This movie has to be trash, right? One doesn’t go into a 1980’s post-apocalyptic sci-fi b-movie with a scantily-clad female cast and expect Shakespeare. In the days before the World Wide Web, a movie like this was about one thing and one thing only, and that was gratuitous nudity. It’s true. Movie watchers were shallow enough that for about three decades leading up to the widespread use of the internet, showcasing nudity was a core purpose of thousands upon thousands of substandard movies. Good for them!
Phoenix the Warrior is a little skimpy with the goods, though. Although the look and feel of this movie is lifted from Mad Max, in many ways this has more in common with a women in prison flick. Director and writer Robert Hayes (Dan Rotblatt shares writing credit) even managed to squeeze in a pseudo shower scene, but that’s about it. Hayes did the absolute worst thing he could do as the director of an exploitation flick: he relied on his skill as a filmmaker to see him through.
It’s the future! Out of control biological weapons have devastated the population of the planet, and wiped out the vast majority of the men. Women have inherited the Earth, finally, and it’s a wreck. Tribalism has become the norm. One settlement is overseen by the evil Reverend Mother (Sheila Howard), a cracked and wizened creature, who uses her scientific skills and specialized breeding from captive males to not only populate her settlement, but to bring forth her vision of a new human race, all descended from her.
One of her experiments, Keela (Peggy McIntaggart), pregnant with a precious male fetus, flees the compound, aided by a sandtrapper named Phoenix (Kathleen Kinmont). What is a sandtrapper? It’s never explained, but that doesn’t matter. Phoenix is this movie’s heroine.
The Reverend Mother, desperate to get Keela back, sends her trusted #2, Cobalt (Persis Khambatta), to track down Keela and Phoenix, and bring Keela back into the fold.
The typical low budget cat and mouse game in the desert follows, with lots of gunplay and a couple of car chases. It’s not enough to satisfy fans of Mad Max ripoffs, but shitty movie mutants should love it. This movie is packed front to back with action set pieces, and not one of them 
is believable. Hayes got very little out of his cast. In going for beauty over all else, he ended up getting actresses who were either incapable of, or uninterested in, the physical aspects of action movies. These scenes have all the seriousness of kids jumping through a lawn sprinkler.
Another hurdle for Hayes was this flick’s budget. A product of Action International Pictures, the lack of money is visible in every scene. Roger Corman flicks looked lavishly overproduced by comparison. The movie takes place in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, sure, but viewers would be pressed to find another film with sets dressed this sparsely. The Reverend Mother’s lair is a darkened studio draped with clear plastic sheeting. I’ve seen one act Fringe Festival plays in the East Village that had more set dressing. That’s not minimalism. That’s poverty.
Phoenix the Warrior is a fun b-movie. It’s joyfully inept and somewhat innocent. I bitched about the amount of nudity above, but that’s my only gripe about a film that checks every other b-movie box. It’s not nearly as watchable as the movies at the top of the Watchability Index, and yet it is a fine example of what is commonly referred to as ‘so bad it’s good.’ Phoenix the Warrior takes over the #210 spot from The Specialist.