But it was Italy that kept the fly by night video labels working overtime, mixing and matching from whatever was a hit at the time and putting in it the desert. If you wondered what “Blade Runner”’s cityscapes would look like constructed out of cardboard tubes and Christmas lights, “2020 Texas Gladiators” (1982) has your answer. If you were curious if a producer ever just handed a director the poster in lieu of a script and said “match this,” David Worth, director of “Warrior of the Lost World” (1983) confirms so in an interview. It was a wild, crazed gold rush, supported by hungry distributors and independent production houses like the gloriously infamous Cannon Films. There was no gang theme too outre, no future slang too forced to not be given a try. The output was such a ridiculous torrent it was only expected that genre exhaustion would come sooner than usual, and one of the first signs was the franchise that had started it all.

“Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome” (1985) is an interesting film that can’t quite escape its Frankenstein-ish origins. Director George Miller took a script about a group of feral children he’d been unable to get into production and awkwardly worked it into the second “Mad Max” sequel. But just as much as its seams showed it had some of the most exhilarating action sequences of the decade and a great Maurice Jarre score. The same could not be said of the increasingly threadbare Italian fare. For those committed to seeking out the residue that sticks on the other side of the bottom of the barrel, 1987’s “Interzone” is a dismaying example on multiple levels, exhibiting that last gasp of any trend: “Uh oh, it’s almost over so let’s make a spoof of it!” It might not have been such a bad idea if the script, or the acting, or the directing could agree on what was actually supposed to be funny. Everyone looks embarrassed, confused or some combination of the two with only female bodybuilder Teagan Clive deciding to have a ball and play her villain as though Roseanne Barr had been cast as Thulsa Doom.

The end of the Cold War provided a natural death for the genre, but, curiously, as it becomes apparent we’re capable of destroying our civilization without any outside existential threat, post-apocalyptic movies seem to be seeing a revival (mainly through the dystopic lens of properties like “The Hunger Games”) It seems right that when the world won’t stop burning, Miller returns with the original. But a funny thing has happened in the 30 years since “Thunderdome.” As much as Italy took from him, he seems to have paid equal attention to what they were turning out. “Fury Road” is full of arresting, bizarre images. In a ruined swamp, costumed figures on stilts poke through the gloom, suggesting that a Cirque du Soleil troupe survived the apocalypse. In a ghoulishly brilliant touch, the "war boys" of the villainous Immortan Joe spray paint their mouths in chrome before suicide attacks so their teeth resemble the grills of their sacred cars in death. About all “Fury Road” is missing is Fred Williamson as an untrustworthy town boss. And if that's not enough, there is a perverse strain of decency running through the carnage, because all this is ultimately about respecting the rights of women to their own bodily autonomy….no, really.