Zardoz - 1974

It's been a while since we've had movie night, and I've been sitting on this one for a while. I didn't know much about it, but I saw the first few seconds and knew I needed to see it with a friend. So I forced Mom to watch it! This review will be full of spoilers...

We start off strong with a floating head. A dude is telling us some weird nonsense. I wasn't paying attention, because I was wondering why his mustache and goatee were drawn on. Then, we see a huge, floating head. It floats down, says some stuff about guns and penises, and then barfs some old-timey shotguns to the people. In the year 2293. The head's name is Zardoz (don't even get me started on why that's his name), and Zed (one of the scantily-clad chosen) has stowed away.

While up in the sky, Zed shoots the dude from the beginning in the arm. The guy falls out of the head for some reason, and Zed makes it to the Vortex. It's a place where people live forever with terrible clothes. Their punishment is to age, and if they go nutty, they end up at a prom for old people. Zed apparently is the bringer of death, since he's there to take revenge, and he has people posted outside the barrier waiting to get inside.

Some chick is out to kill him, so everyone starts destroying the whole city. Statues, buildings, anything they can get their hands on. When she gets the chance to kill him, she can't. In fact, they are in love and will be a couple. Ok. Then, Zed has some magic power that stops the madness, some dude dies, the eternals rejoice cause now they can die, but then the warriors come and just murder everyone for five minutes. Then we get to watch Zed and his woman age until they're dead, and the movie ends. Wow.

This thing was so weird. It was written, directed and produced by the same person, so I was expecting a mess. I was so sure the man was also a character in the movie, but I was wrong on that one. I'm not sure how the characters got through their lines with straight faces half the time. Why were there so many boobs? Why were we talking about the workings of penises all the time? Why did we feel like showing the rape scene more than once - or at all?

I couldn't wait for this thing to end. The number of times I asked, "What!? or "Why?" was extreme, and I still don't understand a lot of it. And more to the point, I don't care...