Savages from Hell (1968)

Well Deserved Praise

Boring, long, and too preachy.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Savages from Hell (1968) * (out of 4) If you're looking for high art then this here certainly isn't that. A small town in Florida comes under attack when a vicious motorcycle gang moves in. The leader of the gang catches his woman flirting with another man and this here sets off a chain of events full of violence and mayhem.SAVAGES FROM HELL comes from director Joseph P. Mawra who made a number of exploitation pictures including the OLGA series. This film here is beyond awful and it really deserves a BOMB rating but what makes the picture somewhat entertaining is how bad it actually is. This is a film that's thankfully "so bad it's good" or at least entertaining. The film appears to have had a budget less than a thousand bucks as the technical quality of this picture is ultra cheap even for a biker flick from the drive-in era.As I said, there's really nothing good to be found here. The editing and direction are pretty darn awful but I guess the director was just trying to get anything on the screen. The "savages from hell" are far from that. This here is basically a cross between THE WILD ONE and a number of other exploitation pictures of the era but it doesn't do anything right. Even worse is the fact that the "savages from hell" are rather tame and nothing too shocking happens here.Biker pictures from the drive-in era have a small cult following today and those fans will certainly want to check this out just to see how cheap and how bad it actually is.

I will start off by saying "Savages from Hell" is not the worst film I've ever seen. And, for the apparent $32.50 they must have spent on the picture, the results aren't that bad!This picture was made in the motion picture capital of the world...tiny Naples, Florida. This is just a crappy little biker film starring a lot of no talents and with very little in the way of script. A rather annoying gang of bikers arrive in town and begin saying a whole lotta politically incorrect stuff to the local Mexican-Americans and the one black guy in the film. Ultimately, the gang leader goes on to kidnap Marco's sister and rapes her (or at least attempts to rape her...this isn't 100% clear) and then Marco arrives to try to save the day. Not a whole lot of plot otherwise...just trashy bikers acting trashy. And, a super slow-motion squishing scene that simply made me laugh at the very end! Heck, a 90 year-old man with a walker should have been able to avoid that swamp buggy...yet somehow the big bad biker just stood there...waiting for a big 'ol squishing!!I've seen worse biker films, such as "Werewolves on Wheels"....but not many worse biker films, that's for sure.

This movie begins with a young man named "Marco" (Diwaldo Myers) driving a large vehicle in a parade with his younger sister "Teresa" (Viola Lloyd) riding beside him. Although they live with their parents both of them dream of the day they cease being migrant laborers and settle down once and for all. So when Marco is offered a steady job at a gas station making more money than his father both Teresa and her mother are excited about it. Marco's father, on the other hand, is more pessimistic but eventually comes around to their point of view. The problem, unfortunately, is that Teresa has caught the eye of a motorcyclists named "High Test" (William P. Kelley) who wants her in the worst possible way and he will stop at nothing to get what he wants. This displeases his girlfriend "Lucy" (Bobbie Byers) who is equally intent at keeping what she regards as hers. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this was clearly a low-budget production which is quite evident by the film quality and the less-than-stellar acting. Fortunately, the plot contained enough suspense to keep things interesting for the most part. Additionally, I really liked the way the plight of migrant workers was depicted as well. In any case, while this certainly wasn't a great movie by any means it wasn't too bad and I have rated it accordingly. Average.

If it's an indication of how bad this movie is, there's only two of us out here who wrote a review...ten years apart! That would mean that probably 6 people in the world managed to watch it to the end. I'm the guy who collects "Cheap Biker Movies" having 41 or so. This one, in my opinion, is the second from the worst, the worst being "Hell's Bloody Devils". It seems amazing that the more horrific the movie title, the worse the movie is. There is little violence in this "Savage" movie. Mostly an inner family squabble over a daughter that seems to have a mild mental retardation problem, or just her acting was so bad she appears mentally challenged. She falls in love with the confused "leader" of the nameless "Motorcycle Club". Some of the "members" have a blank, white patch sewn to their backs. The rest have nothing. "Hi-Test", the "President" of the club seems to be the biggest coward I've ever seen. In a scene where the locals surround him, instead of "One On All", he cowers away with idle threats of reprisal. His "Old Lady" rides a Honda Scrambler with high swept up-pipes, the bike being a comedy in itself. She loves Hi-Test when he smacks her around and hates him when he doesn't. Talk about a backwards "love-hate relationship"! I could go on but what's the point? The only reason to buy this would be if you collected these "cheap biker movies". If you were to have the availability to watch it, stock up on the No-Doz. I ended up fast-forwarding through most of it.