Psychomania (1971)

[RCMerchant]

 Just rewatched the British movie PSYCHOMANIA (1971) last night.
 Basically...here's what's going on.... Tommy ,the head of a goofy spoiled brat biker gang (called the Living Dead) drive around all day wearing silly jackets and helmuts and f$ck with the locals. Tommy's mum and her butler (George Sanders??!?!-here's one for the 'Waz he doin' here? thread!) have the secret of immortality. Tommy boy,of course,figgers it out,and promptly returns from the dead...(looking none the worse for wear.) He convinces his gang to follow suit. So they kill themselves in fun ways!
  One jumps from a window. One drowns himself in a river. One jumps off a freeway overpass into traffic. Another flys into a delivery truck on her bike. Of course, at the end,they get what's coming to 'em...snotty brats!
 Oh...do you know what the occult God of Whatever th' Hell is? It's a frog. A FROG!
 One goofy scene that stands out for me is when they bury the dead Tommy....sitting on his motorcycle....and some dopey hippy dork starts signing this idiotic folk song....YIKES!!!
 A fun movie...doofy...but fun!
the Living Dead at play...

http://youtube.com/watch?v=DbuAqJgYtjE
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..and...for your listening pleasure...the burial ditty! Oh Joy!!    (..and it's on a Soundtrack! Why? )
 

http://youtube.com/watch?v=mXHQLbexxk8
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[The Burgomaster]

I've wanted to see this movie since way back when I got my first VCR (a Beta format machine that weighed about 30 pounds) around 1979/1980.  For some reason, it has always eluded me.  I really need to get my hands on a copy.

[lester1/2jr]

that clip was awesome.  "just  for the hell of it"  style menacing of civilians.   

quite a contrast with "northville cemetary massacre" a biker movie i saw recently where the bikers are just as surly but are actually the good guys.

[trekgeezer]

I have this sitting around and actually watched part of it once.  Those goofy-ass helmets they wear put me off. I guess they were going for terrifying and ended up in romper room.

I guess I'll have to get around to watching it now.

[peter johnson]

Flat-out love this one --
We showed it with an audience of 5 once, all of us laughing our asses off & just whaling on it -- we had to run it back frequently to fully savor the jaw-dropping silliness of some scenes --
Yeah, everyone here should see this one --
peter johnson/denny hairdoo

[Andrew]

In my case, I really disliked the whole movie, except when the bikers were all committing suicide so that they could return as revenants.  The ending is also a redeeming factor, but for me this is a definite 1 slime movie.

Except for the parts I enjoyed (those 2), it is like watching paint dry:  even worse, the paint is a color I don't like.

[AnubisVonMojo]

I actually kinda liked this flick. Reminded of a Hammer movie... in that it was British I guess. The stuff with the toad God or whatever the funk is was was hilariously odd, and the suicides were great because no one character opted to die the same way, they just randomly killed themselves in weird ways for the Hell of it. Most surreal part of the movie, by far, has to be the funeral scene RC mentioned. They set the guy's corpse up on his motorcycle, place him in a hole that's too shallow to fit his entire body (his head and shoulders are above the top of the hole!), then the gang of "tough guys" sit around making flowered wreaths while the hippie and his little song are icing on the bizzaro cake! 

[peter johnson]

Well, I'm surprised, as Andrew & I usually laugh at a lot of the same things -- but then again, he didn't like "Synegor" either, a film which I find very funny indeed --
Yes!  The Toad God!!  I snapped a picture of him off my TV screen & he adorns a scrapbook I keep of trips I've taken to Megalithic sites like Callanish on the Isle of Lewis.
Toad God Rule Ring of Brodgar!!!
peter toad/denny dead biker

[Sister Grace]

Personally i loved it when he bursts out of the grave while on his motorcycle. If i remember right, didn't they worship frogs?

[Dave M]

In that terrorizing clip it looks like there's one guy just standing on top of a ladder in the middle of the pavement just waiting for some bikers to come along and knock him down. Is it his job to keep that box from touching the ground or something?

[RCMerchant]

Personally i loved it when he bursts out of the grave while on his motorcycle. If i remember right, didn't they worship frogs?
[/quote}

Yeah...they had a big thing about a certain kinda frog. In fact...their 'God", or whatever the heck, is a giant frog. Tommy has weird visions of it,kinda like a retarted acid trip.

 I also looked up director Don Sharp's other films...among them are RASPUTIN-the MAD MONK,the BRIDES of FU MANCHU  (both with Chris Lee)and KISS of the VAMPIRE!

In that terrorizing clip it looks like there's one guy just standing on top of a ladder in the middle of the pavement just waiting for some bikers to come along and knock him down. Is it his job to keep that box from touching the ground or something?

And,of course,he has a conveinant pile of empty boxes to land on! 

[BeyondTheGrave]

I thought the movie was slow in certain spots but like Andrew did like when the bikers killed themselves to come back. Don't remember much after that haven't seen in awhile.

[trekgeezer]

Hey, I watched yesterday while I was riding my stationary bike.  I had previously gotten to the first time they were terrorizing the town folk.   

I have to agree with Andrew on most of it .

Things I thought funny:

The plastic ancient frog amulet

Those goofy skull and cross helmets which made the gang look they should have been named the owls or something like that.

The one thing I actually hate is the fact that this disc has the best picture quality of all the crappy $1 DVDs I own.  I got to see the early 70s in all their vibrant primary colors.  All that quality could've been used much better on some classics I have instead of this tripe.


One last comment.  I wonder how bad off George Sanders was to take his role in this.

[RCMerchant]

One last comment.  I wonder how bad off George Sanders was to take his role in this.

Well...he commited suicide shortly after doing this film. And no...he didn't come back from the dead on a motorcycle.