Grindhouse Double Shock Show: Warriors of the Wasteland (1982) / Cosmos: War of the Planets (1977)

Warriors of the Wasteland (1982, Color): In the post-apocalyptic world of 2019 A.D., a cult of executioners terrorizes the straggling remnants of humanity. The bloodthirsty Templars, an army of crazed killers led by an egomaniacal tyrant known only as One, roam the scorched and barren landscape in jerry-rigged death cars, rooting out the survivors and slaughtering them. One man, Scorpion, has dedicated his life to fighting the evil Templars. He is joined in this blood feud by Nadir, a renegade fighter with a bad attitude and a quiver full of explosive-tipped arrows. Grossly outnumbered, the two righteous warriors have the fate of earth's future in their hands.

This Italian variation on the mega-hit Mad Max series is a high-octane blood-bath. Fred "The Hammer" Williamson stars as arrow-bomber Nadir. Williamson made a name for himself as a street-wise tough guy in "blaxploitation" films like That Man Bolt (1973) and Black Caesar (1973) and more recently appeared in the Robert Rodriquez indie shocker, From Dusk Til Dawn (1996) as a vampire hunter.

Starring Fred Williamson, Timothy Brent, George Eastman; Directed by Enzo G. Castellari.

Cosmos: War of the Planets (1977, Color): Mysterious signals from beyond the solar system have the Earth in a panic. The Space Command sends maverick Rocket Captain Alex Hamilton and his crew of astronauts into uncharted regions of the galaxy to investigate. After a disastrous encounter with alien saucers, their crippled ship is pulled by a gravity beam down to a rogue planet ruled by a cybernetic monster. The evil machine needs humans to repair its damaged circuitry so that it can carry out its plan to conquer the universe - beginning with Earth!

From the same Italian crew that brought Battle of the Stars (1977), War of the Robots (1978) and Space Odyssey (1979) to the screen, Cosmos: War of the Planets pays homage to some of the greatest science fiction hits of the time, featuring a ship-board "orgasmatron" (a la Woody Allen's 1973 hit, Sleeper) and a neurotic out-of-control computer (shades of Hal 9000 in Kubrick's 1968 masterpiece, 2001: A Space Odyssey).

Starring John Richardson, Yanti Somer, West Buchanan, Katia Christine; Directed by Alfonso Brescia.

• science fiction