Damnation Alley (film)

Damnation Alley is a 1977 American post-apocalyptic film directed by Jack Smight. It is loosely based on Roger Zelazny's 1969 novel of the same name. Jerry Goldsmith composed the original music score, and Harry Stradling Jr. handled cinematography. The cast includes George Peppard, Jan-Michael Vincent, Dominique Sanda, Paul Winfield, and Jackie Earle Haley. The film was poorly received by both critics and audiences when it first came out, but has since gained a cult following.

The story begins with First Lieutenant Jake Tanner sharing ICBM silo duty at a US Air Force missile base in the Mojave Desert with Major Eugene "Sam" Denton. Denton tells Tanner he is requesting a transfer, finding him an unsuitable partner. They interact with Sergeant Tom Keegan during security checks. During a drill, the US detects incoming Soviet nuclear missiles. Tanner and Denton launch their silo's missiles as part of a retaliatory strike. Despite interceptor missiles, the US suffers heavy damage.

Two years later, the nuclear detonations of World War III have tilted the Earth off its axis. Massive storms rage, and the sky is in a perpetual aurora-like state. Tanner has resigned his commission and scouts nearby Barstow, California. Keegan has also resigned and become an artist in a base out-building. Mutated giant scorpions threaten the area, forcing Tanner and Keegan to defend it with high-powered rifles. Airman Haskins falls asleep and drops a lit cigarette, starting a small fire that causes an explosion, killing most of the barracks' inhabitants, including the base commander, General Landers. Keegan, Tanner, Denton, and Lieutenant Tom Perry survive.

Denton suggests traveling to Albany, New York, to investigate a lone weekly radio transmission. The survivors set out in two large 12-wheel Landmaster armored personnel carriers, crossing Damnation Alley, "the path of least resistance" between high-radiation zones. Perry is killed in a storm that disables one Landmaster. In the ruins of Salt Lake City, they encounter mutated cockroaches that trap and eat Keegan alive. Denton and Tanner pick up two survivors: a woman named Janice in Las Vegas, and a teenage boy named Billy, found in an abandoned house in the High Plains. They fight gun-toting mountain men at a ruined gas station in the Midwest, and Denton destroys the men's buildings with the Landmaster's rocket launchers.