2000 Years Later

If you like weird movies from the 60s, then this is probably as weird as they come. One scene starts, then it's suddenly chopped off and another begins, in a totally different setting with completely different characters doing completely different things. Some scenes might last just 5 or 10 seconds. A lot of interesting real-life footage or old movie clips are also interspersed throughout the story. It continues in this way pretty much throughout.

The cast of characters is interesting to say the least. The majority are extras, ranging from young people in their late teens/early 20s portraying hippies or bikers, to middle aged, middle-class people hosting orgies in their homes. We also have a couple of well-known actors or personalities - Kasey Kasem, Terry-Thomas and an elderly Edward Everett Horton, who died the year after this movie was made (you might remember his voice from his narration of the Fractured Fairy Tales section in the Rocky and Bullwinkle show).

The movie is chock-full of extremely cheap and amateur visual effects. Some examples include a man in a chariot which was quite clearly a toy. A light in the sky was a sparkler. An explosion was very obviously a jug of milk poured into a container of water - evident by the drips of water pouring out of the container.

And not to mention the music, which is as bizarre as the rest of the film.

As for the story: it basically begins when a Roman warrior is transported into the future (ie 1969) via way of a "spinnin', pulsatin', GY-ratin'" light over Los Angeles which is starting riots all over the city. A TV variety show (one of the most bizarre, free-form shows I've seen, mind you) grabs him as a special guest and he becomes more and more exploited by the cast and other special guests as the show progresses.

It took me a good 13 years of repeated watching to get over the actual novelty and sheer fun of watching this movie to realise there was a message in there. I believe it is basically a commentary on materialism and how it ruins our society and its values. A message just as poignant (if not more poignant) today.

Movies like this (that weren't even released on video, let alone DVD) don't get shown on TV much, if at all, anymore, which is a real shame. A critically-acclaimed movie it definitely ain't, but when appreciated for its merits, it's a very interesting time capsule but with a modern message. I congratulate and thank Bert Tenzer for his amazing creativity which resulted in this film.

This film was transmitted around early 1987 on Channel 7 in Australia and I was fortunate enough to have found this gem on the end of a program I had taped. It is unavailable on VHS or DVD and that is a crime! This is a fantastic 'head' film, full of trippy video effects,rapid edits, cheesy slogans, guru's, hippies and hip marketing men who come up with the idea that they can make a few bucks from marketing Roman clothing. This is due to the sudden arrival of a legit sentient Roman from 2000 years back(the head attire looks way cool for 1969) and will generate far better sales than 'ZAP POW' washing liquid. Fans of Frank Zappa's '200 motels' or 'The Trip' or even Jodorowsky 'The Holy Mountain' will like this film as it is not linear and is a great historical time capsule for the USA 60's period.

This tasteless satire exploits the ailments and pretensions that it so bitterly attacks society for. After living in suspension for 2,000 years, a Roman messenger arrives in Los Angeles to warn society that it's not too late, "if". The "if" is never disclosed, not even when the Roman makes a guest appearance on a TV show hosted by Terry-Thomas and Edward Everett Horton, which becomes as irrelevant as the film itself. The clichéd visual gimmicks and adolescent humor only underline the crudeness of this 90 minute commercial on the ugliness of humanity.

Bert Tenzer, a writer and a veteran of radio and television production and direction, could not, in fact, "write" the feature film he wanted to make in terms that, say, a studio story editor could grasp. Outline or dialog would bear no relationship to the ultimate movie; it has to be "written with film" rather than pen and paper. Having made "loot and plunder" and deeply concerned with the state of society in which he had made it, he could afford, with some fund-raising, to go out on his own to say what he wanted to say. After two years' work as writer-producer-director, "eight months of that devoted to editing—or 'writing'-the final film," for little less than $700,000, he came up with 2,000 Years Later, A major studio-Warner Brothers 7 Arts-could then "read" it and undertook its distribution.

2,000 Years Later is a "personal" film – and an interesting one at that. It still defies script outline because it is so thoroughly cinematic. It has distillations of La Dolce Vita, Dr. Strangelove, Mondo Cane, and The Savage Eye; it has a brilliant take-off on High Noon and the fast inter-cuts, repetitions and cinema verite inserts that are the hallmark of so many "now" films; it has Terry Thomas as the unctuously venal television host of an International Cultural Hour, and Edward Everrett Horton as his pretentiously intellectual co-host; it has Murray Roman as the ultimate motorcyclist, Superdude, and Monty Rock III as Tomorrow's Leader. For Plot it has the last decedent Roman brought by the gods to our time to warn against the imminent decline and fall. It has flashy and fascinating techniques (consider paralleling a television guest show with a bull fight- eh, toreros?) and a fast contemporary score.

But most important, it has a point of view and something to say and you will either get the message or hate every seemingly exploitative and relentless moment of the film. It's essentially a statement about the loot and the plunder and the universal sell-out, whether it's by the TV Boys, the super culture hounds, the rock idol who digs "love and peace and those boots" or the Superdude who trades in his "tradition" for the boodle. It's a ruthless film- that makes the faces of the customers at the topless discotheques more fascinating then the females, that looks fads and fashion in the fraud (with Rudi Gernreich), that explores a zap-pow jet-set party (only two actors in this one and the rest just folks who gladly let the cameras roll), devastates physical fitness programs, lets the military mind have free rein and peels the skin off the fast-buck society. It's not a comfortable film because it is a merger of conflicting elements and the eye of the beholder is all.

Irreverent, skirting the borders of taste, nose-thumbing and back stabbing, it hits at a number of today's shams and shambles. And if you get the message…. It, is Mr. Tenzer feels, almost a Rorschach test. I urge you to take it.

--Judith Crist

New York Magazine

I was an extra in this movie when I was 18. I had to hitchhike to get there. I was running around in a toga with a zipper and got hit with a giant boulder, so they had to retake the scene. In another scene I was at an orgy making out with a guy and they kept reshooting the scene so I got the worst beard burn ever. I never got to see it, so I'd love to laugh at it if anyone can help me find a way to do so 😆 Thanks Beverly Carver