Weirdhouse Cinema: Psychomania

The Priest's grin is wild with that twist of his hand, flexing the wrist. Is he wringing a hen's neck to adorn the altar of spring? Or is this the spell that brings the iron hog to life? Welcome to Stuff to Blow your mind production of My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamp and I'm Joe McCormick and Robert I'm so excited today. I'm so excited because you you out there. You know if you've been listening to Weird House Cinema, that we love

our implausible genre crossover films. One of my favorite examples we've done so far is the niche sub genre represented by our back catalog entry Santo and The Treasure of Dracula. Of course that would be the supernatural wrestling film. Well, today we're finally doing a supernatural biker film, a niche subgenre that really holds a strong, powerful, revving place in my heart. It gets my motor running. I love it, I love it, I love it. Yeah, this one, this one is a lot of fun. And I it'd been

on my list to watch for a while. I know you've been talking about it for years, and we we occasionally talked about biker films and supernatural biker films, but I had not actually watched until this week and it was just a total of the light. Just such a wonderfully weird film, um and delightfully so. Now you have seen other supernatural biker movies, right, Like you've seen Werewolves on Wheels. Oh yeah, Werewolves on Wheels, a very American

supernatural biker film from the same time period. But this, this is a very British film we're talking about here today. Yes, yes, We're Rolves on Wheels is a grosser, sweatier, more guttural American Western style, uh supernatural biker film. This supernatural biker film is a bit more tweedy and uh, I don't know has the the English morning Fog on its back today. The movie we're talking about is the nineteen seventy three Dish supernatural biker movie Psychomania a k a. The Death Wheelers.

And uh So, whenever you have a great genre crossover movie, you want to identify, like, what are the main streams feeding into this? And Robert, if you disagree, let me know. But I think the main two things we're getting as inputs here are, on one hand, outlaw biker movies, which we can talk about in a little more detail in a minute, and then the other hand would be like British witchcraft horror films allah, the hammer horror movies of the late sixties and early seventies. Yes, I think those

are those are probably the two primary influences. But I think it's also worth noting the Avengers DNA in this we have some people connected to the Avengers and the Avengers. If you're not familiar with the Avengers TV show, A it was it was pretty fun, but being it also would it generally featured this sort of idea of contemporary weirdness in the world. Uh not unlike what the X Files would do later, And I think there's a hint

of that in this film. Okay. I didn't think about that input at all because I've never actually seen The Avengers, though I know what it is. This is very different than Marvel's The Avengers. This is the British TV show, Yeah, the one that was eventually made into what one of Sean Connery's last films, if not his last film, um, one of the last films that they tried to do a reboot of it decades ago and it was not successful. But the original TV series was often a lot of fun. Yeah.

Another way of thinking about this movie is, Okay, if you've got the precedent of werewolves on wheels in America, this is sort of like, uh, druid lytch kings on wheels, like undead stone hinge magic demons revving their engines and and uh and and doing all the outlaw biker stuff, but from beyond the grave. Yes, now. I often turned to Michael Weldon's psychotronic video guides for a little guidance in the films that we We We we We turned to Sometimes I discover a film by looking it is work.

Other times we'll will be thinking about one and I'll see what he had to say about it. Um. I'm not going to read his entire mini review for this one, but it but one of He basically kicks off his review of Psychomania by saying incredible. To say the least, I disagree. I think it's quite credible. I would let this co sign on a loan. Now I want to I want to put a note about the title. So I think we already alluded to the fact that it was also released as The Death Wheelers um, which in

some ways is a better title for the film. Like Death Wheelers, it's you know, death and motorcycles. We're not actually sure what Psychomania means in context of this film, but I wonder if the title situation here it might have to do with the fact that there was another film titled Psychomania that was released in nineteen sixty three, so ten years earlier, also known as Violent Midnight, who was directed by the guy who wrote Horror at Party Beach.

In that movie is just a murder picture. The nineteen seventy three Psychomania is so much more, and that that is definitely the film we're talking about here today, a supernatural biker film. Okay, well, I guess we need to dwell on the concept of a biker film for a moment, because before you had supernatural biker films, you just had the biker genre as a sort of uh fad movie genre.

And the fifties through the seventies. Yeah, and I guess more specifically, so, boy, I guess the big thing here is that, first of all, motorcycles are not inherently one thing or another, and a motorcycle enthusiasts are not inherently one thing or the other. So you have motorcyclists, you have motorcycle clubs, but then you also have this area that is often referred to as the outlaw motorcycle club and that is generally what is dwelt upon in films

such as these, right. I mean, I'd say for the same reason that there are more movies about bank robbers

than there are about accountants right now. Outlaw motorcycle clubs began to form in the late nineteen forties in the Western United States, and over time, motorcycle club culture, outlaw or or non outlaw, has spread around the world and it's it's quite fascinating because what we have here is an American subculture, and in the cases of outlaw motorcycle gangs and often criminal subculture, that ends up just resonating around the world, finding slightly different forms and different cultures,

um inspiring fiction inspiring myth and and then also in turn you have the reality of motorcycle clubs and outlaw motorcycle clubs fed by fiction and myth. So we end up with a number of different variations of the mythic outlaw motorcyclist. You know, we have the noble outlaw, the scoundrel, the sort of anti hippie, the rebellious youth, the rebel without a cause, et cetera. So, as far as outlaw biker films go, we certainly don't have time to list them all here, but I want to mention just some

of the big ones, some of the the precursors to psychomania. Now, the first big one, of course, is nineteen fifty threes, The Wild One starring Marlon Brando. Even if you haven't seen this film, and I have to admit I've never watched The Wild One, you've seen the title, you've seen the cover, you've seen stills from this or maybe even seen a clip from it. It's generally critically well received.

It was highly influential, and of course a lot of low budget exploitation films came in its wake, just for just for decades like this, this was a big film. But yeah, by the time you get into the sixties, you have the counterculture, you have a lot going on. Obviously, during the nineteen sixties you also have Hunter S. Thompson's book Hell's Angels coming out, which details his you know, sort of gonzo journalism experience with the notorious UM Motorcycle Club.

And uh, and then a lot of stuff comes in the wake of that. You have Russ Meyer's Motorcycle in nineteen sixty five. I think that was actually before um Thompson's book. But then you get The Wild Angels in nineteen sixty six by Roger Corman. Uh, this one, this one is actually watch part of this one. I think it's a It has a great cast. You've got Peter Fonda, Nancy Sinatra, Bruce Dern, Diane ladd Um. Definitely a precursor to Easy Writer because it involves some of the same people.

And then yeah, you get easy Rider in nineteen sixty nine, a highly influential hippie biker film directed by Dennis Hopper. Terrific film, easy Writer. But but you might be asking, well, these are all American films. When did the British films come in? Well, you have some notable entries in the

British biker film um bucket of content. Here you have The Leather Boys from sixty four, The Girl on a Motorcycle from sixty eight, as well as some early forays into horror hybrid biker films, such as The Black Rider in nineteen fifty four. I don't know, you might be I haven't seen this one yet, but I think maybe it does. I mean, it does have a motorcyclist in it. I don't know how motorcycle club the elements there are.

But then there's also a sixty three film called The Damned which has some sort of motorcyclist element to it as well. And then by the nineteen seventies, basically we've had so many biker films come out that you see this need to create new twists on the genre. You can't just put out a biker film, you know, you can't just say, oh, well, they're bad boys out there right and around on bikes? Well, how bad are they?

Could they be supernaturally bad? And that's where we get stuff like seventy ones were Wolves on Wheels or seventy two s blood freak Um as well as this is later and this comes after the time period we're talking about. But I bought a vampire motorcycle from nine. Oh, I don't know that one. I was looking at it looks good. I believe that one's British, so I may have to investigate further. But today's picture might well be considered the

supernatural biker film par excellence. Uh. This, this really takes the cake without a doubt. If you want to watch supernatural biker horror movies, I think you should start with Psychomania. Yeah, and really, I feel like with biker fiction in general, we kind of ebbs and flows right. A few years back, we had that fairly long running uh Sons of Anarchy series which I ended up watching all of Uh. Oh, it's it's it's entertaining. It's uh, it's it's an interesting Uh,

it's an interesting show. It's it's it has a lot of cheesy elements, it has a lot of elements that um or maybe in questionable taste uh at the time and certainly by today's standards, but it had a lot of things going for it, like essentially trying to do a motorcycle gang story that is Shakespearean influence story at least shakespeare light uh in its creation. So which Shakespeare was it based on? You? Like, well, the basic bones

of it. They tried to set up a Hamlet thing like, um, young, what's his name, Charlie, Charlie you know you know the guy Charlie Hunt. Um, yes him, Yes, Yeah, he's basic a Hamlet. They set that up, is like he is the Hamlet of this biker scenario, and they they don't try and like actually hit all the story beats of Hamlet exactly, and then they throw a little bit of McBeth in there at times. Uh. It's it's amusing, okay, But I'm ready for the needle to come back to

supernatural biker films. That's where we need to go. If they want to keep the sons of Anarchy thing going that make it vampires, make it where we'll bring that, bring that back in. That's that's my two cents. Yeah, what has there been lately? That really counts. I guess there's like the what's that superhero who's like a supernatural biker? Oh, night right, Nicholas Cage, Nicolas Cage, night night Right, ghost Rider, ghost Right ghost Rider. Yeah, not not right, that's that's

a different thing altogether. I haven't seen any of those except that first movie with Nicolas Cage, which I recall being hilarious. I think Peter Fonda shows up in one of those. Oh does he Yeah, Yeah, that that's sort of rings a bell. Maybe it was in that first one. Yeah, that's a fun inclusion. It's thoughtful to include Peter Fonda in it. The main thing I remember about that one is that the that kid who's in American Beauty is the villain in it, and he's some kind of monster.

And there's a part where he's like in the middle of the desert and he just walks right up to the camera and looks into the camera and goes he like opens his mouth and a bunch of teeth and stuff come out. Well that that sound. That sounds great, And I'm sure that character will be back, though they'll they'll create some other uh what do you say? His

name was Death not death Writer? Night writer, night writer, ghostwriter, ghostwriter. Yes, all right, Well, if you can't figure out the elevator pitch based on everything we've already said, I don't know how much help we're going to be other than the Lynch King rides. It's it's undead bikers. Let's go ahead and listen to the trailer, and I think, like last week, we might just let the trailer play in its entirety

because it's wonderful. It's a it's the same year as last week selection, so it makes sense or problem makers as long as they live of their return from beyond the grave with superhuman powers, unleashing an unholy reign of terror that holds an entire community in the grip of psychomania. Psychomania everybody dies, don't there? But some come back? How do the dead come back? Mother? When you die, you've got to believe that you're going to come back. Wow?

Can you kill yourself? That's right off the grade. I'm going You can only die once. After that, nothing and nobody canna harm you. Oh no, what are you waiting for? I must stop him? You can't, I must, I can. What happened? You're not dead? That's what I was trying to tell you to, I do want to die good after them, and you know what you will become, and that it will be for all eternity. You can only die once. After that, nothing and nobody can harm you. Cycle.

One thing about this movie is it's just so British. It has this film of Britishness all over it. It's

you know, it just smells like baked beans. It's a it's a can of hinds baked beans driving a motorcycle through a round about it And and it's also got that wonderful like the inner cutting between the violent, uh manic parts on the road where they're out, you know, riding around harassing motorists and all that on the motorway, and then and then contrasting that with the indoor scenes where like they go to a pub or they go into somebody's house and it has this amazing quaint stuffiness

of early seventies Britain. Uh It's yeah, it's it's just tremendous. Well, it's an interesting twist if you've if you're used to seeing mostly American biker films, there, any biker film is gonna have scenes where the bikers are messing with the squares. But yes, more often than not in your American biker films, these are taking place in rural situations, you know, say like a gas station. Uh often, So it's often, you know,

very rural individuals who are bedeviled by the bikers. And in this case we get just it's not even like rural Britain person. I mean, it's not London obviously, but it's um, you know, it's it's it's in town or it's you know, on the street surrounding town. But it's the British way of life that is threatened by the bikers as opposed to the like American Midwest or or or sort of desert community kind of vibe. Yeah. I'm not sure, but I think it's supposed to be a

town in the southwest of England. Um, I think it's supposed to be a town in like Wiltshire or something. I don't know if I'm saying that right, Wiltshire, Wiltshire, whatever it is. But yeah, there there is a thing that definitely that they do in this movie that a

lot of outlaw biker movies have to do. Even non supernatural, utterly mundane outlaw biker movies have to have a scene of the bikers riding around knocking things over in some public place, and in this movie they they do it in a grocery store, and they do it in the middle of a town square, which makes me wonder was it actually a common occurrence for outlaw biker gangs at the time and I don't know, the early seventies to just ride around in public places knocking things over, saying

that shouldn't be upright, and I'll make it sideway is or is this merely symbolic, like a way of showing them causing chaos that can be accomplished on screen in a single scene. I don't know. Uh, yeah, I don't know if if actual bikers, actual outlaw bikers, engage in this kind of thing, because certainly there are accounts of outlaw bikers engaging in in all manner of criminal activities. I guess you know, the kinds of things you would see with any type of organized crime, right, yeah, but yeah,

organized crime smuggling things like that. You don't see a lot of, say New York Times articles about them just knocking stuff over in grocery stores. But this, this reminds me. I was reading an interview or part of an interview with the lead singer of Electric Wizard. Uh, like what his name? I just just oh Born, I think yeah, Yeah. And doom metal band, Yeah, doom metal band. Uh, stoner band of kind of vibe and uh there was a quote from it that I want to read here just

because I thought it was amazing. He says, Um, I don't know why isn't venerated in the same way as the wicker Man or witch Finder general. There was a whole generation of us who grew up watching it on TV. In Wimborne, there used to be a safe Ways that's like a grocery like we've seen in this film, with an entrance on one end and an exit right at the other. We used to bike right through it. On BMX is kicking stuff over it was called doing a psychomania.

That's perfect. Oh no, oh no, the kids getting bad idea. They're imitating an act of violence they saw on television and what they were watching is psychomania. Well, it comes back to this idea of the motorcycle club, the outline motorcycle club in myth and in fiction and in reality, and how these things all feed into each other. You know. Yeah,

at least I guess it wasn't violence against people. I mean, I don't advocate knocking over pyramids of cans of baked beans, but yeah, but you know, I guess you gotta do

it sometimes. That's one of the great things about this film though, is that, yes, the characters do engage in some heinous acts of violence, mostly off screen, but they all so just do some very low level criminal mischief in this just yeah, knocking over stuff, um, like mind calling in traffic, Yeah, name calling and traffic just minor assaults on the British way of life. And also murder. Also murder, so it's murder or like pulling up beside

somebody in the truck and going yan. Yeah, yeah, that kind of alright, So we talk about some of the people in this film, since we're talking about about the people here absolutely. Now is it true that this was directed by somebody who had done a bunch of Hammer

horror films? Yeah, at least a few. This is. The director on this picture was Don Sharpe, who lived nine through two thousand and eleven, Australian born British director, probably best known for his Hammer films, including sixty three is the Kiss of The Vampire sixty four is The Devil Ship Pirates and ra Sputin the Mad Monk from nineteen sixty six. I believe this is This is one that our producers, Seth is quite fond of. Oh yeah, was this?

Does this one actually have Christopher Lee as Resputant? It does? Yes, Oh, I've got to see that. I love a good portrayal of rescputing. One of my favorites, if I've never mentioned it on this show before is uh. He doesn't get all that much screen time, but his scenes are fabulous. So there's a movie, uh, from the seventies called Nicholas and Alexandra that's about the Romanovs and the Russian Revolution and all that. Uh. And it has Tom Baker, who

played the doctor on Doctor Who as rest Sputant. And he is just awesome, just devastating. He will he will turn your brain into a boiled ham. His scenes will will just beat you into submission. You'll be watching without blinking. It's so good. I looked at some screenshots of it. It looks it looks pretty great. Yeah. Now. Sharp also directed not the first sequel to the Fly, but the second Fly sequel, The Return of the Fly. In ninety. He also did a film titled Bear Island in nineteen

seventy nine, um, which I believe involves bears. And he also directed three episodes of the original The Avengers series, which we cited here. Oh okay, some things are coming together here, Hammer, Horror and The Avengers. All right, let's

move on to the screenwriters here. There's are No Diso, who lived nineteen sixteen through nineteen nine, American screenwriter who also pinned the seventy two UK Spanish co production Horror Express, which is a is a wonderful little film starring Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Telly Savalis. Wait wait, wait, wait, wait wait, is this the one where they extract the image of the killer from someone's eye? Yes, And there's also some sort of like sort of a Neanderthal monster wandering around

the train. It has a couple of weird elements going around in it, but it's it's it's quite quite amusing. I saw it several years ago. Yeah. So the the dan that the the I scene is that what like the last image of person saw before they died is like imprinted on their retina, and somehow they extract that

from the Victim. Yeah, and uh, there's actually an older episode of stuff to blow your mind when I did with with Christian where we we get into this idea and how this idea kind of traveled around and scientific and pseudo scientific uh groups for a while. Now, that's just one of the screenwriters. The other is Julian Zimmitt, another American. I believe. Zim had also worked on Horror Express and various pictures through the forties, fifties, sixties and seventies,

this being his final film credit. Now, the main character in this film, I guess you could argue about who the main character is, but one of the main characters is a is a very naughty motorcycle youth named Tom Latham. And he's played by an actor named Nicki Henson. Yeah, Nicky Henson, Who's Who's certainly an actor I've seen before, but I really wasn't that familiar with him. He lived through nineteen British actor with a long career and britis

film and television. And I'd say the big titles worth mentioning our two thousand and fives, Uh, Syriana. This was a film with George Clooney in it. He also did three episodes of Dalton Abbey. So you Downton Nabby viewers, if you remember a character named Charles Grigg, that's that's our Nikki. I had to go ask Rachel who if she remembered who he was in the show, and she did figure out who he was, but now I can't remember what she told me. Yeah, my my, my wife

did not remember this character. But I looked up a scene with him, and he looks he looks fun and I think he plays at a veteran of the theater or something in it. Oh wait, yes, now I remember what it is, okay, um, I think if I recall correctly, she said that he is a former vaudeville performing partner with like the head butler guy at the at the house, at the at the manor, and uh, every and he

comes back and he like threatens or something. He says like he's like, if you don't pay me money, I'm gonna let everybody know that you used to be stage performer and that you weren't always so so civilized. All right, Well, yeah, the clip I looked at it looked fun. It looks like a fun performance worthy of of an actor who certainly had a had a very dramatic voice when he wanted to. Though in this movie. I mean, he's perfect

for the role. I love him in this, but he's he does he's not He's not playing it in a serious way. This entire performance is one incredibly extended smirk. Well, I don't know. There's one sequence where he is afraid and frightened and seems to oh that's true, yeah, but then he gets over that really quickly. Um. Now, he was also on east Enders, which I think a lot

of British actors work. But he was also in such genre pictures as sixty eight, which Finder General, which came up a second ago, and then also that one was one that starred Vincent Price, and I think I've alluded to Vincent Price's uh facial hair in that before um uh he caused the Gandalf from the Soviet Lord of the Rings looked like which Finder General exactly. Yeah. But also Nicky Hinson was in seventy four's Old Dracula, starring David Niven as Old Dracula. I have not seen it,

but it sounds sounds interesting. What's the premise there wasn't Dracula already old? I think? But now he's even older. I don't know, but clearly I think you're running out of Dracula ideas when you're just when you bust out a whole Dracula. I don't know. Maybe it's great, and I just I'm not giving it a chance. It's like that Key and Peel skit with the pitch meeting for Gremlins too. They're just coming up with different ideas for Dracula.

What about electricity Dracula? How about old Dracula, Old Dracula. It's in the movie Vegetable Dracula. Yeah. But but Nicky Hinson, Uh, he's good in this uh like you say, it's it's it's largely one note except for the one scene. But he's very charismatic. Um, he's dressed in leather the whole time. He has this kind of like a big chest, narrow waste thing going on. So he has this, uh, this youthful vigor to him that really works in the role.

He has a great Nigel Toughnell mullet. Yes, yes, there's a lot of great early seventies hair in this picture. Longside burns everything, alright. So he plays Tom Latham. But his character's mother is also an important character. This is Miss Latham, played by Beryl Reid, who lived nineteen nineteen through nineteen. An acclaimed British stage actor, she won a nineteen sixty seven Tony Award for Best Actress in uh

in the play The Killing of Sister George. She was also in the film adaptation of that play, and other credits include the original Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy TV series or perhaps limited mini series that starred Alec Guinness, and she was also in the nineteen eighty three Graham Chapman pirate film Yellow Beard. Now, before we started recording today, we were talking about a song, a folk song that

I really love. Is one of my favorites called nineteen fifty two vincent black Lightning by the by the British singer songwriter Richard Thompson. Um it's a wonderful song, but it is a song about a a redheaded girl who falls in love with a bad motorcycle boy and then when he dies from a shotgun blast to the chest, he gives her his motorcycle to ride, his nineteen fifty two vincent black Lightning, And immediately I thought of this movie because this is a movie about a redheaded girl

who's in love with a bad motorcycle boy who dies. Yes, the character is Abby Holman and she's played by the actor Mary Larkin. This was is was an Irish actor. H did a fair amount of film and TV work. Nothing that really stands out to me personally in her filmography, but I think British TV viewers may have some notes for us on this. But she has a very nice film presence, uh in this motion picture. I'll also say,

I want to point this out. Her name is Abby and you frequently get reminded of this because she has a leather jacket. She's in the gang, and she has her name on it. And I love a movie that has name tags. It's it was. It was a lot easier to keep track of everybody in this film. I

wish more pictures had name tax like this. What's that scene where for most of the movie you don't hear most of the names of the characters the biker gang, But then there's one scene where undead Tom is just looking at all of them, one in a row and saying their names, and the sequence is hilarious. It's something he says something like gash Hatchet, Bertram Yep, chopped Meat is another uh huh, yep. I think chop Meat is the the folk singer of the group that I'm not mistaken.

Really yeah, I mean I don't think the actor was actually a folk singer. But there's a scene later on where we get a folk song, and I think chop Meat, out of his leather jacket is the one that's supposed to be playing that song. Could be wrong. It's such a gentle tune, you wouldn't think that it that it

comes from the mind of a crazed motorcycle killer. Well, that's a scene where they're mostly dressed like hippies, as if the film is trying to say all of us have within us, both the hippie and the biker, both the both the peace loving hippie and the necromantic, uh druid biker Wraith. These are both aspects of the same human soul, the peaceful artist whose very voice is love, and then the the motorcycle nightmare who will who will

run you down on the motorway? Yes, Now, if Abbie is the good girl in this the bad girl is Jane played by Anne Um and Michelle I believe her name was born n Other credits include House of Ripped Accord from seventy four, Haunted from seventy seven, and interestingly enough, uh, this actor was once married to a professional British motorcycle racer by the name of Richard may So uh just uh Normally not really worth mentioning what actors spouses did,

but in this case I found that interesting. She's also fantastic in this because much like Nicki Hinson, she has a smirk that mocks life itself. Yeah, she is, like said, she's the bad girl on this. She does not really questioned the whole um uh necromancy scheme that becomes central to the plot. She embraces it early on. Now we're not going to go through all the actors playing all the bikers, you know, um they're like chop meat and

horse Cross and so forth. But Bertram was played by this actor by the name of Roy holder Born and I believe still still alive. Another actor with solid British TV and film credits, including two thousand ones, War Horse, Ridley Scott's Robin Hood from eleven and various big TV series like east Enders, Coronation Street, Pride and Prejudice, sens Insensibility, etcetera.

He played the character Kreelper, a gun runner who worked for a mercenary who worked for another villain named Morgus on four episodes of Doctor Who in the nineteen eighties, and he plays Enoch in the star studded nineteen seventy seven Jesus of Nazareth mini series. I don't think I've seen this, but I long remember seeing it on video shelves as a kid. It's the one like the kind

of a big eyed Jesus on the front. You know, I'm not sure I know which one this is, right, It's it's worth looking up just to see who all was in it. It was again a star studied a project, a huge Jesus movie. Okay, all right, Uh we have a we have a police inspector in this film, representing law and order. Hate the law, you know, no respect for it. Yeah. The chief inspector in this is played by Robert Hardy, who lived through seventeen. This is Cornelius

Fudge himself from the Harry Potter films. Oh, I don't remember who that is. Who's Cornelius Fudge. He was the head of the Ministry of Magic, like the President of the Wizards or something. Yeah, like, but I mean, it's like, it's basically like, this is an actor who played authority, British authority figure as well, and so in this he plays one, and in Harry Potter he played a different one. Yeah. He he disapproves of your behavior, whatever it is. Yeah.

He was also in Angles and Sensibility. He was on All Creatures great and small, and he sure played Churchill a lot. I saw Churchill popping up a lot of his filmography. Yeah. He was also in a seventy two demon possession film titled Demons of the Mind. Now, another big connection here is that this bizarre, undead biker horror movie was the last film of the legendary actor George Sanders. Yes, George Sanders playing Shadwell the Butler. Uh, though we suspect

he's much more than a butler, the warlock butler. Yeah. He lived nineteen o six through nineteen seventy two, so he, uh you know, died the same year this film rap production. Apparently, English actor known for major roles in the forties and fifties pictures like All About Eve, Rebecca, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and man Hunt. Later audiences might know him best for his voice in Walt Disney's The Jungle Book, the you know, the old animated Jungle Book. He is

the voice of shier Khan, the tiger. I think the hawking voice, not the singing voice, is there. Yeah, yeah, there's there's a there's different different credits on those, but the talking voice is definitely Sanders. Uh. He also played Mr Freeze in the first two appearances of that character in the old Batman series. Perfect. Yeah, there are a couple of other notable actors who played that same character. Uh. It's a real lightning rod for talent that show. Um.

Because Vincent Price also popped up on Batman. Oh, I forgot about that. Who did he play? Was he the Riddler or something? No? No, no, that would have been great. Now he played Egghead, this character with just a giant Egghead. I've forgotten. It's terrible. It's like, it's should we should we do a digression here about how bad most of the Batman villains are almost all you know what. In fact, they're like the Gremlins once again in that Gremlins pitch

meeting sketch. Um, because they're all like I remember this when I was playing one of those Batman video games years ago, that allows you to sort of like collect a catalog of who all the villains are. And you've got the big ones. You all know, the Joker and the Riddler and all that. I don't know if the Riddler is different enough from the Joker, but anyway, once you get into the second tier of Batman villains, it's all just like clock Man. He is obsessed with clocks

and kills people with schemes that resemble clocks. Um, you know mad Hatter, who is obsessed with the Mad Hatter character in Alice in Wonderland. They're they're all like extremely literal. They're all you know, electricity gremlin. Yeah, I mean it is. It's like that. It's like electricity criminal, Riddle criminal, clock criminal. Because essentially, like Batman is a detective, he solves crimes.

He needs a criminal to go up against. But you have to put these at least these spins on them and uh and of course, over time, various creative minds have found interesting ways to make those ideas more potent. Take Mr Freeze for example, Like Freeze criminal is not a very interesting concept, but certainly by the time of like the animated Batman series. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, when we were kids. You know, they advice. Yeah, they found ways to to make this just a tragic and romantic figure,

you know, just a fascinating character with cool, freezing criminal powers. Oh, I want to be clear, I'm not dissing Dr Freeze especially or Mr Freeze. Even though he is a doctor. He goes by Mr Freeze, even though he has a PhD. Well, you know he takes that do no harm thing seriously. I guess I don't know PhD. I have no idea, but he's when he's freezing, he's Mr Freeze right exactly,

that's his Yeah, off off the clock. So yeah, this is this is George saunders last picture, and by all accounts, he was not in a good place at this point in his life. Uh, probably not performing at his peak. But he's still a great presence in the film. I you know, he's still he still creates some magic on the screen. Robbie, I know you always like to talk about the mu usic and the music in this movie is one of the big selling points. There are some

great uh folk songs in it. There's some great psychedelic guitar. It's all over the place. Yeah, it's a it's a it's a little bit funky in places. There's some I guess what you got like fuzztone rock notes in it. Um, it's yeah, it's it's a wonderful score. And this is definitely a score that's available and has long been available in various formats. It is the work of John Cameron

born British composer, arranger, conductor and musician. He did a number of film scores for for various pictures over the years. One that stuck out to me, and this may not be his crowning achievement. I don't remember what the music was like in this, but Frankenstein starring Randy Quait as the Monster and Patrick Bergen as the doctor. Uh. This one I think debuted on TNT on cable back when I as a kid, and I may have mentioned on the show before because when this came out and was like, yeah,

this is this is Frankenstein. This is not the first time you've brought this one up. In fact, you've brought it up almost to scold me for like making jokes about Randy Quaid. Now you can joke about Randy Quaid all you want. In terms of his acting, though Randy Quaid I have found him quite good in a few different pictures. Um, but and this was one of him playing playing the monster. But as as for the music, yeah, this is this is really good stuff from Cameron. Um uh,

you know, we'll talk about the folk ballot in a bit. Originally, the tracks off of this score, witch Hunt and Living Dead were actually released as a single on vinyl, with Cameron taking on the moniker a frog. Now there is a major frog in this movie. I honestly could not understand what the magical significance of the frog was. Maybe you can help me understand that. As we talked about the plot a little bit more, ye will get it

as a froggy film. The Psychomania gets froggy. Yeah, but before we move forward the first let's have let's have just another sample of that music, the score to Psychomania. Yeah, it's so good, it's so good. I'm feeling the last vestiges of respect for law and humanity fading away. I am about to go out and do evil, do exactly as I will. Well, let's let's go ahead and uh and talk about the film. Let's get into the plot, because this one has it's against so many weird elements.

It's it's really worth dwelling on. Well, so the very opening is just divine it. I love the first few minutes of this movie. It's once again druids on wheels. It's just bikers doing slow most stunts in the grass amidst an ancient stone circle while this acid wizard guitar music just drips in the background. I love, love, love this. Filmmakers out there, if you want to make movies today that I will just like gush about incessantly to get

this vibe, recreate it, make more of this kind of thing. Um. I believe that the setting here so they're you know, they're riding around doing bike stunts at a stone circle. I think it's supposed to be at a place called Avebury Hinge, at least according to some not super authoritative looking articles I was reading. So I'm not certain about this.

But if this is supposed to be a very hinge that is a Neolithic stone monument site much like Stoneheinge, this one's in the southwest of England, and I'm not sure if they are actually truly gunning their hogs through the real megaliths or if this is a set made to look like it. If it is a set, I'm impressed, Like, it looks pretty convincing. They may actually have been ripping me through a priceless year old ritual site. I can't tell, but these scenes are impressed. It sets the tone for

the picture. Oh yeah, yeah, so slow mobike jumps crossing in and out. I imagine they were probably actually going at pretty low speed, but then by playing it back in slow motion, you can create the impression that at full speed they would have been doing something incredibly dangerous. Um. So, so this is the biker gang at the heart of the movie. They're known as the Living Dead. I adore

their outfits. They've got these skull helmets and they all wear black leather motorcycle gear except for Jane, who wears red leather and white gloves. And these are just some bad, bad English youths whose brains have been defiled by overdoses of black leather, carbon monoxide and moral nihilism. They do what they want and they care not for man's law. Yeah, these outfits are incredible. If you if you haven't seen clips from this film, look it out because the design

and the baker helmets just looks great. Again, it looks like a skull And then they're wearing most of them again are wearing head to toe black leather and it says of course living dead on the back. Uh. And then they have their name tags on the front or yeah, which which is a great thing for criminals to have, right. So the first thing we see them doing is just uh, dangerously harassing people driving on the on the on the back,

you know, the country roads. And uh, I think they actually kill a guy like that, or at least they knock him out, like they scare him until he's in an accident and is thrown from his vehicle. So they're just out just randomly murdering innocent people. And they've got their name aimes on their clothes. Yet, this film mostly has a very sanitized view of how death works because mostly things happen, people become very still and they're dead. It's weirdly sanitized for a film that is otherwise uh,

you know just on paper is obsessed with death. Yeah. It's not a bloody movie. It's actually it's it's it's very clean. Yeah. Uh. And there are a number, like pretty much all outlaw biker films. You've got to have just these scenes of the characters being lawless and dangerous and and and harassing other people. I would call these scenes to take a coinage from Polly Walnuts Mayhem. You know, you've got to have your Mayhem sequences. And so so

that's what we get right at the get go. They go straight from the stone Circle stunts to to riding around doing mayhem and uh. And so the leader played by Nicky Henson is this guy named Tom Latham. I already mentioned that he is sort of like Nigel tough Knell of Spinal Tap, but I would describe him as a cross between Nigel tough Knell and Malcolm McDowell and a clockwork orange picture. Those two in a in a

ven diagram, and then you've got Tom. Yeah. But La la la a lot more likable, more likable than perhaps any Malcolm McDowell character has ever Sure. Yeah, Now, of course it's being a biker film. There are lots of shots of bikers biking. Um, one thing that sets us

apart from let's say, less well crafted biker films. And I've seen a few of these where sometimes you'll have a camera set up and you'll just watch the bikers approach for like a mile in the desert, you know, Um, werewolves on wheels does that, Yeah, where it's just like, wow, we're really gonna watch this for a while. They set up this shot and we're gonna we're gonna see all of it. But and there there's maybe like one shot in this where it felt like it went on a

bit long. But otherwise they did a good job of of just giving us interesting footage of our gang terrorizing the roads. So a sin that is often committed by B movies is padding, trying to insert extra stuff to pad out the run time and get to full feature length. That is a thing I would not accuse this movie of. I don't think there's a lot of padding. I think it moves at a pretty nice pace and there's not a lot of just watching people drive around with no purpose. Yeah.

And if I think if some people were confused by the film and they might say, well, maybe we needed more of the film to explain these things, I think that I think that would be the wrong instinct, because there's a lot of stuff, like the frogs, that we don't completely understand. There's a cryptic nature to it, and I feel like that is how it should be. Given the magic that's taking place here. We're not supposed to understand frog necromancy. It is supposed to be a mystery

to us. I almost forgot about the frogs. We got to talk about the frog So we do the mayhem at the beginning, and then the next scene is we get Tom and Abby. Abby is another member of the gang. Uh and and Tom is her boyfriend, and they're hanging out in a graveyard and uh and Tom catches a frog in the graveyard and he says hello, little green friend, and uh and Abby. It's funny because Abby seems like

she does not really belong in this gang. She just seems like an extremely nice young lady who would not be out doing highway murders the rest of the gang or obviously these immoral, lawless creeps. And and Abby just seems like like she's she's just a nice girl. So I'm not sure what's going on there, but it makes sense because she's she I think of it. Chilli becomes the main character. Um, and you're only five minutes into the movie before Tom is saying to Abby, let's do it.

Let's kill ourselves and become some kind of cursed, undead monsters, and and Abby's like, oh, Tom, not that again. So apparently he brings this up all the time every time they get together. He's like, what do you say, let's become undead. Uh. It's also kind of strange how much she seems to take this in stride, like she's just like that's silly, not like it doesn't really bother her. Yeah,

but clearly yea, he talks about it a lot. This is his thing, like it was probably I don't know if they had yearbooks in uh in Britain at this time, but if they had one, he would be most likely to to destroy oneself and become an undead monster. Right. So Tom goes back to his house, which is a gigantic mansion. Wouldn't you know it? This good for nothing moto Rascal is actually a posh rich kid, and so they're at the house. You find out his family. I

don't know how much to explain the family situation. So the family is him and his mother and their butler, Shadwell, and his mother and Shadwell seemed to be into evil magic there. They're into the occult. They do seances and other occult stuff in the house. And Uh, Tom's father has passed away because it's implied he tried to do some kind of dangerous evil ritual and failed and died in the process. Right and possibly like permanently warped room

in their house with foul magic from beyond. Um. Again, not completely explained, and I don't want the film to explain it more. I like that it's so cryptic. Um. But yeah, this is a weird house in a weird family setting because Shadwell is not really he's the butler. He's not, he's not his father. But he also there's a there's clear from the very beginning that Shadwell is not just a butler. There is there's a power to him, there's knowledge there, and he's he's only so involved in

the actual affairs of the family. Like I noticed that a lot of times that maybe in a very sort of proper uh you know, English butler way, Uh, one of them will express an emotion and he'll comment upon it, but he's not really expressing an opinion one way or the other. Yes, the circumspect removed jeeves Ish editorial position. Yeah, I mean he's like Jeeves. But if Jeeves were an

ancient rud warlock. Yes, yeah, because ultimately we we come to to learn that he is either some sort of an ancient druid warlock or perhaps something worse, perhaps a demon or the devil himself, or or something something from beyond. I don't know. It could go either way. But but

there's a lot more to Shadwell than just butlering. So Tom gets home with this frog that he caught in the graveyard and he's like, He's like, Okay, I want to know the secret of the living dead, And and I guess Shadwell is like, okay, maybe he should know. Maybe not, Um, but the frog seems significant. Can you explain the frog to me? I've seen this movie multiple times and I don't understand the relationship between the frog and the power to come back from the dead. Um. Yeah,

I don't really have a clear answer. But we see actual frogs. We see, of course, the wonderful frog ammulet that comes up that when he first appeared on screen, I I audibly ga it was so to behold wonderful jewelry. So Tom's mother is like, kids, should we tell him

the secret of the living dead? It could be dangerous for him, And Chad wells like, it won't be dangerous for him if he's protected with this and then he gets out this necklace that's got a frog on it, and I think Chad Well has a ring with the frog on it as well. Uh uh. And then oh, and then there's the like the Frog from Beyond. There's like a dreamlike sequence involving a mirror that cast no reflection, and within that smoking mirror of a cult uh weirdness,

we see the form of a frog. So I don't know if like that is the form of the force from beyond? Is it is it conveying information? Or is that there? Or is that the is that the form of the destroyer? And this h this picture, I don't know, so many questions, but the frog is a repeating symbol and uh oh yeah, it's uh it's goods. There's a lot of frog action in this and it absolutely works.

There's also a wonderful scene where when Tom and his mother first meet up, they start waltzing around the living room. They've got like a sunken living room and they're dancing and she's like, Tom, now I you know, I think the police are after you. And he says, the word mother is fuzz and she says, she says, if you don't be careful, you're going to end up arrested, and he says the word mother is busted. It's weird how he's you know, he's having to educate his mom on

the cool lingo. But their living room is really hip like it's a very mod living room with m like they had this cosmic like black star skate behind the occult seance table, and then there's a fireplace and there's like a this weird modern furniture going on. It's a it's a strange, strange living room and I love it.

But ultimately, in this whole sequence, Tom has Tom has this weird thing where he goes into the cursed room and faces the magic mirror, and ultimately he finds out the secret of the living dead by overhearing his mother, and it does it seems like much of a secret. The secret just seems to be that you have to to become an evil, undead immortal, you have to kill yourself and truly believe you'll come back from the dead. And Tom is, I guess he's convinced of this. I

don't know that. I'm trying to remember what specifically convinced him. Maybe it was the experience in the room, like encountering other worldly, weird, magical things. But when he he's terrified in the room, like there's there's a lot of terrified acting going on while he's in there. But it's not long afterwards, so he gets out of there. He wakes up and he's like, all right, let's do it. Death and immortality bring it on, right, And so the next

day he's ready. He's ready. He's ready to become the Litch King. So, like we said earlier, every outlaw biker movie has to have scenes of bikers riding around knocking things over. You know, they see stuff that's vertical and just their eyes go red and they're like, uh, you're you're not gonna be vertical for long. And so they ride around in the town square knocking stuff over in a in a scene of chaos and mayhem that will that will culminate in Tom driving his motorcycle off a

bridge to become the evil Dead. Right. He watches up on the bank and they're like two children there and they're like look. And so then after this we get a scene is one of the best scenes in the movie. It's the funeral for Tom, which they have at this stone circle that you saw on the opening of the film, which they called The Seven Witches. I don't know which elements to focus on first, but this scene is so great. Maybe the folk song. So there's one of the bikers

who again they they kill people. He's also like a sweet singer songwriter, and he plays this song that goes and the world never knew his name, but the chosen few know of his fame. Yeah, it's really good. Um and and uh, you can find clips of this whole song on YouTube if you look around for it. But uh, yeah, there's the folk song that's going on. That's wonderful. Just also the whole premise because basically what's happened is after he after Tom died, Abby came to his mom and said, hey, um,

it's sad that Tom died. We would love to bury him in our way, according to our custom according to our customs. So you might wonder what is the traditional English biker funeral. Well, apparently involves I guess being taxidermide atop your motorcycle and then buried on your motorcycle in a grave, like an enormous grave. And in this case

that isn't the grave like adjacent to the hinge. It's really right, in the middle of the hinge, which seems this seems like this would not be legal the authorities. I do not think they would let you bury somebody there and on a motorcycle. I mean, it's gonna motorcycle just on it. It reminds me of the actual practice of horse burial, where, for example, you might see an

ancient Scythian warrior buried with his horse. I think this this practice is common among um people more in sort of like the Indo European and Central Asian regions throughout his street where you know, the strong, strong horse based cultures, people would sometimes be buried with their horse in some way, and here it's like that, but it's the motorcycle instead of the horse. Yeah, yeah, it's but it's great because

he's just sitting on the boy. He's just being real still, you know, on the on the motorcycle in the grave while they're playing the song. And then oh and then of course you get to you see the hinge the stones behind them, and then also there's a smoke stack in the background. And I just love that shot like that, that shot just feels so seventies Britain. I love it, and the song going on the lyrics. At one point the singer goes and he really got it on. He

rode that sweet machine just like a bomb. And it's like, I can't think of instances of people riding bombs except in doctors strange love. Is that what he meant? Maybe so I mean the time the time frame would work, or maybe it's British biker lingo that we're just this. But so, of course Tom comes back from the grave as as an evil, undead version of himself. I guess he was already evil. Please don't just say he camp comes back from the grave. He busts up out of

the grave. So there's a scene where um the like a car pulls over on the highway and the man gets out of the car and his wife there is like he's like, oh, we're having car trouble. I've got to go to the garage. And his wife says, you could get there faster if you cut through the seven witches. You're not afraid, are you, And he's like, no, obviously he is. So he's walking through the seven witches. But then what's that he hears is that a little bit

of a Is that a revving? The revving of a motorcycle as if coming up from out of the earth, and then boom, spray of dirt. Tom busts up out of his grave on the motorcycle and runs the s guy over. Yeah, so Tom is back from the grave. And one of the great things about this is you might expect, given all this, that that Tom would be this like grizzly undead biker now. But no, Tom looks exactly like he did in life, acts exactly like he did in life, with the added caveat that he is

now seemingly immortal and indestructible. And you might wonder, well, what's his how does he exploit this? Well, the first things he does is he basically he takes up his his hog, and then he he also goes in as a beer and he doesn't pay for any of these things because he is invincible. Well, he kills the service station attendant because he asked him for money, and then he also at he goes to the pub to use

the telephone um because he wants to call Shadwell. He calls Shadwell on the phone and Shadwell is like, Oh, how does it feel to be back? And he says splendid and uh, he seems maybe even more freed from pathetic human morality than he was before, because now he's just doing murders. Everywhere he goes is like like five at a time. Yeah. There's like a lady at the pub who wants to to ride on his motorcycle. She's like, take me for a ride, and he's like no, and

he just kills her. Yeah, he's off screen killing everybody. Yes, but yeah, so he's he's immortal and invulnerable, and he appears back to the rest of his gang and he says, hey, you know, here's the deal. If you kill yourself and become an undead lich king like me, you will be indestructible and then we can really party. Yeah, and they buy into it instantly because the proof is in the pudding.

Like here he is, he's back. You don't need to go into the weird mirror room because Tom stands before you. And also one of them tries to stab him, and he's like, it doesn't work on me anymore. See, I'm immortal. You guys should join the club. He's not bothered by it. Yeah, the guy tries to stab him and he's just like, isn't it cool? Um? But so there is a guess a very darkly comic sequence where all the rest of the bikers are like, you know, I'm next, and they

take their turns doing are suicides to become the evil dead. Yeah, it's a sequence that is was just shockingly hilarious, uh strong gallows humor. But it's like each one chooses a different method. The one that got me though, is the is the bike graphic get which one this is? He's he's wearing a swimsuit and he's laid in with chains, like a ridiculous amount of chains, like like Bob Marley's ghost. He's towards Jacob Marley. I'm sorry, Jacob Marley's Ghost's not Bob. Sorry,

Jacob Marley's ghost from from a Christmas Carol. He's laden in all these you know, fake chains, and he's he's he's shambling towards the river side. It's clearly to drown himself. But it's like, really, that's the method you choose, and and he does it one of them Obscaren of course, yes, yeah, one of them goes skydiving without a parachute. Um, yeah, but yes, the goal is they're all going to become undead bikers. Just like Tom. Yeah. And so in the end,

because of course there's just death everywhere. Now, um, the police get involved. So the third act, that's, uh, I guess pretty standard for movies like this. The police come in and they're like, well, we've got to we've got to set a trap for Tom and the bikers, um, and they decide they want to use Abby as bait because Abby is the only one of them who doesn't buy into this, and she decides she actually doesn't want to become undead. She likes living, thanks very much, and

she backs out of it. So she does almost overdose and has like a dream sequence. That's that's uh, that's kind of good. Oh yeah, yeah, that is very good. In the meantime, they're the bikers are riding around and there's yet another grocery store punishment scene where they're they're just plowing through the aisles. This carnation evaporated milk must suffer, you know, the marmote will pay, and they're smashing all of the products and you see and you see Jane

being especially evil. She's like, I, I you know, I want to I want to hit baby carriages with my motorcycle. I just want to do the most evil things I can think of. Yeah, yeah, she run. She's on her motorcycle driving through the aisle aiming at the baby carriage, hits the baby carriage, and then of course Kareen's into the like the meat counter the back and of course these are all real motorcycle stunts. So it's like they're just wiping out in a in a grocery store. It's

under grocery store they shot this in. Was it a safe way, maybe so, But Abby's along. Abby's getting cold feet at this point for sure, like she was really I mean no, she's more than that, Like she she had already decided she doesn't want any part of this, but now she's part of this, this police scheme to trap them, which I didn't completely understand how this played out, because just suddenly, like they lay her out in the morgue and they let Tom know that she's dead, I guess,

so that he'll come and get her. And then there we get some groovy music playing and then there's a suddenly we see all the police and the police inspector, including Fudge. They're just they're in the like the coroners when like the little cubby holes for the corpses for the cadavers, and so I guess they've been off screen killed as well. Yeah, I think that is the implication that Tom just just dispatched them, as he does with nearly everyone he meets now, because again he has super

strength and cannot be hurt. Right, They're just they're running wild. Granted they're not trying to do much. But then we get a scene where Shadwell and Mom are talking to Tom and they're like, well, what are your plans? What's next? And he's like, oh, well, you know, there are a lot of police officers and teachers, and he just runs through a list of like various generally like small level local authority figures and he's like, we're just gonna kill

all of them. That's what we're gonna do. Uh, it's gonna completely tear down society from the bottom up. So then I think even Mom, even though she's been involved in a lot of evil magic, she she sort of has a change of heart. She's like, what have I done?

What kind of monster have I created? And of course Shadwell is there, and the Shadwell early on had had mentioned had dropped that those stones that we saw earlier well, those are what's left of ancient warlocks who forgot their bargain or turned their back on the powers that they served. And and so when she starts saying, well they must, I want to back out. I don't want to be part of whatever deal I've made with whoever, with the beings beyond the mirror, the thing that takes the form

of the frog or what have you. And he's like, well, you know, there's a price to pay, and she's like, well, I will do it. And so that's what we get in the end. Even though the the evil Dead Bikers cannot be defeated by conventional arms or weapons, they can be undone by ritual magic and so ultimately they've got to call in somebody's mom to fix things. Yes, so yeah, the final scene is Abby's standing up to the Abbe's pretended to be undead, you know, sort of going along

with it, but Tom suspects something's up. When he drives through a brick wall. It's total ann pas by it and she goes around it and he's like, what's up. You're not dead, are you? And she's like no, I wanted to tell you. And then the whole game kind of turns on her. He's reaching out to strangle her, but Mom has turned off the magic and uh, perhaps the sun is involved as well, because suddenly they start

turning to stone. All the bikers turned to stone right there in the hinge, and Abby is the only one left alive. And then this dark vehicle, uh, pulls up and a lone figure gets out of it and begins walking towards her. And I believe this is supposed to be Shadwell, maybe in his like fully realized devil form or Warlock form or something. Yeah, so I love the ending because it was one of these what's happening, what's

whether it's the future. Is Shadwell showing up now to offer Abby the deal, the deal that the mom has backed out on, the deal that we really don't know any of the details off, which again I kind of like because again, part of the film is it's about the youth. It's about the youth in the world that the grown ups have created, and they certainly don't understand all the ramifications and the rules of that world, either the real world or certainly the supernatural world that Shadwell

and Mom are involved in. Yeah, and you know one thing I love about the ending is that all these biker movies are about young people rebelling against authority structures. Something about the motorcycle signals a kind of freedom, a kind of removal of the constraints established by the authority figures around you. And at the end of this movie, what you've got to do is call somebody's mom to to like make him stop acting up. And I love it. Yeah, And then we roll credits, and uh, it's also fun.

This is a credit credit sequence that uh the divides the cast up by the factions they were involved in, which I thought was nice. So you get a full list of the bikers, you get the uh the law, you also get the survivors. So I really, I really appreciate that. I wish I saw it, we saw that more certainly in modern um modern uh credits on films. Oh yeah, yeah, I like that too. I like the fonts to I always get a fontent on good fonts. Even the fonts on their their jackets are really nice.

Tom I believe has like a pink and green like kind of a it's kind of like a like it feels very eighties. The coloration on his name tag, portion of his his jacket. But I really like it. I'm just surprised nobody has remade this or revisited it. Yeah, ultimate, I mean this is a I think a nearly perfect trash movie. Uh. I could not ask for a better seventies supernatural biker movie. That this is sort of the peak for me. Yeah, I agree this. I think this

is the supernatural biker film par excellence. Um. So you might be wondering out there, well, where can I watch Psychomania? Well, Psychomania fortunately is widely available, uh in digital formats. Aero Video put out an absolutely beautiful looking two disc blue ray of this film a few years back, and you can still pick that up. The soundtrack is also widely

available in all formats. But if you're looking to stream this picture, I believe it is hosted on numerous streaming platform slash channels including shutter fandor and a m C and all of those free trial periods. So if you just want to dip in and get yourself some Psychomania and then and then check out both, then that that's certainly an option. Alright, We're gonna go and close this out real quick though, you know, since there were some suicidal elements in this picture and we discuss them a

little bit. If you're troubled by suicidal thoughts, you're not alone in a sympathetic ears only a phone call away. In the United States, consider calling the National Suicide Prevention Hotline eight to five five. You can visit Suicide Prevention Lifeline dot org for additional resources tailored towards general and specific needs and communities. You'll also find a list of local and international suicide hotlines at suicide dot org. That's gonna be it for this episode of Weird House Cinema,

but we will be back. Uh. You can check out Weird House Cinema every Friday. In the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed were primarily a science podcast, with our core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We have what a Listener Mail on Monday's, Artifact on Wednesday, Vault episode on Friday, and a little rerun on the weekend. Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson.

If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future, or just say hello, you can email us at contact at Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow your Mind is production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.