Psychomania
Loathe as I am to displace a good review for a good movie with this bizarre bit of muddled weirdness, I’m obligated to share. Really, if you want something that sounds cool, just scroll down and check out mb’s review of Shaun of the Dead. Only the morbidly curious need apply for this one.
Premise: 4/5
Look, call me crazy, but this movie sounded like a can’t miss. What do you get when you decide to mix the biker genre with the horror genre? Something that, I imagined, would be quirky and cool. I’d really hate to use the term “high concept” to describe it, so I’ll just say “off the wall fun.” I mean, we have a biker gang (who call themselves “The Living Dead”) offing themselves for a chance at immortality! Who could argue, right?
Unfortunately, the end result isn’t even close to what I believed it would be. The “Living Dead” are really pretty tame, honestly. They ride their bikes really close to people to scare them! They slap miniskirt-wearing pram-pushers on the behind! They drive really slowly around something that looks like the Avesbury Stone Circle in minature! They…well, that’s really about it. I mean, I dunno if it’s because the movie’s British, but these bikers are kind of sissy, really. And they’re so clean-shaven and upper crust that you don’t get even the remotest James Dean vibe from any of ‘em. Things get slightly more interesting after the leader, Tom, comes back from the grave, but by then you’re so worn down by the endless dowdiness of it all that it’s hard to get behind.
And you know what really, really burns? No catfight between the two female gang members! Shouldn’t that be, like, a requirement for any gang movie? No catfights of any kind! It’s criminal when I can look at Manos and say that it actually did something better than Psychomania.
This box art should give you a clear idea of—well, you know what, that's a lie. This doesn't give you a clear idea of anything. Looks like some Vallejo on crack.
Cast: 2/5
Boy, I’ve never met a cast that I’ve cared so little for. I guess the leader of “The Living Dead,” Tom (played by Nicky Henson) isn’t too bad. I find it weird that he’s upper-crust but still is a rebellious biker gang leader. His mom (played by Beryl Reid) is too busy channeling spirits and lounging around on atrocious ’70s furniture to seem too distressed about him sowing his wild oats like that. And meanwhile, George Sanders, as the butler (and ominous supernatural man of the house) Mr. Shadwell, looks after the frog Tom brought back from the cemetary, and never gives you a clear idea what he wants or what he’s even doing there. He just is. I guess the frog’s important, too, albeit in some murky, mumbled, not ever really explained way.
Everyone else in the gang is a throwaway, except for maybe Anne Michelle, who plays the alpha female, Jane, with a certain degree of zeal and fun. The authority figures don’t matter, because they almost all inevitably get killed by the newly-risen members of “The Living Dead” before being able to do anything of interest or importance. Also particularly dull is Tom’s main squeeze, Abby (played by Mary Larkin), who is one boring and inconsistent girl. Is she the “good girl,” is she just a sheep, is she gonna off herself, is she not—watching her character “develop” (i.e. change her mind something like a million times) is baffling, to say the least. Ah well, in the spirit of generosity, I must admit that the end credits are cute, as it separates the cast lists by “the Gang,” “the Police,” “the Victims,” and “the Survivors.”
Crazy suicide lady, I love you.
Special Effects & Cinematography: 2/5
Erm…what special effects? There’s a whole montage after Tom comes back from the dead where each of the gang members off themselves, and it really is puzzling how they all remain so magically intact. I mean, one guy jumps out of a plane without a parachute, two more do a header into a moving truck, and so on, yet they never show so much as a bruise. No blood for the gorehounds, either, really. Most of the people the gang kill they do by strangling or running into with their bikes, and you’re never even really quite sure who of their victims are supposed to be dead and who aren’t. Blah! There is a decently cool scene after Tom’s buried (the gang buried him sitting up on his bike by the “Seven Witches” monument that they always drive around) where he busts out of the grave popping a wheelie, so that’s neat at least.
Only two other mentionables, the first being a comical scene when Jane and Tom start harassing a truck driver by calling him “Father Christmas” and then jab at his tire with a pocket knife for a while until it swerves off the road, tips over, and predictably explodes within .02 seconds of hitting the ground. The other one is the bizarre last scene where Tom’s mom is finally so distraught over what her undead son is doing that she decides to break her pact with Mr. Shadwell (who I guess we’re supposed to infer is actually Satan), although just how she breaks the pact is unclear, she does turn into a toad and all of “The Living Dead” are turned into stone before they can finally do in Abby (who was the only member that failed to kill herself, and then decided she didn’t really want to commit suicide after all and was trying to break the news to Tom)—I guess the effects for that scene are okay, given that this movie came out in ’71, but it’s so painfully slow a transformation that it lasts long, long after any trace of suspense is gone.
Nothing spells rebellious like sticking your tongue out and thumbing your nose! Damn, you KNOW they mean business!
Popcorn Factor: 3/5
Although I hate to admit it, there is a goofy appeal to this movie. Parts of it looked like it was trying for a comedy (witness: the scene in the graveyard where Tom stops making out with Abby to catch that damn frog, and then starts telling Abby that they should kill themselves and come back, to which Abby replies that she can’t kill herself because she has to help her mother get groceries in the morning), and the scenes where the gangers off themselves one by one are pretty amusing. Peppy Jane’s remark “It’s easy to kill living people!” (as opposed to, I guess, killing dead people) is worth a psychotic giggle or two, and there are at least a couple of halfway alright motorcycle scenes. Something about the utter insanity of the premise kept me watching, and if the movie had been either shorter or more briskly paced I think it could’ve been a really fun curiosity piece, if nothing else. I guess you could do worse if you have a taste for something just old-fashioned odd.