kansas City, Kansas or anything. However, I also must be honest about the horrific child abuse perpetrated upon me during that trip. They made me go to a Kansas City Royals game! Those of you familiar with baseball will know the trauma that can be inflicted on a child who doesn't like being bored out of his ass for four hours. Add in the fact that we're talking the American League, and the whole thing was positively inhumane.
But why do I remember this exercise in crushing tedium over the thousands of other similar experiences in my life? August 19, 1983 also happened to be the day that Yor, The Hunter From the Future opened up. I had seen a TV commercial for it before our trip and had already gone to Krull that summer, so I was juiced at the prospect of another fantasy-adventure movie featuring a guy with a name that sounded like a dog food ingredient.
I was so excited that when we got Kansas City, I checked the local paper and saw an ad for Yor. Admittedly, the ad wasn't very big, but I assumed that was to try to keep the crowds on opening night down to manageable levels. I mentioned that we might want to all take in a cool new flick by the name of Yor, The Hunter From The Future and my family looked at me like I was walking around with a load in my pants! We ended up going to that stupid ball game, I didn't get to see Yor, and I never spoke to my family again.
Flash forward a thousand years into the future, my traitorous family long turned to dust while I am condemned to walk the wastelands haunted by memories of lost loves, things left unsaid, and George Brett. It's a life that can consume those who don't have the well of inner strength to draw on during the times when the past threatens to overwhelm you. It's also a life that has quite a bit of down time. Down time that's just perfect for catching up with old friends...like Yor! 
After watching Yor punch, kick, stab, hack, and shoot his way through the futuristic prehistoric (huh?) world he inhabits, I can safely say that if my family had gone to Yor with me back in 1983, they would have left my body in the trunk of a burning car on some remote stretch of I-35. And you know what? It would have been worth it!
From the opening strains of Yor's insanely memorable and equally insanely indecipherable theme song where Yor is prancing around various penis-shaped rocks to the very end when he's flying off into the sunset in a spaceship while a narrator informs us that Yor is going to try to help his people prevent the mistakes of the past, but isn't sure whether he will be successful, you are in for the absolutely greatest movie of all time that cross-pollinates the cheesy Italian barbarian movie with the cheesy Italian sci-fi movie!
Antonio Margheriti was preparing for this movie his entire career, honing his craft by directing such sword and sandal epics as Hercules, Prisoner of Evil and Devil of the Desert Against the Son of Hercules when he wasn't busy unleashing outer space fare with titles like Assignment: Outer
Space, War Between the Planets, and Wild, Wild Planet. His Cannibal Apocalypse and Ark Of The Sun God showed he was equally at home giving us a modern dose of gore and adventure! And his expertise in using silly-looking models as props is put to good use as well!
But no matter how much Antonio had trained for this project, it all would have been for naught if he couldn't find just the right smooth-chested, greased-up hunk from the future to fill out Yor's abominable blonde wig. I don't know about you, but if I had a wish list of mid-1980s blonde studs who know their way around an Italian movie, that list would have a single name on it and I would be calling this movie, Yor, The Strike Commando From The Future! 
That's right Rebbo fans! Reb Brown is Yor! If you thought that Rebbo's death matches with the Big Russian in Strike Commando were earth shattering, if you thought his showdown with Robowar in Robowar was cataclysmic, they aren't anything but your Aunt Petunia's church social compared to when Rebbo fights a triceratops single-handedly and wins! Or when he takes on a stegosaurus and gets his faced licked by its big nasty tongue and wins! Or when he fights an army of savage cave people bent on killing him and making his woman theirs and wins! Or when he takes on soulless desert people and goes to town on them with their own fire sword and wins! There's much more of course, but I was getting the vapors from all that primo Rebbo battle action!
Just what in the heck has Rebbo gotten himself into this time? He's a blonde wig-wearing hunter without any other body hair in a world of dark-haired and quite hairy savages! The only key to his past is the ugly medallion he wears. After saving some villagers from an attack by ape-like men, Rebbo teams up with a woman and the old coot named Pag who watches out for her. Together, their journey in search of the secret behind Rebbo's pimp medallion takes them from one deadly adventure to another. As luck would have it, the only thing more destructive than all the villainous forces they encounter is Rebbo himself! It's almost like no one bothered to tell him the apocalypse happened centuries ago so there's no reason to go and try to destroy the world again. But you know Rebbo!
The icky ape-men that kidnapped his old lady? They live in a cave that for some reason has a dam inside of it. Guess who busts that dam wide open and causes a slow motion flood the likes of which haven't been since a dude named Noah decided to take up sailing? But even better than that, guess who shoots a pterodactyl down out of the sky with an arrow and then flies it glider-style into the ape-men's cave in the first place? Well, that was actually a model of Rebbo and the pterodactyl that did that, but you know what I mean.
After about an hour of owning various savages and dinosaurs, Rebbo hits warp factor nine when he gets captured by space men that turn out to be his own people! His medallion was actually a record of his past and we learn that Rebbo was just a kid when his old man's spaceship got shot down. The world had been destroyed years ago by atomic weapons and his people live underground on an island. Their ruler is the evil Overlord. We know he's evil because he wears a black cloak with hood perpetually over his head, has metal gloves, and prattles on and on about how he's going to use Rebbo's seed to create a master race of androids. And also because his name is Overlord. 
The last half hour of the movie finds Rebbo and his companions in the basement of the power plant we last saw in Shocking Dark. But unlike Shocking Dark, the basement is put to good use with an emphasis on laser blaster battles between Rebbo's forces and Overlords black-clad androids who look like a less lame version of Robowar (from the movie Robowar). You'll glad to know that Rebbo is just as handy with a laser blaster as he is with a stone axe and he is immediately rolling around shooting with perfect aim.
Rebbo hits all the action-hero notes we expect as we see him swinging across a great chasm in an effort to destroy the atomic pile in the underground hideout of Overlord. He also goes one on one with Overlord, disdainfully tossing aside his laser blaster so that he can flush this space turd with his bare hands! Overlord is a bit of a cheater though and pulls some kind of sneak attack on Rebbo before getting on an elevator to make his escape. Rebbo's response to this trickery? He impales him with a pole right through the elevator!
This movie is such an action-juggarnaut that even a decrepit old timer like Pag gets a spectacular stunt! It's a scene that will leave even the most jaded Rebbo fan gasping for breath. Rebbo is trapped at the far end of the atomic pile, the power cord he swung over on is out of reach! There's no escape - he'll have to die when the pile goes up! But wait! Old man Pag grabs the cord and swings over to save Rebbo and in mid-flight, he somehow flips around so that his legs are wrapped up in the cord leaving his arms free to grasp Rebbo! To say it all this was accomplished with some more of Antonio's models doesn't lessen the implausible splendor of it all.
A winner from the top of Rebbo's bad wig down to the toes of his ugly fur boots, one simple scene in the film sticks out for me that really tells you what a hellacious hunk Rebbo is in this one. One of the ape-men chucks poor old Rebbo off a cliff and he lands in heap on the rocks below. After laying there awhile, guess what Rebbo does? Shakes his head, gets up and wanders off to fight more dinosaurs and mutants! Heck, in a world where geezers double as accomplished trapeze artists, a young blonde barbarian space stud better be able to play through a little fall!
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