Wednesday, June 26, 2019

Psychomania (1973) [Adventure Horror]

Psychomania (1973) [Adventure Horror]

Director: Don Sharp
Writers: Arnaud d'Usseau, Julian Zimet (as Julian Halevy)


The other day as I was riding my bike around the lake, a line of spectral riders approached in the fog and I tried to remember the name of a movie about undead, Satan worshipping bikers terrorizing a small town. The Wild One, but from Hell. It was on a DVD from Netflix, years before they started streaming.

Facebook came to the rescue when I saw this picture on the Dead Witches page:
Dead Witches are a psychedelic doom band and definitely worth checking out! There are some links for them at the bottom. Deffo need to write more about this band.

In the capable hands of veteran director John Don Sharp, who had directed some Hammer films including Kiss of the Vampire (1963) and The Face of Fu Manchu (1965), Psychomania, also known as The Death Wheelers, mixes Satanism, renegade bikers and the very touching story of a devoted mother and her troubled son, whom she pledged to the Devil. The story and characters are well drawn and the action happens at a rapid pace. There are also a couple of well shot chase scenes between the police in their adorable little British cars and the Living Dead MC riding Triumph Motorcycles.  Adding to its visual style, almost all of the movie takes place during the day.



The John Cameron's soundtrack is pure fun, performed by a session group known as Frog. Check out this video of the opening credits to see of how excellently the soundtrack compliments the film's visuals. There's also some chase music which is very good, featuring heavy guitar driven funk style.

Watching Psychomania was time well spent!

Dead Witches on Spotify Dead Witches on YouTube
Poster

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