Psychomania (1973)

That was an excellent one.

I have absolutely never seen anything like this movie before. You have to see this movie.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

PSYCHOMANIA (aka: THE DEATH WHEELERS) is the uplifting tale of a gang of bratty bikers and their hopelessly infantile leader, Tom Latham (Nicky Henson). Growing dreadfully bored w/ the hum-drum world of anti-social thuggery, Tom decides to dabble in the realm of the occult in order to gain immortality for himself and his terrorizing, turd brigade. Luckily, his mum (Beryl Reid) is a medium, and their butler, Shadwell (George Sanders- VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED), just might be more than he appears to be- Hope you guessed his name! So, Tom attains a toad talisman, and gets a crash course in his diabolical family history. Then, after a fun day of mindless murder and mayhem, including a game of baby-pram-pinball, Tom does the unthinkable! He initiates his infernal plan for his gang's eternal, psychotic playtime! The rest is about his mates' following his lead, and the unfortunate results. A grand time is had by all! EXTRA POINTS: For the notorious "biker funeral" and "motorcycle resurrection" scene. It truly must be witnessed to be fully appreciated! Who knew that bikers wove flower wreathes or wore crocheted vests? EXTRA EXTRA POINTS: For the gang members' names, like,"Hinky", "Hatchet", "Gash", "Chopped Meat", and, of course, "Bertrem"! EXTRA SPECIAL POINTS: For the novel suicides, including, tossing oneself into a lake, wrapped in battleship chains! Amazing! These motorbikes run on pure cheeeze! Soooo, squeeze into those leather trousers my friends, for this is why cinema was created! Is that another pram?!...

This is the stuff late night B-movies are made of! In more ways than you can count this simply should not work: a group of well-spoken, middle-class motorcycle *cough* rebels called (in an act of Shakespearean foreshadowing) "the Living Dead", whose whole raison d'etre seems to be raising terror in local supermarkets and such, decide to become zombie bikers for a hoot. They are able to achieve this with the aid of hidden knowledge from their leader, Tom, (who has a butler for God's sake!) who has made an occult alliance with a hoodoo frog…or something, and who get eventually get thwarted, in (it must be said) quite a chilling way, before they presumably wreck havoc by knocking over another bin. And yet…despite the ludicrous plot, executed with some ludicrous suicide scenes, and the ludicrous funeral scene for Tom (which will genuinely have you mouthing "what the…?")…not to mention Tom's ludicrous Lazarus moment, the film does have a certain eerie feel to it which, although not particularly scary, nonetheless raises it above the slight 70s campiness of it all and makes it a watchable flick. A lot of this vibe is certainly owed to the music which, in addition to the wah-wah pedal getting an inevitable seventies workout, has a memorable recurring motif and certainly adds a tinge of mystery to proceedings…especially in the morgue scene. Certainly the movie, along with the likes of 'Dracula AD 1972' and 'The Satanic Rites of Dracula', signalled the death knell of British horror which had ruled the sixties, but if you happen to come across it nestled among the late night schedules and you don't have work the next day, then with your tongue set firmly in your cheek settle down and enjoy...you could certainly do a lot worse.

This was the final film of George Sanders. Apparently, this film was the one he was working on when he decided to kill himself. Well, after seeing the sort of silly and stupid film this was, I can easily see why Sanders decided to end it all--it must have been to atone for being in this hilariously bad film! PSYCHOMANIA has cult favorite written all over it. You certainly can't accuse this of being a good film, but there is a certain kitschy silliness about it that make it fun. The film begins with an incredibly lame-o biker gang called "The Living Dead"--wow, THAT'S subtle. They spend most of their time acting out in many really dumb and wussy ways. This is definitely NOT a biker gang in the tradition of the Hell's Angels--most like Hell's Wussies. Anyway, the head of the gang has a mother that is into the occult and toads (why toads?!?) and somehow he learns that if he kills himself and believes he's coming back, he can--and be immortal! Once back, Tom convinces the rest of the gang that life is great when you are dead and one by one they start killing themselves. Believe it or not, this is all very funny--and my daughter and I found ourselves laughing at these scenes. Once undead, the zombie bikers look pretty much like anyone else--they just seem to enjoy killing people. Again, it ain't sophisticated, but it is, in a VERY low-brow way, quite funny.So what happens next? Do the undead punks kill off each and every person in the UK? Do they form a band--after all, they already had nice stylish hairdos and clothes!? Do they decide to follow George Sanders' lead? See this film for yourself to find out for certain.PSYCHOMANIA is chock full of silly stunts, psychedelics, incredibly dumb and ineffective police, mumbo-jumbo, frogs and an incredibly deadly earnest style--it takes itself very, very seriously. And, undoubtedly, it's dumb...but funny because of its dumbness. However, it's obviously not a film for everyone--mostly for bad movie fans and for anyone who likes laughing at the 1970s.I'd give the film a 2 for quality, a 4 for the frog and an 8 for being so dang funny--though it's supposed to be a horror film! An overall score of 4 seems reasonable.By the way, was the leading character's mother a toad?! I'm not sure about this...but I think it's the case. Crazy man!

I went back old school and actually rented a VHS copy of this thing to watch after reading about it for years.I'll have fond memories of it cause I watched it about half drunk but actually it wasn't too good.This spoiled rich kid,Tom,in what I took to be London,is the leader of a motorcycle gang.His mum is a well known spiritualist or seer or whatever you call them in town and Tom becomes interested in the occult because of his mum's doings and Tom gets his whole gang interested in this thing called death.Tom and his mum and their creepy butler,Chadwell,somehow figure out that a person can come back from the dead if at the moment of death they truly believe they will come back.There is also something about toads and Tom's dead dad and some secret room in Tom's house but all that is sort of garbled...not sure if that is because of the Dos Equis or just because it was a crappy movie.Anyway Tom and his gang then seek to fulfill their leader's goal...an undead motorcycle gang.This movie had potential with the premise but the way it come out didn't live up to that potential.For one thing the motorcycle gang was a boring dorky bunch--from their goofy helmets with the big plastic bones on them to their criminal acts which consisted of riding through town and knocking guys off ladders,who just happen to be on ladders out in the middle of the sidewalk for some reason,and knocking trays of bread out of guys hands,who just happen to be walking through town with big trays of bread for some reason.The gang also rides into the grocery store and knocks over cans of stuff.Once in a while they'll harass a truck driver and make him wreck but all in all this gang just didn't have enough meanness to make it interesting.Where is all the gang rapes and baseball bat brain explosions that motorcycle gangs are famous for? There are a couple of cool scenes of a motorcycle flying up out of the ground and going through a brick wall but mostly it was a dull uninteresting story.No gore that I remember and certainly no nudity...this movie could be shown on TV without any editing at all I think.I was hoping for a little more from this movie but at least I can say I've saw it and now I can move on and try and find a copy of some other long lost movie that might be a forgotten treasure.