31 DAYS OF HORROR 2013-Day 7: GRIZZLY (1976)

One of the all-time great tag lines. (art by comics legend Neal Adams)

Unless you've lived deep within the bowels of a cave somewhere in the lost valley of Quanxioatxl, odds are that you've seen JAWS (1975), aka the apex of the 1970's wave of "nature run amok" entertainment. It was a box office blockbuster — arguably the first of the kind we think of when the term comes up today — and has entered the world's collective pop culture lexicon, so it's as familiar as one's own ass. Simply put, there's pretty much no way that you have not experienced JAWS in some way, shape, or form. And with that kind of popularity/ubiquity and explosion all over the zeitgeist, it was inevitable that there would be movies that sought to cash-in on the public's hunger for stories about creatures that were hungry for the public. Thus we received GRIZZLY, by far the most shameless JAWS ripoff of its era — only to be eclipsed in the sheer, balls-out shamelessness of its mimicry by the Italian-made GREAT WHITE (1980), aka LAST SHARK — and, sadly one of the least interesting. As my friend Greaseball Johnny once so very accurately summed it up, you could take the script for JAWS, set it in a Yellowstone-like national park, cross out every instance of the word "shark" and substitute it with "bear," and you'd end up with GRIZZLY. Yes, there are minor differences in the number of people devoured by the titular predator and assorted individual plot points — such as the offending bruin being unceremoniously reduced to chipped beef by a well-placed shot from a bazooka — but there is no denying that this film is no more than a big ol' ripoff and it doesn't care to hide that fact one tiny bit.

Subtlety!!!

Since GRIZZLY is basically JAWS starring a bear, there's no need to go into its plot and the only thing one can really say about it is that it's as pedestrian in its filmmaking as the average made-for-TV movie of its era, PG-rated gore and violence notwithstanding. My real reason for posting about this flick is to reminisce about the days long before I was hardened by cinematic carnage and mayhem, back when I was an impressionable eleven-year-old who'd allowed GRIZZLY's terrific poster and brutally lurid tie-in novelization to build up in my mind an horrific maelstrom of forest-bound terror. Some of my schoolmates talked me into going with them to see it at a matinee and I, not wanting to admit that the imagined excesses of the film had me scared stiff before I saw even one frame of the actual movie, went along to the Post Cinema for the thrills. Well — full disclosure, here — after the first of the ravenous bear's kills, which in retrospect was nowhere near as horrifyingly gory as I remembered it being for years, I hauled ass out of the theater's auditorium and spent the rest of the film's running time sitting on a cushioned bench in the lobby while my friends watched the rest of the film and the theater's staff behind the concession counter and the ticket booth mocked me for being an unmitigated pussy, a jeering I richly deserved.

The goriest moment in the entire movie. Yeah, I was a colossal pussy.

It was not until nearly a decade later that I again braved GRIZZLY, this being after coming of age during the era of the ubiquitous slasher genre, and when I finally saw what I'd walked out in a state of unabashed yellow-streak chickenheartedness, I was disgusted at what a wimp I had been during the summer of 1976. I have no excuse and now rest assured that ever since those days I can handle pretty much any form of charnel house frisson the screen throws at me.

Here endeth the confession.

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2013-Day 6: TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD (1971)

Virginia (Maria Elena Arpon), a shy type, and Betty (Lone Fleming), a worldly lesbian who runs a manikin factory, encounter each other after several years and arrange to go on vacation together. The two young women were close roommates during their time at a girls' boarding school — and I do mean close, if you get my drift — so they arrange to go away on vacation together, accompanied by Virginia's boyfriend, Roger (Cesar Burner). While on the train to their destination, Virginia finds herself split between jealousy over Roger's none-too-subtle interest in her old roommate/lover and discomfort/embarrassment about her youthful sapphic explorations with Betty coming back to stare her in the face, so she petulantly (and idiotically) jumps off the train in a remote area that sports the long-abandoned, decaying medieval town of Berzano. With no plan and fueled by her tantrum, Virginia makes her way into the town and finds, to her fatal horror, that it's the resting place of the Knights Templar, a group of undead Crusades-era holy warriors who gained infamy back in the days by practicing black magic and drinking the blood of ritually-sacrificed virgins in a bid to gain immortality. When they were executed by the Church for their crimes, the knights were hanged and crows  devoured their eyes before the knights were buried. 

In the days of yore, the Knights Templar prepare to sup on the blood of a virgin.

Once buried, the knights periodically rose from the grave, complete with undead horses in medieval equestrian kit, to hunt the living by sound for their blood, and Virginia finds herself their latest victim. Upon reaching their destination and knowing Virginia had fled the train for reasons unknown to them, Betty and Roger head to the deserted town to find their missing friend — while noting the terrified reactions of the locals upon hearing of where the duo intend to go — and what they find is a nightmare of implacable undead horror from which there is no possible escape.

I'm the first to admit that I'm not big on Euro-horror (with the exception of Hammer and other U.K. examples), so when I finally sat down to watch this Spanish/Portuguese effort I honestly did not expect much. Sure, TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD had a heavy rep, but so did plenty of other Euro-horror flicks that disappointed the hell out of me. With that in mind I watched the dubbed international version and thought it was crap. I was ready to send the disc back to Netflix when I went online to read other people's opinions of the film and found that the dubbed version rearranged some of the sequences along with featuring a pretty bad English language translation that slightly rewrote and dumbed-down the story, so I gave the subtitled, un-fucked-wth Spanish original version a chance. I'm very glad I did, because TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD now finds itself on my list of Top 20 all-time favorite horror movies from any point of origin, and I bought the DVD. It's creepy as hell, very atmospheric, and has a terrifically bleak ending. There are also numerous scenes of indelible horror, such as when Virginia rises after her autopsy — with visible stitches from her post mortem —  and makes her way to Betty's manikin factory, where she attacks Betty's assistant. The place is filled with unmoving, staring clothing store dummies and eerily lit, so when it all goes down it's flat-out nightmarish. The same can also be said of the incredibly bleak ending...

Undead Virginia visits Betty's manikin factory, with dire results.

And while very much undead, the Knights Templar are a rather unusual breed of zombie. They feast not on flesh but blood, and their attacks cause their victims to eventually rise from the grave in search of sanguinary sustenance. That aspect has led to much discussion among horror fans as to whether the knights are zombies as such creatures are usually classified, or if they are vampires. The confusion is understandable and the knights certainly do not adhere to the Romero model of what we now commonly consider a zombie, per se, what with the blood-drinking and active witchcraft, but neither do they fit what we consider the common rules for the standard vampire suckfaces. The knights can function just fine in broad daylight and the cross has no effect on them, which is a good thing for them since they wear the raiments of crusaders in the name of the Church and occupy a Christian graveyard during their downtime.

The Knights Templar, aka the Blind Dead: Exactly what the fuck are they?

If you ask me, they're neither classically-defined zombies nor vampires, but instead a pack of very nasty, martially-trained, decaying spooks who are simply undead and fucking horrible, and that's good enough for me. And I don't know for certain, but I'd bet good money that the folks who designed the Nazgul for Peter Jackson's THE LORD OF THE RINGS epic trilogy took a good, long look at the Knights Templar for inspiration.

I've only seen this first of the four Blind Dead movies but I want to see all of them. Unfortunately, following TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD I was only able to obtain the final installment, NIGHT OF THE SEAGULLS (which I intend to cover as part of this month's review series), because the four-film boxed set is out of print and the individual DVDs of the remaining films, RETURN OF THE BLIND DEAD and THE GHOST GALLEON, are a bitch to obtain, but I'll take what I can get. Anyway, I dig the Blind Dead and urge any who are intrigued to Netflix this first installment immediately, remembering to stick strictly to the subtitled Spanish option. And while low on gore, TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD does have a lurid sequence in which we see the knights making random slices on a hot topless virgin and sucking on the bleeding wounds in intimate closeup, so parents may want to think twice before breaking this one out for the under-twelve set. 

Being a Knight Templar is not without its perks.

The aforementioned schoolgirl lesbian angle is also present, but there's no nudity when it is flashed back to and that sequence's content is tame enough to air during primetime. (There's also a rape scene that kind of comes from out of nowhere but, as such things go, it's not as graphic as it would have been in other films I can think of. Still nasty, though.) So, bottom line, gorehounds will probably be disappointed but all others should definitely check this one out. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Poster for the original Spanish theatrical release.

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2013-Day 5: THE INCREDIBLY STRANGE CREATURES WHO STOPPED LIVING AND BECAME MIXED-UP ZOMBIES!!? (1964)

A young man (director Ray Dennis Steckler, operating under the alias of "Cash Flagg") wanders an amusement park midway and is hypnotically beguiled by a stripper whose fortune-telling sister further hypnotizes him, adds him to her growing army of mind-controlled "zombies," and sends him on a murder spree that ends in tragedy. Sounds simple, right? Well, that description does nothing to get across just how weird and dreamlike the ludicrously-named THE INCREDIBLY STRANGE CREATURES WHO STOPPED LIVING AND BECAME MIXED-UP ZOMBIES is. Though largely remembered for its long-assed title, the film is famed in the ranks of bad cinema for a number of legitimate reasons, but I would like to consider those perceived flaws as elements that render it a queazily-unique entry into the genre, and not just as a time-waster to be jeered at.

A reported budget of $35,000 wouldn't buy anyone much in terms of production values, not even five decades ago, so Steckler's independent effort had a hell of a lot stacked against it from the get-go. Yet, somehow the film's lack of budget works in its visual favor, with its cheap film stock lending the proceedings a squalid look that tonally evokes home movies taken in some bizarre parallel dimension only just out of synch with our own. Though not as good as either, the film has the same kind of eerie, off-kilter resonance as both CARNIVAL OF SOULS and ERASERHEAD, so a feeling of nervous dread permeates every frame, and I'm fairly certain none of that air is intentional. The film's rundown midway/boardwalk location also contributes much of this character, replete as it is with POV sequences shot on a careening roller coaster, crude animatronics of monkeys and clowns whose movements and recorded words are sheer nightmare fuel,  garish sideshow imagery and barkers shouting come-ons to curious, seedy gawkers ogling an assortment of rather dodgy showgirls. And speaking of those showgirls, the narrative has a particularly fractured aspect in that it frequently interrupts itself for several awful musical numbers that feature awkward choreography (the dancing duo of a tall Teutonic-looking guy in a Fred Astaire-style tux and a brunette who one would swear was a female impersonator is especially embarrassing to witness), garish costumes (one of which sports feather placement that gives the lead dancer's "area" the look of '70's bush as rendered by a drunk Dr. Seuss), and lyrics that stick in the viewer's head for all the wrong reasons ("Pied Piper of Love" has been known to randomly pop into my head, and when it does I become nearly homicidal), all introduced by an emcee whose attempts at humor are so utterly void of laughs that they could rightly be considered an exercise in dada. Again, the mind returns to ERASERHEAD, this time to its kinda/sorta musical number, "In Heaven Everything is Fine," only with several such performed-in-some-undefined-limbo moments padding out Steckler's creation's running time.

With this cornucopia of dreamlike/nightmarish elements dumping itself all over the screen, the plot, such as it is, is completely beside the point as the audience is subjected to what amounts to a visual tone poem broadcast from an alternate reality. The movie's intended goal of being a bona fide horror film does not gel, nor is its story of particular interest, yet it compels with its surreal, borderline-fever dream flavor. THE INCREDIBLY STRANGE CREATURES WHO STOPPED LIVING AND BECAME MIXED-UP ZOMBIES is certainly not for all tastes and it may not provide what most people consider to be entertainment worth sitting through, but I urge you to give it a chance for its morphine-esque daze, almost-perceptible sweaty/grimy odor, and dark amusement park mirror reflection of our mundane world. (And having a pitcher of stiff adult libations close at hand is recommended during viewing.)

Poster from the original theatrical release.

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2013-Day 4: THE GIANT CLAW (1957)

A mysterious U.F.O. is sighted and disappearances of planes and their crews follow the sightings. Eventually the object is revealed as a gigantic, ravenous bird of extra-terrestrial origin and its rampage claims herds of cattle, more planes, a couple of trains, and people on the ground, but not even the might of the world's military can stop the creature, thanks to it possessing some sort of anti-matter force field. As the death toll rises, the horror kicks up several notches as it becomes clear that the colossal predator has chosen the earth as its nesting ground and it's ready to lay eggs...

While not a horror film per se, THE GIANT CLAW is definitely a monster movie, one very much in the classic 1950's mold of military-versus-gigantic-(FILL IN THE BLANK) flicks, and as such it's a serviceable time-filler. It's decent enough but not exactly the kind of film that would necessarily have been remembered after its era of release, if not for one element that has granted the movie both screen immortality and outright infamy in the annals of motion picture history. That element is the title creature, a would-be horror that instead of dread elicits howls of derisive laughter by virtue of its jaw-droppingly awful execution. The ginormous space-bird is brought to vivid life — though absolutely not in the way the filmmakers intended — via a marionette, and not just any marionette. 

The puppet in question is, simply put, quite possibly the most ridiculous-looking beast in all of cinematic monsterdom. That's certainly a lofty claim and there are many, many other contenders for that dubious distinction — the title character from ROBOT MONSTER immediately leaps to mind — but how does one beat a tatty marionette whose stiff movements are overshadowed by its long and scrawny neck, flaring nostrils (?!!?), stringy and balding crest/Mohawk, shrill squawk, and large googly eyes? Simple answer: one doesn't. I mean, just look at this thing:

I know, right? It fairly screams "Special effects by Billy!" And here's a better look at its "fearsome" visage:

Some sources say that the puppet was crafted by some cheapjack Mexican company but whatever the case, the monster completely scuttled all hope of the otherwise straight thriller being taken seriously by anyone who draws breath. 

And you really have to pity the actors. While shooting the movie, they obviously to emote in reaction to special effects that they couldn't see, so what they ended up with was a feature film in which they bring the requisite amount of 1950's military/scientific gravitas to what can fairly be described as "The Attack of the Kiddie Show Vulture Puppet from Outer Space," and therein lies the indelible beauty of THE GIANT CLAW. It's unintentionally hilarious to see about a half-hour's very straight-faced buildup to what we expect to be some kickass alien raptor the size of a battleship (as it's described in the film), only to have the rest of the film play out as a race against time in which military brass, a gung-ho pilot hero (Jeff Morrow), and a hot brunette scientist (the always sexy Mara Corday) must contend with a refugee from PEE-WEE'S PLAYHOUSE. (NOTE: Terry the Pterodactyl from PEE-WEE'S PLAYHOUSE was an infinitely better puppet.) All of this is presented with the same level of straight-faced seriousness and impending doom as one would expect from a production of MACBETH, and the juxtaposition of said somber tone with the antics of one of the sorriest special effects on record make this film a cult favorite and the object of an almost perverse fascination. If you're ever at a loss for something to add to your Netflix queue, add THE GIANT CLAW, kick back a few beers and smoke a couple of quality blunts with some like-minded friends, and you will not be disappointed. And in closing, here's a wee taste:

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2013-Day 3: THE MANITOU (1978)

When ancient Native American sorcery meets the 20th century, it's time for some '70's-style psychedelia!

Semi-fraudulent psychic Harry Erskine (Tony Curtis) makes a good living by using his gifts to serve as a paid living horoscope for a clientele of dowagers in San Francisco, but his world is turned upside down when a dear old flame named Karen Tandy (Susan Strasberg) turns up on his doorstep and requests his aid. Understandably concerned, Karen has found that a tumor is swiftly growing on the back of her neck and all medical testing concludes that the growth is actually a fetus. Accompanying that startling revelation are instances of Karen repeatedly uttering a strange phrase in her sleep, the same phrase being spoken by one of Harry's aged clients who appears to be possessed (she does a ritualistic dance and floats two feet off the floor and down the hallway before she throws herself to her death down the apartment building's stairs), and the tumor actively defending itself from removal by controlling the scalpel-wielding hand of the attending surgeon and lethally manipulating a surgical laser in an operating theater full of physicians. 

Realizing that the issue of metaphysical rather than mundane illness, Harry enlists the aid of fellow spiritualists who point him toward Native American shaman John Singing Rock (Michael Ansara, aka Kang from STAR TREK and former husband of I DREAM OF JEANNIE's Barbara Eden), who informs Harry that the tumor is in actuality the spirit — or "manitou" — of Misquamacas (Joe Gleb), a 400-year-old shaman who seeks to once more become corporeal so he can visit righteous vengeance upon the white man for the long list of atrocities committed against the red man. This Misquamacas is a spirit commanding vast maleficent power and he's extra pissed-off because the X-rays used to examine him have warped his regenerating form, rendering him stunted and hideous, so Harry and Singing Rock have their hands seriously full in a race against time to both stop the ancient horror and save Karen before Misquamacas's regeneration kills her. (Plus, not to mention the fact that the fate of the nation hangs also hangs in the balance.)

Misquamacas reborn.

Even five years after all the hoopla, THE EXORCIST remained a viable go-to film to attempt ripping of in hope of cashing in on the "devil junk" zeitgeist that swept the country at the time, and THE MANITOU, though not the flagrant knockoff that many of its contemporaries were, definitely fit the bill. It also added a little extra spiritual spice by throwing Native American mysticism into the mix. The acceptance of and interest in non-Judeo-Christian spiritual/mystical thinking and practices that flourished with the counter-culture movement of the 1960's carried over into the 1970's, which also coincided with all manner of paranormal freakiness, cryptozoological mania, and even the martial arts boom — which engendered curious embracing of Asian "mumbo jumbo" — as well as the re-discovery of the works of pulp horror writer H.P Lovecraft and his concepts of shapeless horrors so vast and terrifying that the mere thought of them would drive mere mortals stark raving mad. Thus,  THE MANITOU and its Mulligan stew of those elements and influences would have been perhaps the perfect distillation of post-EXORCIST 1970's horror...had it not been the baby of hack director William Girdler, the man who gave us DAY OF THE ANIMALS, ABBY — the infamously awful  blaxploitation clone of THE EXORCIST — and the cheesy JAWS ripoff that was GRIZZLY (1976). Working from a novel by U.K. horror novelist Graham Masterton, Girdler crafts a film that looks, feels. and plays out like a '70's-era made-for-TV movie, which is unfortunate because the ideas it presents are simply too grand for a film of its meager means. Though its setup is rife with potential, the film takes a very long time to get going and has such a made-for-TV flavor that its scene transitions seem ready to flow right into commercial breaks. (In fact, I dare say the film got more attention after its initial theatrical run in perpetual rotation on local TV stations than it ever did in theaters, so that aspect is somewhat ironic.)

However, it's not a total loss. Slow-moving though it is, and possessing a climax that almost seems like a tossed-off afterthought, the narrative does have a sweet love story between Harry and Karen that reveals the psychic to be a man of deep feeling and concern for his lover, so we do care about him and his quest. Michael Ansara's also fun as a late-20th century shaman, and the script has the decency not to make him just another rote "noble savage" stereotype. But to me the most interesting thing about THE MANITOU is its Lovecraftian aspect, including the concept of a formless and very evil "great old one" that backs Misquamacas, and the moment when the disappointingly brief showdown between good and evil manitous goes cosmic, causing Karen's hospital room to become a doorway to some sort of infinite void that exists in a dimension apart from our world. The imagery of her bed floating in a limitless star-field while within a hospital room is quite trippy, and the idea of the the manitous found in machinery being channeled through the body of Karen, thus also evoking primal female magic, is both intriguing and right in line with some of the areas of mysticism being popularly explored at the time of the film's release. 

Karen goes cosmic (and topless).

But no amount of good ideas can fully win out when trapped in a film that is otherwise governed by mediocrity. THE MANITOU is worth sitting through as an acceptable time-waster and is fondly remembered, and perhaps even beloved, by many who saw it during their childhoods, but it comes up rather lacking when seen from an adult perspective in 2013. See it for the sake of completism if you must, but you won't really miss much if you opt to skip it. 

Poster for the theatrical release.

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2013-Day 2: SATURDAY MORNING MYSTERY (2012)

Rather than simply go over old movies for this annual horror overview, I sometimes take a chance on a more recent fright epic and I'm sad to say that with the indie film SATURDAY MORNING MYSTERY, which originally saw limited independent release as SATURDAY MORNING MASSACRE, my curiosity bit me on the ass. WARNING: HERE THERE BE SPOILERS!!!

Working from a great idea, specifically a dark parody of SCOOBY-DOO for grownups that takes on all of the beloved Saturday morning cartoon's tropes and runs with them, the film gives us the basic familiar template of a group of young paranormal investigators — hot chick, brainiac girl, stoner, big dude who drives their van — and their big dog, roving about and solving mysteries that at first appear to involve ghosts, assorted monsters, and even aliens, but that are invariably revealed to be the work of senior citizens scam artists, petty criminals, and filthy perverts who try to scare people away from their illegal enterprises by faking the supernatural. After getting dressed down by cops whose months-long investigation of a kiddie porn ring is undone by their well-intentioned efforts, the dejected gang are offered one last shot at a real case when a banker calls to enlist their services in checking out a haunted house that his bank is trying to sell. The problem is that all of the repair crews and cleanup people who are hired to fix the place up keep refusing to do the work because the house is apparently haunted for real, so the investigators camp out there overnight, setting up cameras and generally checking the place out in hope of finding a real haunting for once. Let's just say that they get a lot more than they bargained for.

With its tone initially established as a straight-up humorous parody, SATURDAY MORNING MYSTERY almost immediately jettisons that angle and instead devolves into borderline-BLAIR WITCH PROJECT histrionics and dysfunction among its characters, while dragging the proceedings out interminably during its seeming eternity of an 88-minute running time. The alleged parodying of SCOOBY-DOO swiftly amounts to zilch as the characters fall victim to a jug of water that's laced with a considerable amount of LSD that the stoner hid there during an encounter with a friendly cop, and once within the house the tone shifts to full-on psychological/emotional drama as the foursome navigates the less-than-smooth waters of their assorted relationships, with only the dog coming out of it as pure and blameless. The first hour of the film is devoted to tons of boring talk covering that bullshit, an acid-induced semi-kinky sex scene that merely pads things out, and much shrill annoyance from the narrative's Velma stand-in (who's nowhere near as cool as Velma, by the way). And when things finally do start happening, it's revealed that the presumed ghosts that are haunting the house are actually a pair of feral kids who have turned the edifice's under-areas into the type of creepy, cluttered madhouse common to this type of yarn since THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE (1974), so the investigators still don't get a real haunting, despite all the setup that goes out of its way to establish things as such, thus screwing both the characters and the expectant audience in the process. That twist would have been quite clever had it been included in a genuine parody that stayed true to its espoused intent from the beginning, but this is a film that has no cohesive idea of just what it wants to be, so the characters and the audience are boned from the get-go. There are even a couple of gory murders — the axe beheading of the Freddie stand-in being a welcome highlight, though quite brief — so there are no guarantees that any of the characters will survive, including the dog, but it's all far too little too late.

Bottom line on this one: SATURDAY MORNING MYSTERY possesses a great concept but is inevitably a massive disappointment by virtue of its tonal schizophrenia, brontosaurus-on-Thorazine pacing, and utter failure to get the viewer to care about the characters, a quartet (plus dog) whose presumed interest is based on over four decades of their templates being familiar to us due to their now-indelible presence in pop culture. In this case, more was needed for these characters than mere sketches assuming our knowledge of the archetypes and the tropes that their adventures created. A lot more. Save your time and money and sit through something like PIECES again. That one's no classic either, but at least it's entertaining.

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2013-Day 1: PSYCHOMANIA (1972)

Welcome to the 2013 edition of 31 DAYS OF HORROR! I'm back with more classics, not-so-classics, oddities, and downright turds from the annals of cinematic horror, so strap yourselves in as we work our way to the best day of the year, namely Halloween!!!

Due to my personal boredom with the media ubiquity of the undead over the past decade or so, I admit I've neglected zombie flicks in my annual Halloween horror movie roundup. Being completely fucking sick of the shambling hordes of flesh-hungry brainless ghouls, I sought out something a tad...different by way of a zombie offering. Thus I break out PSYCHOMANIA, the 1972 cult favorite by director Don Stark that fuses the biker genre — which was popular in Britain but bore a completely different flavor than our own grungy, American homegrown variety of the form — with black magic and the undead. That said, PSYCHOMANIA, also released as THE DEATH WHEELERS, is certainly not a garden variety zombie movie, and therein lies its unique appeal.

Young Tom Latham (Nicky Henson) is a smug and privileged asshole of the highest order who happens to lead a motorcycle gang called the Living Dead, all of whom are instantly identifiable by their over-sized helmets that rock a visually-impressive skull motif. He and his pals ride around causing all manner of mayhem that's more annoying and anti-social rather than outright evil or violent — this being the Britain of the early 1970's, I would not expect something like what's found in movies like SATAN'S SADISTS or THE BORN LOSERS — and the police and locals hate their fucking guts but don't do much about them. It's implied that Tom's douchiness stems from his fascination with the mysterious death of his father, who apparently met his fate while dabbling in the black arts, and now Tom wants to barge into the mysterious locked room in his mother's inner sanctum, certain that he can succeed where his father failed and obtain the secret of eternal life. Oh, did I not mention that his mother (Beryl Reid) and her butler/companion (the great George Sanders) are hardcore occultists who command actual magic and hold real-deal seances for grieving families? (They do this as a not-for-profit public service, so at least there's something redeeming about them.) 

Upon braving the mysterious room, Tom emerges with the secret of eternal youth, which he immediately shares with his understandably skeptical gang. In order to gain that power, one must make a Satanic pact — in this case made by Tom's doting and rather witchy mother — and then commit suicide by whatever means available, only one must be absolutely secure in the belief that one will rise again. Undaunted by his gang's lack of faith in his plan, Tom offs himself by driving his bike off of a bridge at high speed into a river, and is buried by his gang in full leathers and helmet while perched atop his motorcycle.

The recently-deceased Tom (Nicky Henson), getting buried in style.

Perhaps a day or two thereafter, in what is probably the film's most memorable image (it was certainly the one all the kids I knew who saw it on TV during the 1970's talked about incessantly), Tom rockets out of the grave on his bike in broad daylight, covered in sepulchral earth, and immediately commences a campaign of mayhem by running over a totally innocent victim just for the thrill of it. When he reemerges to his stunned gang (of course after calling his mum's house to let her know he's back and quite well), Tom, having proven he was not full of shit about Satanic resurrection, sweetens the deal by letting them know "you can only die once," meaning that one of the perks of of the process is un-killable immortality. (And also, apparently in one instance, a modicum of superhuman strength.) Upon hearing that, the gang's distaff second-n-command excitedly exclaims, "Oh, man! What are we waiting for?!!?" and in no time kills herself and joins Tom's free-wheeling string of undead acts of mischief that becomes more and more murderous with each incident and with a flustered local police force unable to do a damned thing to stop the Living Dead once most of them follow Tom's suicidal and downright diabolical lead. (Some don't quite have enough faith in the process, so they don't make it). The sole exception to this is Tom's sweet girlfriend, Abby (Mary Larkin), who sees the evil in Tom and their cohorts and just can't bring herself to commit suicide and join in on something so unholy and, well, just downright rude. But the question is this: Just how does one quash a reign of terror committed by a pack of merry sociopaths who simply don't give a fuck about the law and cannot be killed?

PSYCHOMANIA is a black comedy played utterly straight in that way that only the British can achieve, so one could easily be forgiven for thinking that the film is serious upon seeing its poster and trailer. Tom's character is conceived as a study in post-A CLOCKWORK ORANGE McDowell-esque likable sociopathy/assholism,  and the antics of his gang probably seemed quite shocking to the pre-punk British mores of its era. Undead obnoxious oiks riding around on motorbikes with their state of immortal zombie-hood granting them that much more entitlement to be a pack of rude, childish dicks would be anathema to any right-thinking resident of the U.K. and they totally know it, even taunting the authorities with "What are you gonna do, kill me?" In short, it's a very British take on uncheckable motorbike delinquency as filtered through a horror movie context, social satire that's more eerie than actually scary.

Bottom line on this one: If you're expecting genuine scares, you should look elsewhere, but if you're looking for the blackest of offbeat black comedies, definitely give this a whirl. The scenes where the gang members kill themselves after seeing the proof of resurrection are very funny and the bit where one of them cheerily wakes up in the morgue, much to the gobsmacked shock of one of the medical examiners, is priceless.

Oh, and as previously stated, this film has rather a strong cult, mostly for the delinquent biker angle but also for its loopy nature. It's imagery can be found on t-shirts, leather jackets, tattoos, and even in a 1986 tribute song by one of my Top 5 favorite bands of all time, The Damned, so put that in your pipe and smoke it!      

Poster from the original theatrical release with the original title.