There are ideas which, on their face, seem incredibly cool and intriguing. Extraterrestrials visited ancient humanity, inspiring a polytheistic religion as well as architectural accomplishments. Dracula fires a vampire army at the Earth from his sanctuary on the dark side of the moon. A man has to cut off his demon-possessed hand and, in its place, rigs a chainsaw. Satan is a swirling, green liquid that sits in the basement of an old church. There exist points in space which contain infinity and, when peered into, the viewer can clearly discern everything in the entirety of the universe at the same time and be able to comprehend it. Whether they just get your geek motor revving or launch your mind down a thousand theoretical avenues, the sheer imagination involved in concepts like those above is the reason imagination was invented in the first place.
This brings us to today's movie, Werewolves On Wheels. The idea of a werewolf motorcycle gang should set just about any genre/exploitation fan to salivating. Unfortunately (and all too typically when it comes to films of this sort), the actuality does not equal the hype. But this is still a movie that has something to offer film fans, if they're willing to change their expectations a bit.
The Devil's Advocates motorcycle gang like to cruise around, get into fights, get high, and cruise around (that's not a typo). Mystically connected member, Tarot (Duece Berry), likes to read the cards for other members, even though leader, Adam (Stephen Oliver), gives him crap about it. When Tarot reads Helen's (D.J. Anderson) future, he foretells a fate intertwined with the Devil. The gang visit a mountain monastery populated with satanic monks. The monks drug the bikers and the abbot, One (Severn Darden), performs a ceremony transforming Helen into the Bride of Satan. After the gang comes to, beat up the monks, and rescue Helen, they take off for the desert but become lost. During a makeout session shortly thereafter, Helen bites Adam. Soon, bikers start getting knocked off by someone with very hairy hands.
For those expecting a slam-bang lycanthrope flick, look elsewhere. There are werewolves here, and there is some blood and gore on display. Nevertheless, the film is not centered on werewolves as monsters, per se. Rather, the majority of the film is focused on the gang's search for themselves, even though they say that they reject any concept of spirituality. This is shown in the many, many montage sequences of the bikers riding down roads, usually accompanied by either the driving, catchy Don Gere score or by elegiac folk/country songs. The further the group travels, the more lost they become, until they are literally lost in the desert at one point. Since their world view is generally nihilistic, they are incapable of gaining any positive spiritual enlightenment and in fact, are made easier targets for Satan and his machinations (if the Prince of Darkness actually has any in play here to begin with).
The Devil's Advocates don't seem to truck with any religion really, probably because the whole idea of obedience and organization in general would be antithetical to their individualistic ethos. The only organized religion the bikers encounter is that of the satanic monks, and then the only reason they seek the monks out is to make fun of them. The monks, in turn, drug the gang with wine and bread, here a play on the Catholic sacrament of Communion. Later, the monks will again use the bread and blood motif (though this time with "real" cat's blood) in their transformation of Helen into the Devil's betrothed. Helen then dances (and it must be stated here, Ms. Anderson's not much of a rug-cutter) with a python and skull in a symbolic consummation with Satan. This scene is shot with moody lighting, heavy shadows, and is edited together using dissolves, imbuing the goings-on with an eerie quality that overlaps and (seemingly) compresses time.
The acting is passable for the most part. No one flubs their lines, and the bikers all act like outlaws. They fight and bite their enemies (putting paid to the film's title, figuratively if not factually) with abandon. What I found most interesting in this aspect is that the dialogue which feels most authentic and is delivered most naturalistically are the lines that have nothing to do with the diegetic story. It's all bon mots, idioms, and ballbusting, evidently improvised by the actors. These bits create a strong sense of kinship between the gang members and consequently draw us into their world. While Anderson has not much to do in the story other than strip, strut, and curse Adam's soul, Oliver and Berry dig into their roles as agnostic and believer, respectively. Both do an adequate job limning the opposing forces that drive the film.
The cinematography is well-done throughout, and there are some nice locales/setpieces utilized. A barren, desert road is swathed in an uncanny fog. The desert itself is shot from afar, showcasing its expansive desolation, threatening to swallow the gang whole. The bikers' riding scenes are shot usually from either right in front of or alongside the riders or from a low angle, capturing the power of the motorcycles in tandem with the heat shimmering off the blacktop. Mellow, fluid shots of birds, either in flocks or solo, create a metaphor for the bikers' freedom. They can come and go as they please and soar along the highways, but eventually, they must come back down. The birds also make a predator/prey connection to the gang. Which are they, and can this dynamic change at any time?
The werewolves and the killings are handled mostly in shadow. Like with the monks' rituals, this makes the fantastical scenes more effective. There is also an abundance of slow motion employed here, and unlike with the "wedding" scene, here the device is used to expand filmic time. The horror is dwelt on at length, increasing our uneasiness. The slow motion also helps build some tension at the film's climax when the bikers react to the lycanthropic revelation. The actual makeup effects are decent. They're hardly Oscar-worthy, but I've certainly seen far worse.
I have to say (and thanks to Aaron for suggesting I review this film), I was pleasantly surprised by Werewolves On Wheels. I went into this with low expectations. Everything I have ever read about the film has been fairly negative. However, when you look a bit deeper than the surface, exploitation level, there is something else going on in this movie. Its message may be a tad muddy, weighed down with the psychedelic trappings of the day and New-Age, mystical gobbledygook, but it does give one something more to think about. At least, it did for me.
MVT: Director Michel Levesque and co-writer David M. Kaufman's screenplay is deeper than first glance would suggest. And while there is considerable padding in the film, the story's themes support it rather than treating it like excess baggage to reach feature length.
Make or Break: The opening bike run sets the tone for the movie and introduces us to the land of the outlaw biker. If this scene intrigues you, you'll probably find something to like in the rest of the film.
Score: 6.5/10
While this is not something I particularly want to get into, and it is not something reflective of the quality of Don Sharp's Psychomania (aka The Death Wheelers), it is virtually impossible to not at least mention the fact that George Sanders killed himself shortly after completing the picture by downing five bottles of Nembutal. Aside from the helmets the gang in the film wear, it's the most talked (and written) about aspect of the movie. The full text of his suicide note is as follows: "Dear World, I am leaving because I am bored. I feel I have lived long enough. I am leaving you with your worries in this sweet cesspool. Good luck." It is rumored that he saw a rough cut of Psychomania just before committing the act. I do not wish to make light of the tragedy of suicide, nor will I speculate on Sanders' thoughts before the end, but I wanted to get this out of the way so we could discuss what is a damned good film. Which is unfortunately about suicide.
Tom (Nicky Henson) is the leader of British bike gang The Living Dead. His mother, Mrs. Latham (Beryl Reid), is a psychic medium for rich jerks and is always assisted and accompanied by butler Shadwell (Sanders). It seems the whole Latham clan has had a proclivity for the black arts and the supernatural, and Tom has often wondered why his father mysteriously died in "The Locked Room." After Tom faces down his inner demons in "The Locked Room," his mother inadvertently exposes the secret to immortality and coming back from the dead. Tom commits suicide by riding his motorcycle off a bridge and comes back, invulnerable and stronger than ever. He convinces the rest of the gang to join him, but his girlfriend, Abby (Mary Larkin), is the sole holdout. Mrs. Latham doesn't want Abby to join the gang in immortality (she proclaims them "evil," go figure), and finally Abby is given a choice: Shoot herself and unite with The Living Dead, or be killed by Tom and just die.
In a strictly technical sense, this could be considered a zombie movie. The monsters are humans who have come back from the dead to torment the living. That's about where the zombie motif ends. Depending on how you define zombies in general (and zombie movies in particular) though, this doesn't meet the broadest criteria. The gang is not hungry for human flesh. They are not mindless, rotting husks, shambling around. They are not the rank and file of some arch-villain's army. They are, in fact, exactly as they were pre-death, only now more willing and capable of taking human lives. Between these facts, the ambiguous magical goings-on, and the mystery of Shadwell's origin, the film actually sits squarely in the realm of occult horror.
In the wake of Rosemary's Baby, The Devil Rides Out, and others, Satanism and the occult were of massive interest in pop culture, and this film capitalizes on both that and the fading biker movie subgenre. The problem is it never fully commits to either. The black magic aspects feel more like window dressing than a focus for the film, because their handling is so murky. Tom's trial-by-fire in "The Locked Room" is indicative of this. He stares into a long mirror where he doesn't cast a reflection. Fog swirls in the mirror along with a frog (which is a visual touchstone of the film and a symbol for transformation and resurrection) and images from a deal with the Devil that Mrs. Latham made apparently also involving Tom. What the consequences are to Tom, we're never told. If she signed away her son's soul in return for her own immortality, one, it didn't take because she looks older in the present than she does in the flashbacks, and two, if Satan already owns Tom's soul, why would he grant him immortality in a separate bargain? It's this sort of make-the-rules-up-as-you-go attitude that undermines the overall effect of the film, but some effective atmosphere is created, nonetheless.
As a biker gang, The Living Dead are no Hell's Angels. They're no Pink Angels, either. As a matter of fact, I had some friends who I used to ride around on Big Wheels with that raised more hell than this gang. Okay, that's not entirely true. The Living Dead roll around town, knocking bakery trays out of deliverymen's hands, running cars off roads, and spending an inordinate amount of time playing "Follow The Leader" around a poor man's Stonehenge known as "The Seven Witches." Post-resurrection, they continue with this same sort of grabassery, but now they actually commit murder. The most shocking example is when Jane (Ann Michelle) rams a carriage with a child in it. But again, it's the handling (or mishandling) of the violence that takes what should be a sharp edge off it. There is no blood in this film (or very little from what I could see). Further, when we do see a violent act, the filmmakers cut away quickly and spare us the aftermath, or they'll show us the aftermath but not the act. This separation of cause and effect diminishes any sense of terror we may have as well as our revulsion of what are supposed to be the film's villains. I'm sure Don Sharp felt it was classier (certainly more "old school") to depict the violence this way, but it just doesn't have the impact it should. While we're at it, why does the gang continue in its old, hooligan ways after achieving immortality? Wouldn't you think they'd expand your horizons? Let's just chalk it up to the impetuousness of youth, shall we?
By now you're probably thinking that I didn't like Psychomania (despite my statement to the contrary in the first paragraph), but you would be dead wrong. No, the movie succeeds because of, not in spite of, its flaws. This is very much a film of its time, when ambiguity was a hallmark of avant-garde filmmaking (or at least pretending to give the audience credit for having a brain when many filmmakers just didn't know what to do with a film's themes [or just how to end the damned things]). As I said previously, the movie does have some nice atmosphere as well as some beautiful, iconic imagery. The very first sequence of the film is of the bikers riding around in the (early morning?) fog in slow motion. It bestows the film an ethereal quality that permeates the film but is rarely explicit. The shot of Tom blasting out of his grave on his motorcycle is one of the great images of horror cinema, I think. Add to this, a brilliant, mood-casting score from John Cameron that sounds like it belongs in one of the better Italian gialli films. The acting is solid across the board, and whether he liked it or not, George Sanders stands out with his enigmatic portrayal of Shadwell. It's heavily implied, though never overtly shown, that he is the Devil (who is always shown in a black hat and cloak), but Sanders still plays the butler role and remains (at least on the surface) to be a servant to Mrs. Latham.
There's a mile-wide streak of black humor running through the film which helps immensely in keeping the entertainment value up. Tom explodes out of his grave and runs a pedestrian down. The next shot is him gassing up his motorcycle. Jane hangs herself by the neck from a tree outside Abby's house. When Abby reacts in horror, Jane smiles and starts mugging for her friends. The medical examiner's assistant is taken by surprise when Hatchet (Denis Gilmore) taps at the glass on the morgue's refrigerator and is subsequently asked by the biker if he's deaf. Tonally, it's incongruous with the satanic facets, but it works and helps distinguish the film as unique.
I was trepidatious when I popped this one in the DVD player. I had only seen it once previously, and that was decades ago on late night television (you know, before it was all infomercials). However, any fears I had about ruining a childhood memory were not only allayed, but I also found myself liking the film even more than I did the first time around. I would ride with The Living Dead anytime. You should, too.
MVT: Sanders' performance does an outstanding job selling the occult angle of the film while not going broad and overplaying his hand. Granted, there's not a ton to work with scriptwise, but this consummate professional makes it work. Not the worst thing to be remembered for.
Make or Break: The "Make" is the final shot of the film. In the aftermath of what she's gone through, we're given a heavy indication that life for Abby is not necessarily going to improve. Sharp's keen sense of atmosphere delivers a memorable coda and instills a desire to watch the film all over again.
Score: 8/10