THE DEATH WHEELERS

THE DEATH WHEELERS

THE DEATH WHEELERS is the US title for a 1971 British movie released and better known on these shores as PSYCHOMANIA. It’s a movie that jumped to the top of my ‘must see’ list back in 2004 when I gathered that the sampled dialogue which opened the title track of UK Doom Metal legends ELECTRIC WIZARD’s "WE LIVE" album had been respectfully borrowed from it.

Who could resist a movie that featured a couple of perplexed police officers discussing crazed bikers jabbing at tyres with knifes?

"Any identification?" enquires the detective. "Yeah … The Living Dead again..!"

The Living Dead in this spirited tale are not zombies, well not straight away anyway, but are in fact a gang of hell raising bikers. If Alex and his white boiler suit clad ‘droogs’ sipped milk to Beethoven before terrorizing suburbia in the dead of night, The Living Dead crew were decked in black leather, tore society apart in broad daylight and I would imagine would be swigging a bottle of Jack in between tokes while fuzzing out to Sabbath! They are made up of Hinky (Rocky Taylor), Chopped Meat (Miles Greenwood), Hatchet (Denis Gilmore), Bertram (Roy Holder), Gash (Peter Whitting), Jane Pettibone (Ann Michelle) and our two romantically connected main protagonists Abby (Mary Larkin) and Tom Latham (Nicky Henson).

Tom, the self-appointed leader of the two wheeled posse, may well have dubbed his gang with that uncanny name for a very good reason. His mother, Mrs Latham (Beryl Reid), is somewhat of a spiritualist whose regular séances enable folk to communicate with their deceased loved ones.

Her occult tendencies appear to have been inherited by her son as Tom himself has a penchant for making out in graveyards with Abby while fantasizing with her about "crossing over to the other side" with an amorous suicide pact that will ultimately allow them to return to this world…

Of course having a sorceress for a parent brings its complications. As such, Tom has three burning questions:

How did his father mysteriously die in a prohibited room of their house? Why does their butler, Shadwell (George Sanders), never age? And what is the secret of coming back to life after death?

Due to increasing pressure on Mrs Latham and her seemingly perpetual servant, Tom is given a key to the mysterious room of the house, the very place where is father unexplainably passed away. It is here he has a hallucinogenic episode and loses consciousness. While trying to revive Tom, Mrs Latham and Shadwell discuss between them the very secret to eternal life. It’s all very simply really. At the point of death you have to not just want to come back to life but "BELIEVE with all your being" that you will return. The benefit of such a valiant success is that, when back, you can never be harmed again!

Their casual conversation accidently divulges this secret knowledge to her son whose words "Thank you Mother!" and accompanying sprawled grin reveal Tom was faking his temporary coma all along.

Naturally it is not long before Tom tries out this new technique courtesy of doing "the ton". Reaching a 100mph on his mean machine is a little risky but deliberately hurtling off a bridge proves to be the suicidal start to his transient demise.

His distraught contemporaries give him a funeral to be proud of. A coffin is dispensed of in favour of burying their leader mounted on his two wheeled vehicle in riding pose at a site called the Seven Witches.

Any notion that Tom doubted his mother’s surreptitious magic are duly quashed when an eruption of graveyard dirt followed by the unmistakable roar of his engine projects the Living Dead’s leader back into existence with the immortal faculties of.... THE LIVING DEAD!

Well this is the type of movie that gets filed under CLASSIC in my collection! The opening three minute title sequence was enough etch itself in my memory all those years ago. It features the movies hauntingly psychedelic guitar melody as we are treated to a surreal sequence of slow circular motorbike processions through a cemetery. The picture flits from dusk to hazy purple which all equates to a quite wonderful hook for what is to follow.

The story itself is an uncomplicated yet glorious blend of fantasy, witchcraft and bizarre originality. Black candles compliment the black biker leathers while the upper crust of English aristocracy in Shadwell and Mrs Latham offer a wonderful contrast to the gang of delinquents.

The myths and legends that are casually dripped into the story are cleverly utilized in a wonderfully satisfying conclusion to this tragic tale of love, suicide and toad worship. (Even though the chaptering of Cheezy Flicks discs refers to it as a ‘frog’, the fact Blood Ceremony’s track HOP TOAD samples Tom’s "little green friend" line is good enough reason for me to call it so!)

Yes the picture is camp and kitschy, but bar a few glaring continuity errors, TDW really is a highly entertaining 90 minutes that is a much cherished addition to any British Horror aficionado’s collection.

So that’s the good news but I have learnt over the last couple of years or so that any DVD displaying the Cheezy Flicks moniker usually means proceed with caution. The TDW disc is no different.

Firstly the widescreen 1.66:1 original theatrical print that Elite Entertainment sourced in their ‘Euroshock’ release of PSYCHOMANIA not been used. Instead we get a boxy 4: 3 aspect ratio print which, if truth be told, is truly appalling! I appreciate we have been spoiled lately with re-mastered high definition discs courtesy of conscientious distributors but that is irrelevant. Depending on the rarity of the movie, I personally find a few scratches here and there actually add an element of atmosphere to these unearthed vintage gems.

But with CF’s disc, a quite ludicrous amount impeding abrasions dance around the square screen for the first few minutes. Admittedly their intensity ease off after about 5 minutes but the print remains a much washed out one with colours fluctuating as if it had taken a lick of the aforementioned magical toads trip inducing slimy skin!

The audio is also extremely poor due to being hampered with buzzing and whirring throughout. At first this was merely a hindrance to the groovy occult flavoured organ and sinister low piano keys of the delicious musical score but it deteriorated to the point that, at times, it sounded like a fucking Harley Davidson was idling away in my living room! It’s bad folks, real bad!

Given the undeniably inferior quality of the disc, you may be surprised to hear there are still possibly a couple of reasons to actually lay down your hard earned cash for it. The movie does seem fully intact unlike the Geneon disc which I understand has perplexingly omitted the Mrs Latham séance scene. Then we have the opening title sequence which features the US title "THE DEATH WHEELERS" in purple font emblazoned across the screen as oppose to the more commonly seen "PSYCHOMANIA" intro. That, along with the CF disc being complimented by the original US poster art on the DVD’s packaging, just about offsets the glaring flaws in my humble opinion.

In a final twist of irony, TDW was George Sanders last acting role before he took his own life a year later. His suicide had no ulterior motive like the narrative of his final movie if his parting note was anything to go by:

"Dear World, I am leaving because I am bored. I feel I have lived long enough. I am leaving you with your worries in this sweet cesspool. Good luck."

Thanks George for the wishes of luck, and your touch of class to a quirky horror movie that is as ageless as your unique character within it…

Review by Marc Lissenburg


 
Released by Cheezy
Region 1 - NTSC
Not Rated
Extras :
see main review
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