‘The Living Dead’ motorcycle gang consists of a group of
young RADA-trained actors with beautiful speaking voices trying to act evil.
They are aided in this endeavour by the names given them by the script which
include ‘Hatchet’ (played by the chubby little ginger chap from BLOOD ON SATAN'S CLAW, ‘Chopped Meat’ (who ends up a singing one of the strangest songs
in popular horror film history but more on that in a minute) and ‘Jane’ (Ann
Michelle, keeping her clothes on this time after the copious nudity of Tigon’s THE VIRGIN WITCH a couple of years previous and soon to appear in Pete
Walker’s HOUSE OF WHIPCORD). Each member of the gang has their name written
on their leathers, presumably in case they (or indeed the actors playing them)
forget who they are. It also makes it very handy later on for the police to be
able to identify the various perpetrators of any ensuing miscreant behaviour.
The leader is Tom, played by Nicky Henson (Ian Ogilvy’s
friend from WITCHFINDER GENERAL), whose girlfriend Abby is played by Mary
Larkin. Despite being pretty much the only one left alive at the end of this as
far as I’m aware Ms Larkin never went on to do anything of any significance
afterwards.
The opening title sequence of this film is wonderful. John
Cameron’s music theme is very seventies but it’s the right kind of seventies
and when this sequence is watched now it lends an even more haunting
otherworldly atmosphere to the proceedings. The incongruous image of
motorcycles riding around fog-wreathed standing stones in slow motion is at
once outlandish and engaging, and is almost perfect in its atmospheric scene
setting. The movie which follows is also going to be filled with standout
moments, albeit on the whole for reasons other than what one could hesitatingly
call quality.
After a little bit of road-based violence to get the film
started (and to demonstrate just how nasty the bike gang is) Tom and Abby pop
off to the nearest graveyard where their canoodling is interrupted by Tom’s
interest in a frog who has been thrown onto the set. Popping his new ‘little
green friend’ into his pocket he leaves Abby to probably seriously reconsider
her position in a relationship where amphibians seem to take precedence, and
drives back to the manor house where he lives with mum Beryl Reid, butler
Shadwell (George Sanders) and some of the most hideous seventies wall-sculptures
you will ever see. While Shadwell admires the frog (now housed beneath a
transparent cover probably last used for a sponge cake) Tom brings us up to
speed on how Shadwell never gets older, that the butler knows the secret of the
living dead, and that the house has a room that’s been locked for eighteen
years. Needless to say, Tom’s soon in the mysteriously dust-free and highly
polished forbidden chamber, finding his dead dad’s NHS spectacles and having
visions of a big frog and then Beryl doing something suspiciously like signing
Tom’s soul away when he was a baby to a man with a frog ring. Tom should be
okay, apparently, because he’s wearing a frog pendant, which leads one to
wonder if the producers spent a day in 1971 at World of Frogs buying up their unsold
stock, and then got screenwriters Arnaud D’Usseau and Julian Halevy to
follow-up their previous movie hit HORROR EXPRESS with “anything (and we mean
literally anything) involving frogs and motorbikes”.
The ‘big
secret’ is that if you kill yourself but believe you’ll come back then you
will, which if it were actually true would mean a world full of the buggers.
There’s probably more to it than that but I suspect the film-makers thought it would
be irresponsible to divulge anything else, although somehow I suspect it
involves more frog-based shenanigans.
After some
very poor shopping-centre antics and a road chase, Tom drives off a bridge and
into the local river, killing himself. “We’d like to bury him out way if that’s
ok” says Abby when she visits Beryl’s house. Trusting Beryl agrees without
asking any more, so it’s a bit of a relief when it turns out that the gang’s
‘way’ involves burying Tom in his leathers and sitting on his motorbike in the
stone circle. Lucky for Tom as well that ‘their way’ doesn’t involve jamming
something sizeable up his bottom, covering him in treacle and placing him
upside down on the town merry-go-round or he’d have some explaining to do when
he came back to life.
Which he
does, in another impressive screen moment. “Do you want him back?” says George
Sanders beforehand. “Yes,” says Beryl. “Yes, God help me I do.” Which is the
cue, ladies and gentlemen for you to either hit the fast forward button, go and
make a cup of tea, or brace yourselves for one of the most incongruous moments
in movie history as this zombie biker horror picture grinds to a halt so that
the gang, dressed in hippy gear, can make wreaths and other flower-based items
of mourning while the song ‘Riding Free’ is mercilessly etched into your
subconscious. Tom may indeed have ‘really got it on’ and may well have ‘rode
that sweet machine just like a bomb’ but I am going to stop before I tell you
the full horror of these lyrics in case there’s any risk of copyright
infringement.
Tom comes
back and looks remarkably clean for a man who’s been buried under a grave full
of earth. He gets some free petrol and then proceeds to murder a pub full of
people. Police inspector Robert Hardy, looking unsure as to how he’s meant to
be playing this, keeps a straight face as the bodies start to pile up,
especially when the gang cotton on and proceed to kill themselves in a montage
of suicides so ridiculously over the top that the comic moments of the film so
far are in serious danger of being topped by this single three minute sequence.
Scarcely
has the pathologist time to answer a call from his wife than the gang are up
and about again, including Abby, who’s not actually dead as her overdose failed,
but not before giving her a slightly trippy dream sequence where her nightmare
becomes so extreme and unpleasant that she envisions herself wearing something
approaching a gaily coloured African tablecloth.
Beryl finds
out from the police that Tom’s told his gang the Family Secret and tell
Shadwell she wishes to break her bargain. “And you know what you will be become
for all eternity?” he says and she nods, figuring she might always be able to
get a job presenting The Muppet Show in a couple of years.
Tom finds
out Abby is still living and in a showdown with the gang back at the stone
circle attempts to kill her. Fortunately Beryl has completed the ritual,
acquiring a distinctly croaky voice and a Kermit-like appearance in the
process, and as a result Tom and his gang turn to stone. The End. Apart from
black-cloaked Shadwell approaching distraught Abby in the stone circle as John
Cameron’s music plays us out in another haunting moment that almost makes up
for what’s gone before.
There is
nothing quite like PSYCHOMANIA and
there never will be again. The film could not have been made at any other time
or in any other country, and it still manages to achieve an open-mouthed
response of ‘what on earth were they thinking when they made this?’ on viewing
that, coupled with some memorable scenes and a haunting score, means it
shouldn’t be allowed to fade into obscurity.
very surprised there have been no comments as yet because Psychomania is unquestionably one of the greats. But what's this? "After some very poor shopping-centre antics ..."? The Living Dead attacking the glam pram-pushers is one of my favourite bits in the entire film! "while the holy sound of revving fills the sky/ You can see the ghostly rider passing by ..."
ReplyDeleteHappy Birthday, your Lordship! (lovely review that, BTW)
Thank you very much indeed Mr D!
ReplyDeletei got interested in movies from the Psychomania mags not seen this film did not know it was british i will look it up nice first post
ReplyDeleteThanks!
ReplyDeleteLarkin was recently in a Casualty...
ReplyDeleteShe is also Irish, and done a lot of Irish telly and film, and stuff, and married to Jim Norton, Bishop Len Brennan from Father Ted himself.
ReplyDelete