Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema rewind.
Speaker 2: This is Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick, and ooh,
Speaker 2: we are bringing you a classic. This is one of
Speaker 2: my favorite older episodes of the show. It is psychomania.
Speaker 2: Is there a genre better than supernatural biker films?
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that there is, and this says within
Speaker 1: that subgenre, one of, if not the absolute best.
Speaker 3: I smell exhaust, the hot breath of devils in the
Speaker 3: fog of dawn, the noise of a great cat purring
Speaker 3: underneath the earth and mound They're waking up. Can you
Speaker 3: see it through the mist? Pale sprigs of mistletoe entwined
Speaker 3: with greasy drive chains. The high Priest watches his reflection
Speaker 3: stretch to absurdity across the curve of the mirrored chrome.
Speaker 3: He is as tall as the cliffs. He is as
Speaker 3: long as the worm of dreams. The purring of the
Speaker 3: cat grows deafening. The Priest's grin is wild. With that
Speaker 3: twist of his hand, flexing the wrist. Is he wringing
Speaker 3: a hen's neck to adorn the altar of spring? Or
Speaker 3: is this the spell that brings the iron hog to life?
Speaker 4: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 2: This is Rob Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick and Rob.
Speaker 2: I'm so excited today. I'm so excited because you out there.
Speaker 2: You know, if you've been listening to Weird House Cinema
Speaker 2: that we love our employe genre crossover films. One of
Speaker 2: my favorite examples we've done so far is the niche
Speaker 2: subgenre represented by our back catalog entry Santo and The
Speaker 2: Treasure of Dracula. Of course that would be the supernatural
Speaker 2: wrestling film. Well, today we're finally doing a supernatural biker film,
Speaker 2: a niche subgenre that really holds a strong, powerful revving
Speaker 2: place in my heart. It gets my motor running. I
Speaker 2: love it. I love it. I love it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this one, this one is a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: And it'd been on my list to watch for a while.
Speaker 1: I know you've been talking about it for years, and
Speaker 1: we occasionally talk about biker films and supernatural biker films,
Speaker 1: but I had not actually watched it till this week,
Speaker 1: and it was just a total delight, just such a
Speaker 1: wonderfully weird film and delightfully so.
Speaker 2: Now you have seen other supernatural biker movies, right, like
Speaker 2: you've seen were Wolves on Wheels.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, were Wolves on Wheels a very American supernatural
Speaker 1: biker film from the the same time period. But this
Speaker 1: is a very British film we're talking about here today.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, were Rolls on Wheels is a grosser, sweatier,
Speaker 2: more guttural American western style supernatural biker film. This supernatural
Speaker 2: biker film is a bit more tweedy, and I don't
Speaker 2: know has the English morning fog on its back today.
Speaker 2: The movie we're talking about is the nineteen seventy three
Speaker 2: British supernatural biker movie Psychomania aka The Death Wheelers. And
Speaker 2: so whenever you have a great genre crossover movie, you
Speaker 2: want to identify, like what are the mainstreams feeding into this?
Speaker 2: And Robie, if you disagree, let me know. But I
Speaker 2: think the main two things we're getting as inputs here are,
Speaker 2: on one hand, outlaw biker movies, which we can talk
Speaker 2: about in a little more detail in a minute, And
Speaker 2: then the other hand would be like British witchcraft horror
Speaker 2: films a lah the Hammer horror movies of the late
Speaker 2: sixties and early seventies.
Speaker 1: Yes, I think those are probably the two primary influences.
Speaker 1: But I think it's also worth noting the Avengers DNA.
Speaker 1: In this we have some people connected to The Avengers
Speaker 1: and the Avengers. If you're not familiar with the Avengers
Speaker 1: TV show, A, it was pretty fun, but B it
Speaker 1: also would. It generally featured this sort of idea of
Speaker 1: contemporary weirdness in the world, not unlike what the X
Speaker 1: Files would do later, and I think there is a
Speaker 1: hint of that in this film.
Speaker 2: Okay, I didn't think about that input at all because
Speaker 2: I've never actually seen The Avengers, though I know what
Speaker 2: it is. This is very different than Marvel's The Avengers.
Speaker 2: This is the British TV show.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the one that was eventually made into one of
Speaker 1: Sean Connery's last films, if not his last film, one
Speaker 1: of the last films. They tried to do a reboot
Speaker 1: of it decades ago and it was not successful, but
Speaker 1: the original TV series was often a lot of fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Another way of thinking about this movie is, Okay,
Speaker 2: if you got the precedent of where Will was on
Speaker 2: wheels in America, this is sort of like druid Lich
Speaker 2: Kings on wheels, like Undead stone hinge magic demons revving
Speaker 2: their engines and uh and and doing all the outlaw
Speaker 2: biker stuff, but from beyond the grave.
Speaker 1: Yes, now. I often turned to Michael Weldon's psychotronic video
Speaker 1: guides for a little guidance in the films that we
Speaker 1: we we we we turned to UH. Sometimes I discover
Speaker 1: a film by looking at his work. Other times we'll
Speaker 1: we'll be thinking about one and I'll see what he
Speaker 1: had to say about it. I'm not going to read
Speaker 1: his entire mini review for this one, but it but
Speaker 1: one of He basically kicks off his review of Psychomania
Speaker 1: by saying incredible. To say the.
Speaker 2: Least, I disagree. I think it's quite credible. I would
Speaker 2: let this co sign on a loan.
Speaker 1: Now I want to I want to put a note
Speaker 1: about the title. So I think we already alluded to
Speaker 1: the fact that it was also released as The Death Wheelers,
Speaker 1: which in some ways is a better title for the film.
Speaker 1: Like Death Wheelers, it's you know, death and motorcycles. We're
Speaker 1: not actually sure what Psychomania means in context of this film,
Speaker 1: but I wonder if the title situation here it might
Speaker 1: have to do with the fact that there was another
Speaker 1: film titled Psychomania that was released in nineteen sixty three,
Speaker 1: so ten years earlier, also known as Violent Midnight, who
Speaker 1: was directed by the guy who wrote Horror at Party Beach.
Speaker 1: That nineteen sixty three movie is just a murder picture.
Speaker 1: The nineteen seventy three Psychomania is so much more. And
Speaker 1: that is definitely the film we're talking about here today,
Speaker 1: a supernatural biker film.
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, I guess we need to dwell on the
Speaker 2: concept of a biker film for a moment, because before
Speaker 2: you had supernatural biker films, you just had the biker
Speaker 2: genre as a sort of fad movie genre in the
Speaker 2: fifties through the seventies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I guess more specifically, so boy, a biguess.
Speaker 1: A big thing here is that, first of all, motorcyclecles
Speaker 1: are not inherently one thing or another, and a motorcycle
Speaker 1: enthusiast are not inherently one thing or the other. So
Speaker 1: you have motorcyclists, you have motorcycle clubs. But then you
Speaker 1: also have this area that is often referred to as
Speaker 1: the outlaw motorcycle club, and that is generally what is
Speaker 1: dwelt upon in films such.
Speaker 2: As these, right, I mean I'd say for the same
Speaker 2: reason that there are more movies about bank robbers than
Speaker 2: there are about accountants right now.
Speaker 1: Outlaw motorcycle clubs began to form in the late nineteen
Speaker 1: forties in the Western United States, and over time motorcycle
Speaker 1: club culture, outlaw or non outlaw, has spread around the world.
Speaker 1: And it's quite fascinating because what we have here is
Speaker 1: an American subculture, and in the cases of outlaw motorcycle
Speaker 1: gangs and often criminal subculture, that ends up just resonating
Speaker 1: around the world, finding slightly different forms in different cultures,
Speaker 1: inspiring fiction, inspiring myth and then also in turn you
Speaker 1: have the reality of motorcycle clubs and outlaw motorcycle clubs
Speaker 1: fed by fiction and myth. So we end up with
Speaker 1: a number of different variations of the mythic outlaw motorcyclist.
Speaker 1: You know, we have the noble outlaw, the scoundrel, the
Speaker 1: sort of anti hippie, the rebellious youth, the rebel without
Speaker 1: a cause, etc. So, as far as outlaw biker films go,
Speaker 1: we certainly don't have time to list them all here,
Speaker 1: but I want to mention just some of the big ones,
Speaker 1: some of the precursors to Psychomania. Now, yeah, the first
Speaker 1: big one, of course, is nineteen fifty three's The Wild
Speaker 1: Ones starring Marlon Brando. Even if you haven't seen this film,
Speaker 1: and I have to admit I've never watched The Wild One,
Speaker 1: You've seen the title, you've seen the cover, you've seen
Speaker 1: stills from this or maybe even seen a clip from it.
Speaker 1: It's generally critically well received. It was highly influential, and
Speaker 1: of course a lot of low budget exploitation films came
Speaker 1: in its wake, just for just for decades like this
Speaker 1: was a big film. But yeah, by the time you
Speaker 1: get into the sixties, you have the counterculture, you have
Speaker 1: a lot going on. Obviously during the nineteen sixties, also
Speaker 1: have Hunter S. Thompson's book Hell's Angels coming out, which
Speaker 1: details his, you know, sort of gonzo journalism experience with
Speaker 1: the Notorious Motorcycle Club, and then a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: comes in the wake of that. You have Russ Meyer's
Speaker 1: Motorcycle in nineteen sixty five, I think that was actually
Speaker 1: before Thompson's book. But then you get The Wild Angels
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty six by Roger Corman. This one is
Speaker 1: I actually watch part of this one. I think it
Speaker 1: has a great cast. You've got Peter Fonda, Nancy Sinatra,
Speaker 1: Bruce Dern, Diane Ladd. Definitely a precursor to Easy Writer
Speaker 1: because it involves some of the same people. And then yeah,
Speaker 1: you get Easy Writer in nineteen sixty nine, a highly
Speaker 1: influential hippie biker film directed by Dennis Hopper. Terrific film,
Speaker 1: Easy Writer. But you might be asking, well, these are
Speaker 1: all American films. When do the British films come in? Well,
Speaker 1: you have some notable entries in the British biker film
Speaker 1: bucket of content. You have The Leather Boys from nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty four, The Girl on a Motorcycle from sixty eight,
Speaker 1: as well as some early forays into horror hybrid biker films,
Speaker 1: such as The Black Rider in nineteen fifty four. I
Speaker 1: don't know, you might be I haven't seen this one yet,
Speaker 1: but I think maybe it does. I mean, it does
Speaker 1: have a motorcyclist in it. I don't know how motorcycle
Speaker 1: club the elements there are. But then there's also a
Speaker 1: sixty three film called The Damned which has some sort
Speaker 1: of motorcyclist element to it as well. But then by
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies, Basically, we've had so many biker films
Speaker 1: come out that you see this need to create new
Speaker 1: twists on the genre. You can't just put out a
Speaker 1: biker film, you know, you can't just say, oh, well,
Speaker 1: they're bad boys out there riding around on bikes. Well,
Speaker 1: how bad are they? Could they be supernaturally bad? And
Speaker 1: that's where we get stuff like seventy ones wear Wolves
Speaker 1: on Wheels or seventy two's Blood Freak, as well as
Speaker 1: this is later and this comes after the time period
Speaker 1: we're talking about. But I bought a vampire motorcycle from
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety.
Speaker 2: Oh, I don't know that one.
Speaker 1: I was looking. It looks good. I believe that one's British,
Speaker 1: so I may have to investigate further. But today's picture
Speaker 1: might well be considered the supernatural biker film par excellence. Uh. This,
Speaker 1: this really takes the cake.
Speaker 2: Without a doubt. If you want to watch supernatural biker
Speaker 2: horror movies, I think you should start with Psychomania.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and really, I feel like with biker fiction in general,
Speaker 1: we kind of ebbs and flows. Right. A few years back,
Speaker 1: we had that fairly long running Sons of Anarchy series,
Speaker 1: which I ended up watching all of.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 1: Oh, it's it's it's entertaining. It's uh, it's an interesting Uh,
Speaker 1: it's an interesting show. It's it's it has a lot
Speaker 1: of cheesy elements. It has a lot of elements that
Speaker 1: or maybe in questionable taste, okay at the time and
Speaker 1: certainly by today's standards, but uh, it had a lot
Speaker 1: of things going for it, like essentially trying to do
Speaker 1: a motorcycle gang story that is shakespearean influence story at
Speaker 1: least shakespeare light in its.
Speaker 2: Creation, so which Shakespeare was based on you.
Speaker 1: Like, well, the basic bones of it. They tried to
Speaker 1: set up a Hamlet thing like young what's his name, Charlie, Charlie,
Speaker 1: Charlie Hanman.
Speaker 2: You know, you know the guy Charlie Hunhum.
Speaker 1: Yes him, Yes, okay, Yeah, he's basically Hamlet. They set
Speaker 1: that up, is like he is the Hamlet of this
Speaker 1: biker scenario. And they but they don't try and like
Speaker 1: actually hit all the story beats of Hamlet exactly, and
Speaker 1: then they throw a little bit of Macbeth in there.
Speaker 1: At times. It's amusing, Okay, but I'm ready for the
Speaker 1: needle to come back to supernatural biker films. That's where
Speaker 1: we need to go. If they want to keep the
Speaker 1: sons of anarchy thing going that make it, vampires make it?
Speaker 1: Where bring that? Bring that back in? That's that's my
Speaker 1: two cents.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what has there been lately that really counts? I
Speaker 2: guess there's like the what's that super hero who's like
Speaker 2: a supernatural biker? Oh Night, Nicholas Cage, Nicholas Cauche Night
Speaker 2: Night Right, ghost Rider, ghost Right Ghostrider?
Speaker 1: Yeah, not not right. That's that's a different thing altogether.
Speaker 2: I haven't seen any of those except that first movie
Speaker 2: with Nicholas Cage, which I recall being hilarious.
Speaker 1: I think Peter Fonda shows up in one of those,
Speaker 1: Oh does he Yeah, yeah, that that sort.
Speaker 2: Of rings a bell. Maybe it was in that first one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a fun inclusion. It's thoughtful to include Peter
Speaker 1: Fonda in it.
Speaker 2: The main thing I remember about that one is that
Speaker 2: the that kid who's in American Beauty is the villain
Speaker 2: in it, and he's some kind of monster And there's
Speaker 2: a part where he's like in the middle of the
Speaker 2: desert and he just walks right up to the camera
Speaker 2: and looks into the camera and goes, Yeah, he like
Speaker 2: opens his mouth and a bunch of teeth and stuff
Speaker 2: come out.
Speaker 1: Well, that sounds great. I'm sure that character will be back,
Speaker 1: though they'll they'll create some other what do we say
Speaker 1: his name was death not death Writer, night Writer.
Speaker 2: Night Writer, ghostwriter, ghost rider. Yes, all right, Well, if
Speaker 2: you can't figure out the elevator pitch based on everything
Speaker 2: we've already said, I don't know how much help we're
Speaker 2: going to be other than the lich King rides. It's
Speaker 2: that undead bikers.
Speaker 1: Let's go ahead and listen to the trailer, and I think,
Speaker 1: like last week, we might just let the trailer play
Speaker 1: in its entirety because it's wonderful. It's a same year
Speaker 1: as last week selection, so it makes sense.
Speaker 6: They were just ordinary troublemakers as long as they lived,
Speaker 6: but they returned from beyond the grave with superhuman powers,
Speaker 6: unleashing an unholy reign of terror that holds an entire
Speaker 6: community in the grip of psychomania.
Speaker 5: Psychomania everybody dies, stand there, some come back.
Speaker 2: How do the dead come back?
Speaker 3: Mother?
Speaker 7: When you die, you've got to believe that you're going
Speaker 7: to come back.
Speaker 5: Have you kill yourself?
Speaker 7: That's right off a great I'm dying.
Speaker 5: You can only die once after that nothing and nobody
Speaker 5: can harm you.
Speaker 1: Oh man, what are you waiting for?
Speaker 7: You must stop him?
Speaker 4: You can't.
Speaker 7: I must.
Speaker 6: Psychoma what happened?
Speaker 2: You're not dead, That's what I.
Speaker 7: Was trying to tell you. I don't want to die
Speaker 7: good after them.
Speaker 6: And you know what you will become, yes, and that
Speaker 6: it will be for all eternity, because.
Speaker 5: You can only die once. After that, nothing and nobody
Speaker 5: can harm you Psychomedia.
Speaker 2: One thing about this movie is it's just so British.
Speaker 2: It has this film of Britishness all over it. It's
Speaker 2: you know, it just smells like baked beans. Uh, it's
Speaker 2: a it's a can of Heinz baked beans driving a
Speaker 2: motorcycle through a roundabout. And and it's also got that
Speaker 2: wonderful like the inter cutting between the the violent manic
Speaker 2: parts on the road where they're out, you know, riding around,
Speaker 2: harassing motorists and all that on the motorway, and then
Speaker 2: and then contrasting that with the indoor scenes where like
Speaker 2: they go to a pub or they go into somebody's house,
Speaker 2: and it has this amazing quaint stuffiness of early seventies Britain. Uh,
Speaker 2: it's yeah, it's it's just tremendous.
Speaker 1: Well, it's an interesting twist if you've if you're used
Speaker 1: to seeing mostly American biker films, there are any biker
Speaker 1: film is going to have scenes where the bikers are
Speaker 1: messing with the squares. But yes, more often than not
Speaker 1: in your American biker films, these are taking place in
Speaker 1: rural situations, you know, say, like a gas station often.
Speaker 1: So it's often, you know, very rural individuals who are
Speaker 1: bedeviled by the bikers. And in this case we get
Speaker 1: just it's not even like rural Britain person. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's not London obviously, but it's you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's in town or it's you know, on the street
Speaker 1: surrounding town. But it's the British way of life that
Speaker 1: is threatened by the bikers as opposed to the like
Speaker 1: American Midwest, you know, or sort of desert community kind
Speaker 1: of vibe.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I'm not sure, but I think it's supposed to
Speaker 2: be a town in the southwest of England. I think
Speaker 2: it's supposed to be a town in like Wiltshire or something.
Speaker 2: I don't know if I'm saying that right, Wiltshire, Wiltshire,
Speaker 2: whatever it is, But yeah, there. There is a thing
Speaker 2: that definitely that they do in this movie that a
Speaker 2: lot of outlaw biker movies have to do, even non
Speaker 2: super natural, utterly mundane outlaw biker movies, have to have
Speaker 2: a scene of the bikers riding around knocking things over
Speaker 2: in some public place, And in this movie they do
Speaker 2: it in a grocery store, and they do it in
Speaker 2: the middle of a town square, which makes me wonder
Speaker 2: was it actually a common occurrence for outlaw biker gangs
Speaker 2: at the time and I don't know, the early seventies
Speaker 2: to just ride around in public places knocking things over,
Speaker 2: saying that shouldn't be upright and I'll make it sideways.
Speaker 2: Or is this merely symbolic, like a way of showing
Speaker 2: them causing chaos that can be accomplished on screen in
Speaker 2: a single scene.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, I don't know if actual bikers,
Speaker 1: actual outlaw bikers, engage in this kind of thing, because
Speaker 1: certainly there are accounts of outlaw bikers engaging in all
Speaker 1: manner of criminal activities.
Speaker 2: I guess the kinds of things you would see with
Speaker 2: any type of organized crime.
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, bait, yeah, organized crime, smuggling, things like that.
Speaker 1: You don't see a lot of, say, New York Times
Speaker 1: articles about them just knocking stuff over at grocery stores.
Speaker 1: But this reminds me. I was reading an interview or
Speaker 1: part of an interview with the lead singer of Electric Wizard.
Speaker 1: What is his name, A Just Oborne?
Speaker 2: I think, yeah, yeah, and doom metal band.
Speaker 1: Yeah, doom metal band, stoner band, kind of vibe. And
Speaker 1: there was a quote from it that I want to
Speaker 1: read here just because I thought it was amusing. He says,
Speaker 1: I don't know why it isn't venerated in the same
Speaker 1: way as the wicker Man or Witchfinder General. There was
Speaker 1: a whole generation of us who grew up watching it
Speaker 1: on TV. In Wimborne, there used to be a safe
Speaker 1: ways that's like a grocery like we see in this film,
Speaker 1: with an entrance on one end and an exit right
Speaker 1: at the other. We used to bike right through it.
Speaker 1: On bmx's kicking stuff over, it was called doing a psychomania.
Speaker 2: Ah, that's perfect. Oh no, oh no, the kids getting
Speaker 2: bad idea. They're imitating an act of violence they saw
Speaker 2: on television and what they were watching is psychomania.
Speaker 1: Well, it comes back to this idea of the motorcycle Club,
Speaker 1: the Outlad motorcycle Club in myth and in fiction and
Speaker 1: in reality, and how these things all feed into each other.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, at least I guess it wasn't violence against people.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't advocate knocking over pyramids of cans
Speaker 2: of baked beans, but yeah, yeah, but you know, I
Speaker 2: guess you got to do it sometimes.
Speaker 1: That's one of the great things about this film though,
Speaker 1: is that, yes, the characters do engage in some heinous
Speaker 1: acts of violence, mostly off screen, but they also just
Speaker 1: do some very low level criminal Yes, you mischief in
Speaker 1: this just yeah, knocking over stuff like.
Speaker 2: Mind calling and traffic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, name calling and traffic, just minor assaults on the
Speaker 1: British way of life. And also murder.
Speaker 2: Also murder, so it's murder or like pulling up beside
Speaker 2: somebody in a truck and going yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that kind of all right, So we talk about
Speaker 1: some of the people in this film, since we're talking
Speaker 1: about the people here absolutely.
Speaker 2: Now, is it true that this was directed by somebody
Speaker 2: who had done a bunch of hammer horror films?
Speaker 1: Yeah, at least a few. This is the director on
Speaker 1: this picture was Don Sharp, who lived nineteen twenty one
Speaker 1: through twenty eleven. Australian born British director, probably best known
Speaker 1: for his Hammer films, including sixty threes, The Kiss of
Speaker 1: the Vampire, sixty four's The Devilship Pirates and Rasputin The
Speaker 1: Mad Monk from nineteen sixty six. I believe this is
Speaker 1: one that our producer set is quite fond of.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, does this one actually have Christopher Lee as Resputant?
Speaker 1: It does?
Speaker 2: Yes, Oh, I've got to see that. I love a
Speaker 2: good portrayal of Resputant. One of my favorites, if I've
Speaker 2: never mentioned it on this show before, is he doesn't
Speaker 2: get all that much screen time, but his scenes are fabulous.
Speaker 2: So there's a movie from the seventies called Nicholas and
Speaker 2: Alexandra that's about the Romanovs and the Russian Revolution and
Speaker 2: all that. And it has Tom Baker, who played the
Speaker 2: doctor on Doctor who as rest Bututant and he is
Speaker 2: just awesome, just devastating. Will He will turn your brain
Speaker 2: into a boiled ham. His scenes will just beat you
Speaker 2: into submission. You'll be watching without blinking. It's so good.
Speaker 1: I looked at some screenshots of it. It looks pretty great. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: Sharp also directed not the first sequel to The Fly,
Speaker 1: but the second Fly sequel, The Return of the Fly,
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty eight. He also did a film titled
Speaker 1: Bear Island in nineteen seventy nine, which I believe involves bears.
Speaker 1: And he also directed three episodes of the original The
Speaker 1: Avengers series, which we cited.
Speaker 2: Are Oh okay, some things are coming together here, Hammer,
Speaker 2: Horror and The Avengers.
Speaker 1: All right, let's move on to the screenwriters. Here. There's
Speaker 1: Arnaud Dessau, who lived nineteen sixteen through nineteen ninety, American
Speaker 1: screenwriter who also pinned the seventy two UK Spanish co
Speaker 1: production Horror Express, which is a wonderful little film starring
Speaker 1: Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Telly Savalas.
Speaker 2: Whoa wait, wait wait wait wait wait. Is this the
Speaker 2: one where they extract the image of the killer from
Speaker 2: someone's eye?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 2: Oh wow.
Speaker 1: And there's also some sort of like sort of a
Speaker 1: Neanderthal monster wandering around in the train. It has a
Speaker 1: couple of weird elements going around in it, but it's
Speaker 1: it's quite quite amusing. I saw it several years ago.
Speaker 6: Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So the idea and that the e scene is
Speaker 2: that what like the last image a person saw before
Speaker 2: they died is like imprinted on their retina, and somehow
Speaker 2: they extract that from the victim.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there's actually an older episode of stuff to
Speaker 1: blow your mind when I did with Christian, where we
Speaker 1: get into this idea and how this idea kind of
Speaker 1: traveled around in scientific and pseudo scientific groups for a while. Now,
Speaker 1: that's just one of the screenwriters. The other is Julian Zimmett,
Speaker 1: another American, I believe. Zim It also worked on Horror
Speaker 1: Express and various pictures to the forties, fifties, sixties and seventies,
Speaker 1: this being his final film credit.
Speaker 2: Now, the main character in this film, I guess you
Speaker 2: could argue about who the main character is. But one
Speaker 2: of the main characters is a very naughty motorcycle youth
Speaker 2: named Tom Latham. And he's played by an actor named
Speaker 2: Nicki Henson.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Nicki Henson, who's certainly an actor I've seen before,
Speaker 1: but I really wasn't that familiar with him. He lived
Speaker 1: nineteen forty five through twenty nineteen, British actor with a
Speaker 1: long career in British film and television. And I'd say
Speaker 1: the big titles worth mentioning are two thousand and five's Syriana.
Speaker 1: This was a film with George Clooney in it. He
Speaker 1: also did three episodes of Dalton abby So your Dalton
Speaker 1: Abbey viewers, if you remember a character named Charles Griggs,
Speaker 1: that's our NICKI.
Speaker 2: I had to go ask Rachel who if she remembered
Speaker 2: who he was in the show, and she did figure
Speaker 2: out who he was, but now I can't remember what
Speaker 2: she told me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, my wife did not remember this character. But I
Speaker 1: looked up a scene with him, and he looks fun
Speaker 1: and I think he plays into the theater or something
Speaker 1: in it. So, oh wait.
Speaker 2: Yes, now I remember what it is. Okay, I think
Speaker 2: if I recall correctly, she said that he is a
Speaker 2: former vaudeville performing partner with like the head butler guy
Speaker 2: at the at the house, at the at the manor,
Speaker 2: and every and he comes back and he like threatens
Speaker 2: or something. He says like he's like, if you don't
Speaker 2: pay me money, I'm gonna let everybody know that you
Speaker 2: used to be a stage performer and that you weren't
Speaker 2: always so so civilized.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, yeah, the clip I looked at it
Speaker 1: looked fine. It looks like a fun performance worthy of
Speaker 1: an actor who certainly had a had a very dramatic
Speaker 1: voice when he wanted to.
Speaker 2: Though in this movie, I mean, he's perfect for the role.
Speaker 2: I love him in this, but he's he does he's
Speaker 2: not He's not playing it in a serious way. This
Speaker 2: entire performance is one incredibly extended smirk.
Speaker 1: Well, I don't know. There's one sequence where he is
Speaker 1: afraid and frightened and seems to oh that's true, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but then he gets over that really quickly. Now, he
Speaker 1: was also on east Enders, which I think a lot
Speaker 1: of British actors were, But he was also in such
Speaker 1: genre pictures as sixty eight's Which Finder General, which came
Speaker 1: up a second ago, and then also that one was
Speaker 1: one that starred Vincent Price, and I think I've alluded
Speaker 1: to Vincent Price's facial hair in that before.
Speaker 2: Because the Gandalf from the Soviet Lord of the Rings
Speaker 2: looked like witch Finder General exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah. But also Nicki Hinson was in seventy four's Old Dracula,
Speaker 1: starring David Niven as Old Dracula. I have not seen it,
Speaker 1: but it sounds sounds interesting.
Speaker 2: Was the premise there wasn't Dracula already old?
Speaker 1: I think? But now he's even older. I don't know,
Speaker 1: but clearly I think you're running out of Dracula ideas
Speaker 1: just when you bust out a old Dracula. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's great, and I just I'm not giving it
Speaker 1: a chance.
Speaker 2: It's like that Key and Peel skit with the pitch
Speaker 2: meeting for Grimlins too. They're just coming up with different
Speaker 2: ideas for Dracula. What about electricity Dracula? How about old Dracula.
Speaker 1: Old Dracula. It's in the movie Vegetable Dracula. Yeah, But
Speaker 1: Nicki Hinson, he's good in this. Like you say, it's
Speaker 1: largely one note except for the one scene, but he's
Speaker 1: very charismatic. He's dressed in leather the whole time. He
Speaker 1: has this kind of like a big chest, narrow waste
Speaker 1: thing going on. So he has this youthful vigor to
Speaker 1: him that really works in the role.
Speaker 2: He has a great Nigel Toughnell mullet.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, there's a lot of great early seventies hair
Speaker 1: in this picture. Longside burns everything all right. So he
Speaker 1: plays Tom Latham. But his character's mother is also an
Speaker 1: important character. This is Miss Latham, played by Beryl Reed,
Speaker 1: who lived nineteen nineteen through nineteen ninety six. An acclaimed
Speaker 1: British stage actor. She won a nineteen sixty seven Tony
Speaker 1: Award for Best Actress in in the play The Killing
Speaker 1: of Sister George. She was also in the film with
Speaker 1: adaptation of that play, and other credits include the original
Speaker 1: Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy TV series or perhaps limited mini
Speaker 1: series that starred Alec Guinness, and she was also in
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighty three Gram Chapman pirate film yellow Beard.
Speaker 2: Now, before we started recording today, we were talking about
Speaker 2: a song, a folk song that I really love, is
Speaker 2: one of my favorites, called nineteen fifty two vincent black
Speaker 2: Lightning by the British singer songwriter Richard Thompson. It's a
Speaker 2: wonderful song, but it is a song about a red
Speaker 2: headed girl who falls in love with a bad motorcycle
Speaker 2: boy and then when he dies from a shotgun blast
Speaker 2: to the chest, he gives her his motorcycle to ride,
Speaker 2: his nineteen fifty two vincent black Lightning. And immediately I
Speaker 2: thought of this movie because this is a movie about
Speaker 2: a red headed girl who's in love with a bad
Speaker 2: motorcycle boy who dies.
Speaker 1: Yes, the character is Abby Holme and she's played by
Speaker 1: the actor Mary Larkin. Is was an Irish actor, did
Speaker 1: a fair amount of film and TV work. Nothing that
Speaker 1: really stands out to me personally in her filmography, but
Speaker 1: I think British TV viewers may have some notes for
Speaker 1: us on this. But she has a very nice film
Speaker 1: presence in this motion picture. I'll also say, I want
Speaker 1: to point this out. Her name is Abby and you
Speaker 1: frequently get reminded of this because she has a leather jacket.
Speaker 1: She's in the gang and she has her name on it.
Speaker 1: And I love a movie that has name tags. It
Speaker 1: was a lot easier to keep track of everybody in
Speaker 1: this film. I wish more pictures had name tags like this.
Speaker 2: What's the scene where for most of the movie you
Speaker 2: don't hear most of the names of the characters the
Speaker 2: biker gang, But then there's one scene where undead Tom
Speaker 2: is just looking at all of them, one in a
Speaker 2: row and saying their names, and the sequence is hilarious.
Speaker 2: It's something he says something like gash Hatchet, Bertram yep.
Speaker 1: Chopped Meat is another uh huh yep. I think chop
Speaker 1: Meat is the folk singer of the group. If I'm
Speaker 1: not mistaken. Really, Yeah, I mean I don't think the
Speaker 1: actor was actually a folk singer. But there's a scene
Speaker 1: later on where we get a folk song and I
Speaker 1: think chop meat out of his leather jacket is the
Speaker 1: one that's supposed to be playing that song. Could be wrong.
Speaker 2: It's such a gentle tune. You wouldn't think that that
Speaker 2: it comes from the mind of a crazed motorcycle killer.
Speaker 1: Well, that's a scene where they're mostly dressed like hippies,
Speaker 1: as if the film is trying to say all of
Speaker 1: us have within us, both the hippie and the biker,
Speaker 1: both the peace loving hippie and the necromantic, druid biker Wraith.
Speaker 1: These are both aspects of the same human soul.
Speaker 2: The peaceful artist whose very voice is love, and then
Speaker 2: the motorcycle nightmare who will run you down on the motorway.
Speaker 1: Yes. Now, if Abby is the good girl in this
Speaker 1: the bad girl is Jane, played by ann Anne Michelle.
Speaker 1: I believe her name was born nineteen fifty two. Other
Speaker 1: credits include House of rip Chord from seventy four, Haunted
Speaker 1: from seventy seven, and interestingly enough, this actor was once
Speaker 1: married to a professional British motorcycle racer by the name
Speaker 1: of Richard may So. Normally not really worth mentioning what actors'
Speaker 1: spouses did, but in this case I found that interesting.
Speaker 2: She's also fantastic in this because much like Nicki Henson,
Speaker 2: she has a smirk that mocks life itself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she is, like I said, she's the bad girl
Speaker 1: on this. She does not really question the whole necromancy
Speaker 1: scheme that becomes central to the plot. She embraces it
Speaker 1: early on. Right now, we're not going to go through
Speaker 1: all the actors playing all the bikers, you know, like
Speaker 1: Chop Mead and Horsecrop and so forth. But Bertram was
Speaker 1: played by this actor by the name of Roy Holder
Speaker 1: born nineteen forty six and I believe still alive. Another
Speaker 1: actor with solid British TV and film credits, including two
Speaker 1: thousand and one's Warhorse, Ridley Scott's Robin Hood from twenty
Speaker 1: eleven and various big TV series like east Enders, Coronation Street,
Speaker 1: Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, etc. He played the
Speaker 1: character Krelper, a gun runner who worked for a mercenary
Speaker 1: who worked for another villain named Morgas on four episodes
Speaker 1: of Doctor Who in the nineteen eighties, and he plays
Speaker 1: Enoch in the star studied nineteen seventy seven Jesus of
Speaker 1: Nazareth mini series. Okay, I don't think I've seen this,
Speaker 1: but I long remember seeing it on video shelves as
Speaker 1: a kid. It's the one with like the kind of
Speaker 1: a big eyed Jesus on the front.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm not sure I know which one this is.
Speaker 1: Well, it's worth looking up just to see who I
Speaker 1: was in it. It was again a star studied project,
Speaker 1: a huge Jesus movie. Okay, all right. We have a
Speaker 1: police inspector in this film, representing law and order.
Speaker 2: Hate the law, you know, no respect for it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The chief inspector in this is played by Robert Hardy,
Speaker 1: who lived nineteen twenty five through twenty seventeen. This is
Speaker 1: Cornelius Fudge himself from the Harry Pot films.
Speaker 2: Oh, I don't remember who that is. Who's Cornelius Fudge.
Speaker 1: Oh he was the head of the Ministry of Magic.
Speaker 2: I was sort of like the President of the Wizards
Speaker 2: or something.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Like, but I mean it's like, it's basically like,
Speaker 1: this is an actor who played authority, British authority, figures. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: and so in this he plays one, and in Harry
Speaker 1: Potter he played a different one.
Speaker 2: Yeah. He disapproves of your behavior, whatever it is.
Speaker 1: Yeah. He was also in Ang Lee's nineteen ninety five
Speaker 1: Cents in Sensibility. He was on All Creatures Great and Small.
Speaker 1: And he sure played Churchill a lot. I saw Churchill
Speaker 1: popping up a lot of his filmography. Yeah. He was
Speaker 1: also in a seventy two demon possession film titled Demons
Speaker 1: of the Mind.
Speaker 2: Now, another big connection here is that this bizarre, undead
Speaker 2: biker horror movie was the last film of the legendary
Speaker 2: actor George Sanders.
Speaker 1: Yes, George Sanders playing Shadwell the Butler. Though we suspect
Speaker 1: he is much more.
Speaker 2: Than a butler, the warlock Butler.
Speaker 1: Yeah. He lived nineteen oho through nineteen seventy two, so
Speaker 1: he died the same year this film rap production. Apparently.
Speaker 1: English actor known for major roles in the forties and
Speaker 1: fifties pictures like All About Eve, Rebecca, The Picture of
Speaker 1: Dorian Gray, and man Hunt. Later audiences might know him
Speaker 1: best for his voice in Walt Disney's The Jungle Book.
Speaker 1: You know, the old animated jungle Book. He is the
Speaker 1: voice of Sheer Khan the Tiger.
Speaker 2: I think the talking voice, not the singing voice, is there, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, there's different different credits on those, but the
Speaker 1: talking voice is definitely Sanders. He also played mister Freeze
Speaker 1: in the first two appearances of that character in the
Speaker 1: old Batman series.
Speaker 2: Perfect.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there were a couple of other notable actors who
Speaker 1: played that same character. It's a real lightning rod for
Speaker 1: talent that show. Because Vincent Price also popped up on Batman.
Speaker 2: Oh, I forgot about that. Who did he play? Was
Speaker 2: he the Riddler or something?
Speaker 1: No, No, that would have been great. Now he played Egghead.
Speaker 1: This character was just a giant egghead.
Speaker 2: I've forgotten.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's terrible. It's terrible.
Speaker 2: Okay, It's like, should we do a digression here about
Speaker 2: how bad most of the Batman villains are almost all
Speaker 2: you know what. In fact, they're like the Grimlins once
Speaker 2: again in that Gremlins pitch meeting sketch, because they're all
Speaker 2: like I remember this when I was playing one of
Speaker 2: those Batman video games years ago that allows you to
Speaker 2: sort of like collect a catalog of who all the
Speaker 2: villains are, and you got the big ones, you all know,
Speaker 2: the Joker and the Riddler and all that. I don't
Speaker 2: know if the Riddler is different enough from the Joker,
Speaker 2: but anyway, once you get into the second tier of
Speaker 2: Batman villains, it's all just like clock Man. He is
Speaker 2: obsessed with clocks and kills people with schemes that resemble clocks.
Speaker 2: You know, Mad Hatter, who is obsessed with the Mad
Speaker 2: Hatter character in Alice in Wonderland. They're all like extremely literal.
Speaker 2: They're all you know, electricity grimlin one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it is, it's like that. It's like,
Speaker 1: you know, electricity criminal, Riddle criminal, clock criminal. Because essentially,
Speaker 1: like Batman is a detective, he solves crimes. He needs
Speaker 1: a criminal to go up against. But you have to
Speaker 1: put these at least these spins on them and uh
Speaker 1: and of course, over time, various creative minds have found
Speaker 1: interesting ways to make those ideas more potent. Take mister
Speaker 1: Freeze for example, Like Freeze criminal is not a very
Speaker 1: interesting concept, but certainly by the time of the like
Speaker 1: the animated Batman series.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when we were kids, you know, they ice, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they found ways to make this just a tragic and
Speaker 1: romantic figure and just a fascinating character with cool, freezing
Speaker 1: criminal powers.
Speaker 2: Right. Oh, I want to be clear, I'm not dissing
Speaker 2: doctor Freeze especially or mister Freeze. Even though he is
Speaker 2: a doctor. He goes by mister Freeze, even though he
Speaker 2: has a PhD.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, he takes that do no harm thing seriously,
Speaker 1: I guess, or I don't know, or a PhD, no idea,
Speaker 1: But he's when he's freezing, he's mister Freeze.
Speaker 2: Right exactly. That's his yeah, off off the clock.
Speaker 1: So yeah, this is this is George Sanders's last picture,
Speaker 1: and by all accounts, he was not in a good
Speaker 1: place at this point in his life, probably not performing
Speaker 1: at his peak. But he's still a great presence in
Speaker 1: the film. You know, he's still he still creates some
Speaker 1: magic on the screen.
Speaker 2: Robi. I know you always like to talk about the music,
Speaker 2: and the music in this movie is one of the
Speaker 2: big selling points. There are some great folk songs in it.
Speaker 2: There's some great psychedelic guitar. It's all over the place.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's a little bit funky in places. There's
Speaker 1: some I guess what he got like fuzz tone rock
Speaker 1: notes in it. It's yeah, it's a wonderful score and
Speaker 1: this is definitely a score that's available and has long
Speaker 1: been available in various formats. It is the work of
Speaker 1: John Cameron born nineteen forty four, British composer, arranger, conductor
Speaker 1: and musician. He did a number of film scores for
Speaker 1: various pictures over the years. One that stuck out to me,
Speaker 1: and this may not be his crowning achievement. I don't
Speaker 1: remember what the music was like in this, but nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety two's Frankenstein starring Randy Quaid as the Monster and
Speaker 1: Patrick Bergen as the Doctor. This one I think debuted
Speaker 1: on TNT on cable back when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: and I may have mentioned on the show before because
Speaker 1: when this came out and was like, yeah, this is
Speaker 1: this is Frankenstein.
Speaker 2: This is not the first time you've brought this one up.
Speaker 2: In fact, you've brought it up almost to scold me
Speaker 2: for like making jokes about Randy Quaid.
Speaker 1: No, you can joke about Randy Quaid all you want.
Speaker 1: In terms of his acting though Randy Quaid, I have
Speaker 1: found him quite good in a few different pictures and
Speaker 1: this was one of him playing playing the monster. But
Speaker 1: as for the music, yeah, this is This is really
Speaker 1: good stuff from Cameron. You know, we'll talk about the
Speaker 1: folk ballot in a bit. Originally, the tracks off of
Speaker 1: this score, witch Hunt and Living Dead were actually released
Speaker 1: as a single on vinyl, with Cameron taking on the
Speaker 1: moniker of frog.
Speaker 2: Hmm, now there is a major frog in this movie.
Speaker 2: I honestly could not understand what the magical significance of
Speaker 2: the frog was. Maybe you can help me understand that
Speaker 2: as we talk about the plot a little bit more. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: look at it as a froggy film. The Psychomania gets froggy.
Speaker 1: Yeah. But before we move forward, though, first, let's have
Speaker 1: a let's have just another sample of that music, the
Speaker 1: score to Psychomania. Yeah, it's so good. It's so good.
Speaker 2: I'm feeling the last vestiges of respect for law and
Speaker 2: humanity fading away. I am about to go out and
Speaker 2: do evil, do exactly as I will.
Speaker 1: Well, let's go ahead and talk about the film. Let's
Speaker 1: get into the plot, because this one has it's against
Speaker 1: so many weird elements it's really worth dwelling on.
Speaker 2: Well, so the very opening is just divine. I love
Speaker 2: the first few minutes of this movie. It's once again
Speaker 2: druids on wheels. It's just bikers doing slow mo stunts
Speaker 2: in the grass amidst an ancient stone circle while this
Speaker 2: acid wizard guitar music just drips in the background. I love, love,
Speaker 2: love this. Filmmakers out there, if you want to make
Speaker 2: movies today that I will just like gush about incessantly.
Speaker 2: Get this vibe, recreate it, make more of this kind
Speaker 2: of thing. I believe that the setting here, so you know,
Speaker 2: they're riding around doing bike stunts at a stone circle.
Speaker 2: I think this is supposed to be at a place
Speaker 2: called Avebury Hinge, at least according to some not super
Speaker 2: authoritative looking articles I was reading, so I'm not certain
Speaker 2: about this. But if this is supposed to be Avebury Hinge,
Speaker 2: that is a Neolithic stone monument site much like Stone Hinge.
Speaker 2: This one's in the southwest of England, and I'm not
Speaker 2: sure if they are actually truly gunning their hogs through
Speaker 2: the real megaliths or if this is a set made
Speaker 2: to look like it. If it is a set, I'm impressed,
Speaker 2: like it looks pretty convincing. They may actually have been
Speaker 2: ripping me through a priceless forty five hundred year old
Speaker 2: ritual site.
Speaker 1: I can't tell, but these scenes are impressive. It sets
Speaker 1: the tone for the picture.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, so slow mo bike jumps, cross, sing
Speaker 2: in and out. I imagine they were probably actually going
Speaker 2: at pretty low speed, but then by playing it back
Speaker 2: in slow motion, you can create the impression that at
Speaker 2: full speed they would have been doing something incredibly dangerous.
Speaker 2: So this is the biker gang at the heart of
Speaker 2: the movie. They're known as the Living Dead. I adore
Speaker 2: their outfits. They've got these skull helmets and they all
Speaker 2: wear black leather motorcycle gear except for Jane, who wears
Speaker 2: red leather and white gloves. And these are just some bad,
Speaker 2: bad English youths whose brains have been defiled by overdoses
Speaker 2: of black leather, carbon monoxide and moral nihilism. They do
Speaker 2: what they want and they care not for man's law.
Speaker 1: Yeah, these outfits are incredible. If you haven't seen clips
Speaker 1: from this film, look it up because the design and
Speaker 1: the biker helmets just looks great. Again, it looks like
Speaker 1: a skull. And then they're wearing most of them again
Speaker 1: are wearing head to toe black leather and it says
Speaker 1: of course living dead on the back. And then they
Speaker 1: have their name tags on the front.
Speaker 2: Or yeah, name tags, yeah, yeah, which is a great
Speaker 2: thing for criminals to have, right. So the first thing
Speaker 2: we see them doing is just dangerously harassing people driving
Speaker 2: on the on the on the back, you know, the
Speaker 2: country roads. And I think they actually kill a guy
Speaker 2: like that, or at least they knock him out like
Speaker 2: they they scare him until he's in an accident and
Speaker 2: is thrown from his vehicle. So they're just out just
Speaker 2: randomly murdering innocent people. And they've got their names on
Speaker 2: their clothes.
Speaker 1: Yeah. This film mostly has a very sanitized view of
Speaker 1: how death works because mostly things happen, people become very
Speaker 1: still and they are dead. Yeah, it's weirdly sanitized for
Speaker 1: a film that is otherwise, you know, just on paper
Speaker 1: is obsessed with death.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not a bloody movie. It's actually it's it's
Speaker 2: it's very clean. Yeah. And there are a number, like
Speaker 2: pretty much all outlaw biker films. You've got to have
Speaker 2: just these scenes of the characters being lawless, dangerous and
Speaker 2: harassing other people. I would call these scenes to take
Speaker 2: a coinage from Polly Walnuts may Ham. You know, you've
Speaker 2: got to have your Mayhem sequences and so that's what
Speaker 2: we get right at the get go. They go straight
Speaker 2: from the stone Circle stunts to riding around doing mayhem.
Speaker 2: And so the leader played by Nicki Henson is this
Speaker 2: guy named Tom Latham. I already mentioned that he is
Speaker 2: sort of like Nigel Toughnell of Spinal Tap, but I
Speaker 2: would describe him as a cross between Nigel Toughnell and
Speaker 2: Malcolm McDowell at a clockwork orange picture, those two in
Speaker 2: a venn diagram. And then you've got Tom.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but a lot more likable, more likable than perhaps
Speaker 1: any Malcolm McDowell character has that sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now, of course, this being a biker film, there are
Speaker 1: lots of shots of bikers biking. One thing that sets
Speaker 1: us apart from let's say, less well crafted biker films.
Speaker 1: And I've seen of these where sometimes you'll have the
Speaker 1: camera set up and you'll just watch the bikers approach
Speaker 1: for like a mile in the desert, you.
Speaker 2: Know, yeah, wererolls on wheels? Does that yet?
Speaker 1: Yeah, where it's just like, wow, we're really gonna watch
Speaker 1: this for a while. They set up this shot and
Speaker 1: we're gonna we're gonna see all of it. But and
Speaker 1: there's maybe like one shot in this where it felt
Speaker 1: like it went on a bit long, but otherwise they
Speaker 1: did a good job of just giving us interesting footage
Speaker 1: of our gang terrorizing the roads.
Speaker 2: So a sin that is often committed by B movies
Speaker 2: is padding, trying to insert extra stuff to pad out
Speaker 2: the run time and get to full feature length. That
Speaker 2: is a thing I would not accuse this movie of.
Speaker 2: I don't think there's a lot of padding. I think
Speaker 2: it moves at a pretty nice pace and there's not
Speaker 2: a lot of just watching people drive around with no purpose.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And if I think if some people were confused
Speaker 1: by the film and they might say, well, maybe we
Speaker 1: needed more of the film to explain these things, I
Speaker 1: think that I think that would be the wrong instinct,
Speaker 1: because there's a lot of stuff, like the frogs, that
Speaker 1: we don't completely understand. There's a cryptic nature to it,
Speaker 1: and I feel like that is how it should be.
Speaker 1: Given the magic that's taking place here. We're not supposed
Speaker 1: to understand frog necromancy. It is supposed to be a
Speaker 1: mystery to us.
Speaker 2: I almost forgot about the frogs. We got to talk
Speaker 2: about the frog So they do the mayhem at the beginning,
Speaker 2: and then the next scene is we get Tom and Abby.
Speaker 2: Abby is another member of the gang, and Tom is
Speaker 2: her boyfriend, and they're hanging out in a graveyard and
Speaker 2: Tom catches a frog in the graveyard and he says, hello,
Speaker 2: little green friend and Abby. It's funny because Abby seems
Speaker 2: like she does not really belong in this gang. She
Speaker 2: just seems like an extremely nice young lady who would
Speaker 2: not be out doing highway murders. The rest of the
Speaker 2: gang are obviously these immoral, lawless creeps, and Abby just
Speaker 2: seems like she's just a nice girl. So I'm not
Speaker 2: sure what's going on there, but it makes sense because
Speaker 2: she's she I think eventually becomes the main character. And
Speaker 2: you're only five minutes into the movie before Tom is
Speaker 2: saying to Abby, let's do it. Let's kill ourselves and
Speaker 2: become some kind of cursed undead monsters, and Abby's like, oh, Tom,
Speaker 2: not that again. So apparently he brings this up all
Speaker 2: the time every time they get together. He's like, what
Speaker 2: do you say, let's become undead? Yeah, And it's also
Speaker 2: kind of strange how much she seems to take this
Speaker 2: in stride, like she's just like, oh, that's silly, not
Speaker 2: like it doesn't really bother her.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, but clearly, yeah, he talks about it a lot.
Speaker 1: This is his thing, like it was probably I don't
Speaker 1: know if they had yearbooks in Britain at this time,
Speaker 1: but if they had one, he would be most likely
Speaker 1: to destroy oneself and become an undead monster.
Speaker 2: Right. So Tom goes back to his house, which is
Speaker 2: a gigantic mansion. Wouldn't you know it, This good for
Speaker 2: nothing modo Rascal is actually a posh rich kid, and
Speaker 2: so they're at the house. You find out his family,
Speaker 2: only I don't know how it was to explain the
Speaker 2: family situation. So the family is him and his mother
Speaker 2: and their butler, Shadwell, and his mother and Shadwell seem
Speaker 2: to be into evil magic. They're into the occult. They
Speaker 2: do seances and other occult stuff in the house. And
Speaker 2: Tom's father has passed away because it's implied he tried
Speaker 2: to do some kind of dangerous evil ritual and failed
Speaker 2: and died in the process.
Speaker 1: Right, and possibly like permanently warped a room in their
Speaker 1: house with foul magic from beyond. Again, not completely explained,
Speaker 1: and I don't want the film to explain it more.
Speaker 1: I like that it's so cryptic but yeah, this is
Speaker 1: a weird house in a weird family setting because Shadwell
Speaker 1: is not really he's the butler. He's not, he's not
Speaker 1: his father. But he also there's a there's clear from
Speaker 1: the very beginning that Shadwell is not just a butler.
Speaker 1: There is there's a power to him, there's knowledge there,
Speaker 1: and he's he's only so involved in the actual affairs
Speaker 1: of the family. Like I noticed that a lot of times,
Speaker 1: maybe in a very sort of proper English butler way,
Speaker 1: one of them will express an emotion and he'll comment
Speaker 1: upon it, but he's not really expressing an opinion one
Speaker 1: way or the other.
Speaker 2: Yes, the circumspect removed a jeeves ish editorial position. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean he's like Jeeves, but if Jeeves were an
Speaker 2: ancient druid warlock.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, because ultimately we come to learn that he
Speaker 1: is either some sort of an ancient druid warlock or
Speaker 1: perhaps something worse, perhaps a demon or the devil himself
Speaker 1: or something something from beyond. I don't know. It could
Speaker 1: go either way, but there's a lot more to Shadwell
Speaker 1: than just butlering.
Speaker 2: So Tom gets home with this frog that he caught
Speaker 2: in the graveyard and he's like, He's like, Okay, I
Speaker 2: want to know the secret of the living Dead, and
Speaker 2: I guess Shadwell is like, Okay, maybe he should know,
Speaker 2: maybe not, but the frog seems significant. Can you explain
Speaker 2: the frog to me? I've seen this movie multiple times
Speaker 2: and I don't understand the relationship between the frog and
Speaker 2: the power to come back from the dead.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't really have a clear answer. But we
Speaker 1: see actual frogs. We see, of course, the wonderful frog
Speaker 1: amulet that comes up that when it first appeared on screen,
Speaker 1: I audibly gasped it was.
Speaker 2: So oh yeah, to behold wonderful jewelry. So Tom's mother
Speaker 2: is like, should we tell him the secret of the
Speaker 2: living Dead? It could be dangerous for him, And Shadwell's like,
Speaker 2: it won't be dangerous for him if he's protected with this.
Speaker 2: And then he gets out this necklace that's got a
Speaker 2: frog on it.
Speaker 1: And I think Shadwell has a ring with the frog
Speaker 1: on it as well. And then oh, and then there's
Speaker 1: the like the frog from Beyond. There's like a dreamlike
Speaker 1: sequence involving a mirror that casts no reflection, and within
Speaker 1: that smoking mirror of a cult weirdness, we see the
Speaker 1: form of a frog. So I don't know if like
Speaker 1: that is the form of the force from beyond? Is
Speaker 1: is it conveying information or is that or is that
Speaker 1: the is that the form of the destroyer? And this
Speaker 1: this picture, I don't know, so many questions, but the
Speaker 1: frog is a repeating symbol and oh yeah, it's it's good.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of frog action in this and it
Speaker 1: absolutely works.
Speaker 2: There's also a wonderful scene where when Tom and his
Speaker 2: mother first meet up, they start waltzing around the living room.
Speaker 2: They've got like a sunken living room and they're dancing
Speaker 2: and she's like, Tom, now I you know, I think
Speaker 2: the police are after you. And he says the word
Speaker 2: mother is fuzz and she says she says, if you
Speaker 2: don't be careful, you're going to end up arrested. And
Speaker 2: he says the word mother is busted.
Speaker 1: It's weird how he's you know, he's having to educate
Speaker 1: his mom on the cool lingo. But their living room
Speaker 1: is really hip, like it's a very mod living room
Speaker 1: with like they have this cosmic like black starscape behind
Speaker 1: the occult seance table and then there's a fireplace and
Speaker 1: there's like all those weird modern furniture going on. It's
Speaker 1: a it's a strange, strange living room, and I love it.
Speaker 2: But ultimately in this whole sequence has Tom has this
Speaker 2: weird thing where he goes into the cursed room and
Speaker 2: faces the magic mirror, and ultimately he finds out the
Speaker 2: secret of the living dead by overhearing his mother. And
Speaker 2: it doesn't seem like much of a secret. The secret
Speaker 2: just seems to be that you have to to become
Speaker 2: an evil, undead immortal, you have to kill yourself and
Speaker 2: truly believe you'll come back from the dead.
Speaker 1: And Tom is, I guess he's convinced of this. I
Speaker 1: don't know, I'm trying to remember what specifically convinced him.
Speaker 1: Maybe it was the experience in the room, like encountering
Speaker 1: other worldly, weird magical things. Yeah, but when he he's
Speaker 1: terrified in the room, like there's there's a lot of
Speaker 1: terrified acting going on while he's in there. But it's
Speaker 1: not long afterwards, so he gets out of there. He
Speaker 1: wakes up and he's like, all right, let's do it.
Speaker 1: Death and immortality bring.
Speaker 2: It on, right, And so the next day he's ready,
Speaker 2: He's ready, He's ready to become the lich King. So,
Speaker 2: like we said earlier, every outlaw biker movie has to
Speaker 2: have scenes of bikers riding around knocking things over. You know,
Speaker 2: they see stuff that's vertical and just their eyes go
Speaker 2: red and they're like, you're not gonna be vertical for long.
Speaker 2: And so they ride around in the town square knocking
Speaker 2: stuff over in a scene of chaos and mayhem that
Speaker 2: will culminate in Tom driving his motorcycle off a bridge
Speaker 2: to become the evil Dead.
Speaker 1: Right. He watches up on the bank and they're like
Speaker 1: two children there and they're.
Speaker 2: Like look, yeah. And so then after this we get
Speaker 2: a scene that is one of the best scenes in
Speaker 2: the movie. It's the funeral for Tom, which they have
Speaker 2: at this stone circle that you saw on the opening
Speaker 2: of the film, which they called the Seven Witches. I
Speaker 2: don't know which elements to focus on first, but this
Speaker 2: scene is so great. Maybe the folk song. So there's
Speaker 2: one of the bikers who again these they kill people.
Speaker 2: He's also like a sweet singer songwriter and he plays
Speaker 2: this song that goes and the world never knew his name,
Speaker 2: but the chosen few know of his fame.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really good, and you can find clips of
Speaker 1: this whole song on YouTube if you look around for it.
Speaker 1: But yeah, there's the folk song that's going on. That's wonderful.
Speaker 1: Just also the whole premise, because basically what's happened is
Speaker 1: after after Tom died, Abby came to his mom and said, hey,
Speaker 1: it's sad that Tom died. We would love to bury
Speaker 1: him in our way, according to our custom according to
Speaker 1: our customs. So you might wonder what is a traditional
Speaker 1: English biker funeral. Well, it apparently involves, I guess, being
Speaker 1: taxidermied atop of your motorcycle and then buried on your
Speaker 1: motorcycle in a grave, like an enormous grave. And in
Speaker 1: this case that isn't the grave like adjacent to the hinge.
Speaker 2: It's right in the middle of the hinge.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which seems this seems like this would not be
Speaker 1: legal the authorities.
Speaker 2: I do not think they would let you bury somebody there.
Speaker 1: And on a motorcycle. I mean, it's going to.
Speaker 2: Motorcycle just on it. It reminds me of the actual
Speaker 2: practice of horse burial, where, for example, you might see
Speaker 2: an ancient Scythian warrior buried with his horse. I think
Speaker 2: this practice is common among people more in sort of
Speaker 2: like the Indo European and Central Asian regions throughout history,
Speaker 2: where you know, the strong, strong horse based cultures, people
Speaker 2: would sometimes be buried with their horse in some way,
Speaker 2: and here it's like that, but it's the motorcycle instead
Speaker 2: of the horse.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's But it's great though, because he's just
Speaker 1: sitting on the body. He's just being real still, you know,
Speaker 1: on the on the motorcycle in the grave while they're
Speaker 1: playing this song and then oh and then of course
Speaker 1: you get to you see the hinge the stones behind them,
Speaker 1: and then also there's a smoke stack in the background. Yes,
Speaker 1: and I just love that shot like that, that shot
Speaker 1: just feels so seventy He's Britain. I love it.
Speaker 2: And the song going on the lyrics at one point
Speaker 2: the singer goes and he really got it on. He
Speaker 2: rode that sweet machine just like a bomb. It's like,
Speaker 2: I can't think of instances of people riding bombs except
Speaker 2: in Doctor Strangelove. Is that what he meant?
Speaker 1: Maybe so, I mean the time the timeframe would work,
Speaker 1: or maybe it's British biker lingo that we're just this.
Speaker 2: But so, of course Tom comes back from the grave
Speaker 2: as an evil undead version of himself. I guess he
Speaker 2: was already evil.
Speaker 1: Oh please, don't just say he comes back from the grave.
Speaker 2: He busts up out of the grave. So there's a
Speaker 2: scene where like a car pulls over on the highway
Speaker 2: and the man gets out of the car and his
Speaker 2: wife there is like, he's like, oh, we're having car trouble.
Speaker 2: I've got to go to the garage. And his wife says,
Speaker 2: you could get there faster if you cut through the
Speaker 2: seven witches. You're not afraid, are you, And he's like,
Speaker 2: uh no, obviously he is. So he's walking through the
Speaker 2: seven witches. But then what's that he hears? Is that
Speaker 2: a little bit of a Is that a revving the
Speaker 2: revving of a motorcycle, as if coming up from out
Speaker 2: of the earth, and then boom, spray of dirt. Tom
Speaker 2: busts up out of his grave on the motorcycle and
Speaker 2: runs this guy over.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so Tom is back from the grave. And one
Speaker 1: of the great things about this is you might expect,
Speaker 1: given all this, that Tom would be this like grizzly
Speaker 1: undead biker now, But no, Tom looks exactly like he
Speaker 1: did in life, acts exactly like he did in life.
Speaker 1: With the added caveat that he is now seemingly immortal
Speaker 1: and indestructible. Yeah, and you might wonder, well, what's why
Speaker 1: does he exploit this? Well, the first thing he does
Speaker 1: is he basically he tanks up his hog, and then
Speaker 1: he also goes in as a beer and he doesn't
Speaker 1: pay for any of these things because now he is invincible.
Speaker 2: Well, he kills the service station attendant because he asked
Speaker 2: him for money, and then he also at the he
Speaker 2: goes to the pub to use the telephone because he
Speaker 2: wants to call Shadwell. He calls Shadwell on the phone
Speaker 2: and Shadwell's like, oh, how does it feel to be back?
Speaker 2: And he says splendid. And he seems maybe even more
Speaker 2: freed from pathetic human morality than he was before, because
Speaker 2: now he's just doing murders everywhere.
Speaker 1: He goes like, yeah, like five at a time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's like a lady at the pub who wants
Speaker 2: to ride on his motorcycle. She's like, take me for
Speaker 2: a ride, and he's like no, and he just kills her.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's offscreen killing everybody.
Speaker 2: Yes, but yeah, so he's he's immortal and invulnerable, and
Speaker 2: he appears back to the rest of his gang, and
Speaker 2: he says, hey, you know, here's the deal. If you
Speaker 2: kill yourself and become an undead lych king like me,
Speaker 2: you will be indestructible and then we can really party.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they buy into it instantly because the proof
Speaker 1: is in the pudding. Like here he is, he's back.
Speaker 1: You don't need to go into the weird mirror room
Speaker 1: because Tom stands before you. And also one of them
Speaker 1: tries to stab him, and he's like, it doesn't work
Speaker 1: on me anymore. See, I'm immortal. You guys should join
Speaker 1: the club too.
Speaker 2: He's not bothered by it. Yeah, the guy tries to
Speaker 2: stab him, and he's just like, isn't it cool? But
Speaker 2: so there is a I guess a very darkly comic
Speaker 2: sequence where all the rest of the bikers are like,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm next, and they take their turns doing
Speaker 2: bizarre suicides to become the evil dead.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's a sequence that is just shockingly hilarious, this
Speaker 1: strong gallows humor. But it's like each one chooses a
Speaker 1: different method. The one that got me though, is the
Speaker 1: is the bike. I forget which one this is. He's
Speaker 1: he's wearing a swimsuit and he's laid in with chains,
Speaker 1: like a ridiculous amount of chains, like like Bob Marley's ghost.
Speaker 1: He's Jacob Marley. I'm sorry, Jacob Marley's gust not Bob, Sorry,
Speaker 1: Jacob Marley's ghost from from a Carrol. He's laden in
Speaker 1: all these you know, fake chains, and he's he's he's
Speaker 1: shambling towards the riverside, clearly to drown himself. But it's like, really,
Speaker 1: that's the method you choose, and then he does it.
Speaker 2: One of them off screen, of course, yes, yeah, one
Speaker 2: of them goes skydiving without a parachute. Yeah, but yes,
Speaker 2: the goal is they're all going to become undead bikers,
Speaker 2: just like Tom.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And so in the end, because of course, uh, there's
Speaker 2: just death everywhere. Now, the the police get involved. So
Speaker 2: the third act, that's I guess pretty standard for movies
Speaker 2: like this. The police come in and they're like, well,
Speaker 2: we've got to we've got to set a trap for
Speaker 2: Tom and the bikers, and they decide they want to
Speaker 2: use Abby as bait because Abby is the only one
Speaker 2: of them who doesn't buy into this, and she decides
Speaker 2: she actually doesn't want to become undead. She likes living
Speaker 2: thanks very much, and she backs out of it.
Speaker 1: So she does almost overdose and has like a dream sequence.
Speaker 1: That's that's uh, that's kind of good.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, that is very good. In the meantime,
Speaker 2: the bikers are riding around. There's yet another grocery store
Speaker 2: punishment scene. Or they're just plowing through the aisles. This
Speaker 2: carnation evaporated milk must suffer, you know, the marmite will pay.
Speaker 2: And they're smashing all of the products, and you see
Speaker 2: and you see Jane being especially evil. She's like, I, I,
Speaker 2: you know, I want to I want to hit baby
Speaker 2: carriages with my motorcycle. I just want to do the
Speaker 2: most evil things I can think of.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, she run. She's on her motorcycle driving through
Speaker 1: the aisle, aiming at the baby carriage, hits the baby carriage,
Speaker 1: and then of course Kareem's into the like the meat
Speaker 1: counter in the back. And of course these are all
Speaker 1: real motorcycle stunts. So it's like they're just wiping out
Speaker 1: in a in a grocery store.
Speaker 2: I wonder what grocery store they shut this in. Was
Speaker 2: it a safe way?
Speaker 1: Maybe?
Speaker 6: So?
Speaker 1: Yeah, But Abby's along. Abby's getting cold feet at this point,
Speaker 1: for sure, like she was really I mean, no, she's
Speaker 1: more than that, Like she she had already decided she
Speaker 1: doesn't want any part of this, but now she's part
Speaker 1: of this, this police scheme to trap them, which I
Speaker 1: didn't completely understand how this played out.
Speaker 2: Tho yeh, I didn't either, because just.
Speaker 1: Suddenly, like they lay her out in the morgue and
Speaker 1: they let Tom know that she's dead, I guess, so
Speaker 1: that he'll come and get her. And then there we
Speaker 1: get some groovy music playing and then there's a suddenly
Speaker 1: we see all the police and the police inspector, including Fudge.
Speaker 1: They're just they're in the like the coroners when like
Speaker 1: the little cubby holes for the corpses, for the cadavers,
Speaker 1: and so I guess they've been off screen killed as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that is the implication that Tom just
Speaker 2: just dispatched them, as he does with nearly everyone he
Speaker 2: meets now.
Speaker 1: Because again he has super strength and cannot be hurt. Right,
Speaker 1: They're just they're running wild. Granted they're not trying to
Speaker 1: do much. But then we get a scene where Shadwell
Speaker 1: and Mom are talking to Tom and they're like, well,
Speaker 1: what are your plans what's next. And he's like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: you know, there are a lot of police officers and teachers,
Speaker 1: and he just runs through a list of like various
Speaker 1: generally like small level local authority figures, and he's like,
Speaker 1: we're just going to kill all of them. That's what
Speaker 1: we're going to do. We're's going to completely tear down
Speaker 1: society from the bottom up.
Speaker 2: So then I think even Mom, even though she's been
Speaker 2: involved in a lot of evil magic, she sort of
Speaker 2: has a change of heart. She's like, what have I done?
Speaker 2: What kind of monster have I created?
Speaker 1: And of course Shadwell is there, and the Shadwell early
Speaker 1: on had mentioned had dropped that those stones that we
Speaker 1: saw earlier, well, those are what's left of ancient warlocks
Speaker 1: who forgot their bargain or turned their back on the
Speaker 1: powers that they served. And so when she starts saying,
Speaker 1: well they must, I want to back out. I don't
Speaker 1: want to be part of whatever deal I've made with whoever,
Speaker 1: with the beings beyond the mirror, the thing that takes
Speaker 1: the form of the frog or what have you. And
Speaker 1: he's like, well, you know, there's a price to pay,
Speaker 1: and she's like, well, I will do.
Speaker 2: It, And so that's what we get in the end.
Speaker 2: Even though the evil dead Bikers cannot be defeated by
Speaker 2: conventional arms or weapons, they can be undone by ritual magic,
Speaker 2: and so ultimately they I had to call in somebody's
Speaker 2: mom to fix things.
Speaker 1: Yes, so yeah. The final scene is Abby's standing up
Speaker 1: to them. Abby's pretended to be undead, you know, sort
Speaker 1: of going along with it, but Tom suspects something's up
Speaker 1: when he drives through a brick walls totally it, and
Speaker 1: she goes around it. He's like, what's up. You're not dead,
Speaker 1: are you? And she's like, no, I wanted to tell you,
Speaker 1: And then the whole gang kind of turns on her.
Speaker 1: He's reaching out to strangle her, but Mom has turned
Speaker 1: off the magic, and perhaps the sun is involved as well,
Speaker 1: because suddenly they start turning to stone. All the bikers
Speaker 1: turn to stone right there in the hinge, and Abby
Speaker 1: is the only one left alive. And then this dark
Speaker 1: vehicle pulls up and a lone figure gets out of
Speaker 1: it and begins walking towards her. And I believe this
Speaker 1: is supposed to be Shadwell.
Speaker 2: Maybe in his like fully realized devil form or warlock
Speaker 2: form or something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I love the ending because it was one
Speaker 1: of these what's happening, what's what is the future? Is
Speaker 1: Shadwell showing up now offer Abby the deal, the deal
Speaker 1: that the mom has backed out on, the deal that
Speaker 1: we really don't know any of the details of, which,
Speaker 1: again I kind of like because again, part of the
Speaker 1: film is it's about the youth. It's about the youth
Speaker 1: in the world that the grown ups have created, and
Speaker 1: they certainly don't understand all the ramifications and the rules
Speaker 1: of that world, either the real world or certainly the
Speaker 1: supernatural world that Shadwell and Mom are involved in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And you know, one thing I love about the
Speaker 2: ending is that, so all these biker movies are about
Speaker 2: young people rebelling against authority structures. Something about the motorcycle
Speaker 2: signals a kind of freedom, a kind of removal of
Speaker 2: the constraints established by the authority figures around you. And
Speaker 2: at the end of this movie, what you've got to
Speaker 2: do is call somebody's mom to like make him stop
Speaker 2: acting up. And I love it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And then we roll credits, and it's also fun.
Speaker 1: This is a credit sequence that the divides the cast
Speaker 1: up by the factions they were involved in, which I
Speaker 1: thought was nice. So you get a full list of
Speaker 1: the bikes, you get the the law, you also get
Speaker 1: the survivors. So I really I really appreciate that. I
Speaker 1: wish I saw we saw that more, certainly in modern
Speaker 1: modern credits on films.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, I like that too. I like the
Speaker 2: fonts too. I always write comment on good fonts.
Speaker 1: Even the fonts on their their jackets are really nice.
Speaker 1: Tom I believe has like a pink and green like
Speaker 1: kind of a it's kind of like a like it
Speaker 1: feels very eighties the coloration on his name tag portion
Speaker 1: of his his jacket. But I really like it. I'm
Speaker 1: just surprised nobody's remade this or revisited it.
Speaker 2: I'm so glad nobody has ultimately better. I mean, this
Speaker 2: is a I think, a nearly perfect trash movie that
Speaker 2: I could not ask for, a better seventies supernatural biker movie.
Speaker 2: This is sort of the peak for me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree this. I think this is the supernatural
Speaker 1: biker film par excellence. So you might be wondering out there, well,
Speaker 1: where can I watch Psychomania? Well, Psychomania, fortunately is widely
Speaker 1: available in digital formats. Aero Video put out an absolutely
Speaker 1: beautiful looking two disc blu ray of this film a
Speaker 1: few years back, and you can still pick that up.
Speaker 1: The soundtrack is also widely available in all formats. But
Speaker 1: if you're looking to stream this picture, I believe it
Speaker 1: is hosted on numerous streaming platforms slash channels including shutter
Speaker 1: fandor and AMC, and all of those have free trial periods.
Speaker 1: So if you just want to dip in and get
Speaker 1: yourself some psychomania and then and then check out, well
Speaker 1: then that's certainly an option. Yeah, rev it up, all right,
Speaker 1: We're going to go ahead and close this out real
Speaker 1: quick though, you know, since there were some suicidal elements
Speaker 1: in this picture and we discussed them a little bit.
Speaker 1: If you're troubled by suicidal thoughts, you are not alone.
Speaker 1: In a sympathetic ear is only a phone call away.
Speaker 1: In the United States, consider calling the National Suicide Prevention
Speaker 1: Hotline at one eight hundred and two seven three eight
Speaker 1: two five five. You can visit Suicide Prevention Lifeline dot
Speaker 1: org for additional reas sources tailored towards general and specific
Speaker 1: needs and communities. You'll also find a list of local
Speaker 1: and international suicide hotlines at suicide dot org. That's going
Speaker 1: to be it for this episode of Weird House Cinema,
Speaker 1: but we will be back. You can check out Weird
Speaker 1: House Cinema every Friday in the Stuff to Blow Your
Speaker 1: Mind podcast feed We're primarily a science podcast, with our
Speaker 1: core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We have what a
Speaker 1: Listener Mail on Mondays, Artifact on Wednesday, Vault episode on Friday,
Speaker 1: and a little rerun on the weekend.
Speaker 2: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth
Speaker 2: Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch
Speaker 2: with us with feedback on this episode or any other,
Speaker 2: to suggest a topic for the future, or just to
Speaker 2: say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff
Speaker 2: to Blow your Mind dot com.
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