PSYCHOMANIA Review
It's a strange one, is Don Sharp's Psychomania. The 1972 undead biker gang picture is a celebration of fuzzy (read: non existent) logic, aimless youth, random acts of violence and magic toads.
Nicky Henson stars as Tom. Leader of The Living Dead, a leather clad gang of young bikers who race around town - and the local circle of druid era standing stones - in their skull painted helmets. They are your typical disaffected youth, rebelling against everything seemingly just to relieve the boredom. But Tom's not satisfied with just terrorizing the locals for a few days here and there. He wants more. He wants to do it FOREVER.
Lucky for him Tom's mother is an gifted medium with a magic toad and the key to eternal life. And after being tested in a magic room - a room that killed his father years before - and found worthy Tom is given the secret. You have to die and come back. You can only die once, you see, and once you come back you can never be harmed again. And the key to returning? Wait for it. Wait. Kill yourself while believing you're going to come back. That's it. And so he does. And, upon returning, he convinces the rest of his gang to do likewise.
You may be asking yourself now that if all that it requires to come back from the dead is the belief and desire to do so, why doesn't it happen all the time? this is a good question and not one that the film is concerned with. It also isn't concerned with why a guy who's perpetually bored with his finite life would want to live forever to be bored for much, much longer. And don't even try to figure out how the toad is meant to figure into all of this because that bit's just baffling. Logic is not Psychomania's friend. However if you want to witness a leather clad biker buried by his comrades while seated upright on his motorcycle to the accompaniment of psychedelic folk rock, then this is the movie for you.
Psychomania is one of those films that can't really be called 'good' any any level but it is so resolutely odd and poorly thought out while also executed with rather a high degree of craft - hell, Oscar winner George Sanders is in this thing - that it makes for very weirdly compelling viewing. It's bad, sure, but it's bad in a pretty damn fascinating way.
For the DVD release - the only it has ever received - the folk at Severin Film tracked down what they believe to be the only surviving uncut print of the film in the world. The results, while not quite pristine, are very impressive for a film of this age. The print is generally clean and well preserved, the transfer up to Severin's typical high levels of quality. They've done a solid job on special features, too, tracking down much of the cast for new interviews while doing the same for the soundtrack composer and singer featured prominently in the picture. Fangoria editor Chris Alexander chips in an introduction and the trailer - featured below - rounds things off.
Nicky Henson stars as Tom. Leader of The Living Dead, a leather clad gang of young bikers who race around town - and the local circle of druid era standing stones - in their skull painted helmets. They are your typical disaffected youth, rebelling against everything seemingly just to relieve the boredom. But Tom's not satisfied with just terrorizing the locals for a few days here and there. He wants more. He wants to do it FOREVER.
Lucky for him Tom's mother is an gifted medium with a magic toad and the key to eternal life. And after being tested in a magic room - a room that killed his father years before - and found worthy Tom is given the secret. You have to die and come back. You can only die once, you see, and once you come back you can never be harmed again. And the key to returning? Wait for it. Wait. Kill yourself while believing you're going to come back. That's it. And so he does. And, upon returning, he convinces the rest of his gang to do likewise.
You may be asking yourself now that if all that it requires to come back from the dead is the belief and desire to do so, why doesn't it happen all the time? this is a good question and not one that the film is concerned with. It also isn't concerned with why a guy who's perpetually bored with his finite life would want to live forever to be bored for much, much longer. And don't even try to figure out how the toad is meant to figure into all of this because that bit's just baffling. Logic is not Psychomania's friend. However if you want to witness a leather clad biker buried by his comrades while seated upright on his motorcycle to the accompaniment of psychedelic folk rock, then this is the movie for you.
Psychomania is one of those films that can't really be called 'good' any any level but it is so resolutely odd and poorly thought out while also executed with rather a high degree of craft - hell, Oscar winner George Sanders is in this thing - that it makes for very weirdly compelling viewing. It's bad, sure, but it's bad in a pretty damn fascinating way.
For the DVD release - the only it has ever received - the folk at Severin Film tracked down what they believe to be the only surviving uncut print of the film in the world. The results, while not quite pristine, are very impressive for a film of this age. The print is generally clean and well preserved, the transfer up to Severin's typical high levels of quality. They've done a solid job on special features, too, tracking down much of the cast for new interviews while doing the same for the soundtrack composer and singer featured prominently in the picture. Fangoria editor Chris Alexander chips in an introduction and the trailer - featured below - rounds things off.
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