it truly unfortunate and even mildly depress how your personal perception change over the year . i remember see this film on late night television when i be a young lad and i instantly love it for life or at least i thought i would at the time . damnation alley have a lot of element to appeal to young and naive audience and especially 15 to 20 year ago and when computer generate effect do not dominate cinema yet . it have the impressive heavily armored truck and gigantic mutate scorpion and carnivorous cockroach and funnily color sky and a massive number of explosion . moreover and the film star not one but two of my childhood tv idol ( george peppard of the a team and jan michael vincent of airwolf ) . i finally re watched damnation alley now and and what mostly astound me be how amateurish and clumsy and bore the film be see through the eye of an adult . this be one seriously incoherent mess of a film and and even though the landmaster truck still remain an ultra cool method of transportation and the rest of the scenery and special effect be pathetic and not the least bit convince . allegedly and roger zelazny novel be a masterwork of sci fi and but the movie adaptation most definitely be not . the first fifteen minute be unimaginably dull and handle about absolutely nothing and really . bunch of military guy and include the three male protagonist and sit comfortably in their base camp whilst nuclear bomb kill 99 . 9 % of the earth population and even tilt the freaking planet off it axis . later and an even stupider accident wipe out the remain survivor at the army base so that only four people be leave alive . they decide to undertake the dangerous coast to coast journey from california to albany in their landmaster truck and because they pick up vague radio signal hint there may be other survivor . the posse quickly lose a member but also pick up a woman and a kid during and and each time they make a stop there a different menace to face . there the earth unbalanced and wacky climate and cannibalistic insect and of course the big horror of them all represent fellow dehumanize survivor . the premise sound like the ideal post apocalyptic sci fi stuff and and it be and but the elaboration and jack smight sense of direction literally bring this film down . be a fan of low grade and obscure genre movie and i can tolerate bad special effect and a lack of continuity in the script and but there a whole lot more wrong here . the character be wooden statue and none of the actor seem really interested in provide them with emotional or intellectual depth . tanner and keegan be supposedly best friend ( they even sing cheesy song together ) and yet when keegan die tanner show no reaction or doesn not even mention his name anymore for the remainder of the film . there almost no development in the relationship between the original traveler and the survivor they pick up along the way and throughout the entire film there isn not a single dialog that be properly write out . the sequence with the flesh eating cockroach and the encounter with the savage rednecks generate a few isolated peak of suspense and thrill and but overall damnation alley be mostly uneven and tedious . and and just when you presume the film couldn not possibly sink any low and youre face with the most implausible and infuriate climax in the history of cinema . i can honestly say i have never witness a more pathetic force happy end in my life .