"The Death Wheelers" (1973) d/ Don Sharp

I remember the Media VHS of tonight's review under it's original title, Psychomania (1972), one of the earliest releases on the format if my memory serves me correctly, before a sudden flood of unlicensed bootlegs of much grit and grain turned up in supermarket bins everywhere for a buck (much like Romero's Night of the Living Dead, which I bought  Media's release of, way back when, for fifty bucks.), one Halloween season. Of course, I'd dug this idiosyncratic tale of biker gangs and the occult for ages beforehand, having seen it numerous times during its run as a late night television staple back in the seventies, the ideal venue for the production, really, since it doesn't offer the boobs or blood as a PG feature that rivals Hammer would have slathered an X certificate film with.


"Try licking his back...It's very groovy, indeed.", notes Shadwell (George Sanders).
Tom Latham (Nicky Henson) is an interesting chap, to be sure. When he's not terrorizing people and causing traffic accidents with his motorcycle gang, the aptly-named "Living Dead",  a surprisingly posh bunch who all have names like "Chopped Meat", "Gash", and "Hinky" (of course, there's also a Bertram thrown in for good measure), and skulls and crossbones painted on their helmets to go with the usual diabolical leather clobber and chains you always see that lot wearing, he's grilling his frog-digging, psychic mother (Beryl Reid, as a "large medium", you might say) for the secrets to immortality that are seemingly locked away in his late father's study. After nearly blowing his cool in said study, he learns that eternal life can be achieved by simply committing suicide and believing that you'll return afterwards. He does just that, and is buried on his motorcycle(!), which he uses to dramatically burst free from his earthy grave, finally a patch holder with the real living dead.


Meanwhile, somewhere in Italy, Michele Soavi nodded approvingly.
Once the rest of the gang gets a load of Tom's new kicks: mass murder, as evidenced by the lifeless bodies he's been leaving in his wake, even busting them out of the nick by killing the attending guards and bending the cell bars, Hulk-style(!),  they all decide to join in his shenanigans by snuffing it in different, creative ways: one by skydiving, one by chain-weighted drowning, one swan dives off of a busy traffic overpass, etc., except for Tom's reluctant bird, Abby (Mary Larkin) whose stubborn refusal to die really gets up her late boyfriend's nose. He drives his bike through a brick wall, later giving her the lover's ultimatum: Die, or I'll kill you. Sounds reasonable. Tom's mother, shamed by her son's lust for power and appetite for destruction, uses her superior black magic skills to transform the rotten lot of them into stone pillars before Abby's disbelieving eyes.


"May a nearsighted nonce mistake yer hemorrhoids fer cherry tah-matoes, ya deuce-in-a-pail!"
Sadly, this would be apex British cad George Sanders' last movie, as he committed suicide in 1972. Beryl Reid, you may remember from 1970's Beast in the Cellar. Ann Michelle was no stranger to genre films, herself, appearing in things like 1972's Virgin Witch, House of Whipcord (1974), and even Cruel Passion (1977) with Koo Stark. Nicky Henson, who also appeared in 1968's Vincent Price vehicle, Witchfinder General, would turn up opposite David Niven in the comedic Old Drac/ Vampira (1974). I think the film's strength lies in the odd, witchy vibe it surrounds itself in throughout; its well-deserved cult classic status stemming from the film's black sense of humor as much as the bikers' far out skull-helmets, which must've struck an immediate nerve with audiences at the time, especially during the impressive foggy slo-mo in the title sequence. On the scale, Wheelers scores an impressive three Wops and comes highly recommended. Add it to your collection, sharpish.


Suddenly, Tom (Nicky Henson) was petrified at the thought of immortality.

"Rasputin the Mad Monk" (1966) d/ Don Sharp

Christopher Lee hasn't always been a menacing, baritone villain of few words and icy stare, you know. He could portray a menacing baritone romantic lead of few words and icy stare just as effectively, as is the case with tonight's review, a 1966 Hammer release directed by the guy behind such choice eyeball-fodder as Kiss of the Vampire (1963), Curse of the Fly (1965), and The Death Wheelers aka/ Psychomania (1973). If you're on board to see a to-the-letter,  historically accurate portrayal of  the life of the enigmatic Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin, you're better off surfing the nearest library. If the idea of seeing Christopher Lee, free of the stifling confines of Count Dracula's cape,  raucously chugging booze, dancing wildly, and manhandling hypnotized hussies like a mystical monk-mack sounds like a good time to you, then this one's right up your alley.


"Roll your bloody hips for some more vodka, gypsy wench!" says Rasputin (Christopher Lee), charmer.
A Russian innkeeper is told by the local doctor to prepare for the worst concerning his gravely ill wife, who lies unconscious and racked with the number one killer of peasants of the day: "the fever". That is, until a lanky monk barges in, demanding his thirst be slaked immediately. As a means to an end, he lays his hands upon the dying woman and heals her, earning himself a green light on whatever the hell he may want, in the process, i.e. drinks on the house, a roll in the hay with the man's budding young daughter, even if seeing her jealous boyfriend getting his hands lopped off has spoiled her randy mood. After being accused of being little more than a spawn of Satan by the Bishop, Rasputin (Christopher Lee) protests in his own defense that he commits only sins worth forgiving (gotta love this guy!), while boasting that he has always possessed healing powers of unknown origins within his very mitts. After receiving a hot tip from a cart driver, he embarks on a journey to St. Petersburg, with bigger fish to fry, indeed.


"The merest hint of Gucci Flora and I'm compelled to grab your armpit and kidney, immediately."
Inside the city, he easily defeats a failed doctor named Zargo (Richard Pasco) in an epic drinking contest, and imposes himself upon the hapless drunkard, setting up operations in his small apartment. The unwanted guest mesmerizes the Tsarina's lady-in-waiting, Sonia (Barbara Shelley), hypnotizing her into sexual slavery, forcing her to influence the young Tsarvitch to gravely injure himself on the ice outside the palace, setting the stage for Rasputin's own brand of healing theatrics. In the Tsarina's favor for saving young Alexei and drunk with growing riches and power, he boldly gets Zargo's medical credentials reinstated, and demands with a heavy pimp hand that Sonia, with her services no longer necessary, go off and destroy herself, which she willingly does. When Sonia's vengeful brother Peter (Dinsdale Landen) catches a grill full of acid in Zargo's laboratory, it's up to he and Ivan (Francis Matthews) to cut down the blasphemous monk with a trap baited with the promise of Ivan's sister, Vanessa (Suzan Farmer), poisoned candy, and port. I think we all know how smooth that went, when all was said and done...


"Give Davey the microphone, Peter. None of your tunes make me feel groovy in the least."
Barbara Shelley, who'd appeared in Blood of the Vampire back in 1958, would share the screen again with Lee in Hammer's Dracula: Prince of Darkness (filmed back-to-back with Rasputin the same year). Her list of genre credits is both lengthy and impressive: The Gorgon(1964), Village of the Damned (1960), Five Million Years to Earth (1967), and Ghost Story (1974), just to name a few others. Interestingly, Rasputin's own daughter noted to Christopher Lee that he shared her father's expression. I dunno, Rasputin always resembled an bedraggled Rene Auberjonois with a joke beard, to me. Given the rare opportunity to do more than hiss or glare at  frightened girls in their nightgowns , Lee takes full advantage here, zealously dominating every frame he's in, and filling it with entertainingly animated scene-chewing dramatics of the highest order. Whether you're a Hammer fan or a Lee completist, you'll want to see this romp for yourselves. Three wops. Recommended.


"Do I look comfortable down here on the floor? Well, I'm bloody not!"

"Kiss of the Vampire"(1962)d/Don Sharp

It's been a hot minute since we've sunken our pronounced canines into a decent vampire flick here at the Wop, and where better to stop our horse-drawn carriage than a gothic Hammer classic like Don Sharp's Kiss of the Vampire, chronologically the third in the studio's long line of fang-fare after 1958's Horror of Dracula and 1960's Brides of Dracula, and indeed, originally intended to be a Dracula sequel(the second without Christopher Lee) with a wild ending borrowed directly from the novelization of Brides(and one that Peter Cushing felt was out of character for his Van Helsing, as he would never resort to using the black arts of the occult to battle blood drinkers, regardless of its effectiveness) that was left out of that production due to the effects team's inability to pull it off believably for audiences at the time.Two short years later, with no Lee or Cushing in the credits, Sharp would give it the old schoolboy try anyway, and the result is an atmospheric and original ride, with lavish colors, impressive set pieces, and beautiful period costumes, that tackles vampirism as a social disease contracted by those who surround themselves with decadence.It stumbles slightly at the climax with laughable rubber bats on wires(Hammer had problems depicting the winged mammals on camera throughout their history, if you ask me), but stands as an entirely watchable cult classic from the legendary studio none-the-less, with a coherent script reminiscent of Hitchcock at times, innovative ideas concerning the vampire mythology, and haunting sequences that would influence later genre productions by accomplished directors like Roman Polanski.Forward!

"Scoff at the strike branded liquor bottle on my forearm all you want, the bitches love this shit!"
In the midst of a bleak funeral in an isolated European burg, a priest's Latin incantations are interrupted by a grief-stricken drunk who plunges a spade through the coffin lid, bringing unearthly screams and fresh claret bubbling to the surface, much to the horror of the mourners, who scatter like roaches in the light from the surreal and somber scene.Elsewhere,newlyweds Marianne and Gerald Harcourt(Jennifer Daniel, Edward de Souza)have broken down on a windy and desolate mountain road in the Carpathians, as their state-of-the-art jalopy sputters to a halt, the petrol tank bone dry.As Gerald hoofs it for some turn-of-the-centry roadside assistance, his delicious new bride is telescoped through the woods by the regal Dr. Ravna(Noel Willman) from his nearby manor.The young couple soon find themselves shacked up at a derelict inn in town, where the innkeeper's wife's constant mood swings from indifference to misery should be a harbinger of the terrible events that would soon transpire.It's not long before Ravna sends a personal carriage to the inn for the stranded lovers, who are lulled into false momentary bliss by the doctor's ornately decorated mansion and son Carl's(Barry Warren) hypnotic piano composition.Meanwhile, Professor Zimmer(Clifford Evans) watches from the wings as Tania(Isobel Black), a beautiful teenaged vampire, inspects the fresh grave of one of her latest victims only to find the drunken vampire hunter's spade protruding from the earth as he briefly captures her, allowing the undead lass to puncture his wrist with a fanged kiss in the process.Back at the inn, some impromptu detective work by Marianne reveals that Bruno has a beautiful teenaged daughter of his own, that has disappeared under mysterious circumstances...

"Use the body, now you want my sooooul, Oooh, forget about it, now say no gooo..."
The newlyweds are invited to a posh masquerade ball held at Ravna's estate, and while Sabena(Jacquie Wallis) administers a roofie-laden cocktail to George, his wife Marianne is initiated into the doctor's blood cult, stripped of her breathtaking red party gown for a see-thru white ceremonial gown and neck-bitten by the effetely sadistic fiend while cheered on by her accepting new undead kinfolk.George awakens hungover and alone, told that the gathering ruined by his uncouth drunkenness was one he attended alone, as he's roughly shown the door.Back at the inn, all traces of Marianne have disappeared from the Harcourt's room as the well-to-do groom's sudden panic is interrupted by a decidedly more sober Zimmer, who relates the similar fate that befell his own teenaged daughter and threw him on the righteous path of vampire destruction in the first place to the groggy and desperate husband.George attempts to break into the Ravna's digs, but is led forcibly to the doctor, who reveals the man's wife to be entrancedly enamored to him to the point that she spits a defiant loogie in his grill(Ptooey!) to prove her loyalty to the cult leader.Zimmer shows up in the nick of time and rescues the couple, while sealing the cult into the manor with crosses drawn in garlic upon all the entrances.While Zimmer begins a black magic ritual to return all the vampires to the dark lord, Ravna uses his hypnotic influence to try and draw Marianne back to the estate before the professor can punish the monsters with their own dark arts, but George manages to save her once again as she's sleepwalking through the forest.With the ceremony completed, the skies become black with a sea of bloodthirsty vampire bats that swoop down upon Ravna and his screaming followers, overwhelming them in a biting orgy of blood and rubber bats on wires.

"I say, old beast, would it be terribly forward of me to plant these eye teeth in the nape of your neck? Jolly good show, eh wot?"
Sharp would go on to helm such memorable Chris Lee vehicles as Rasputin the Mad Monk(1965), The Face of Fu Manchu(1965), and 1966's The Brides of Fu Manchu, as well as such genre favorites as Witchcraft(1964), with one of the last acting roles of Lon Chaney, Jr., The Curse of the Fly(1965), 1973's Dark Places with Lee, Joan Collins, and Herbert Lom, and the cult classic Psychomania(1973). I jumped all over the Image disc years back, before it went out of print, though the film has once again become available to the masses as one of the titles in the two disc region one Hammer Horrors boxset, in its original aspect ratio with no extras.Rumor has it that this is the best print available to date of Hammer's gothic classic, so you'd probably do well to snag yourself this collection the next time it makes itself readily available to you, and with all speed, at that.Gotta dole out props to Kiss for its innovation and lush watchability, as it manages to secure itself an impressive three Wops on the scale and comes recommended for all.Track it down!

"...When the cartoon bats return to Carpathia, that's the night you promised to bury meeee..."