The Peace Killers

A commune of hippies run into trouble with a brutal gang of bikies, and their blissful pacifist future is in grave danger. As luck would have it, along comes another gang of bikies, who team up with the hippies, who discover a latent bloodlust, so we get to see a gory fight. The hippies even file their medallions so that they are sharp enough to slash throats. Heartwarming.

WOW, is all I can say after watching this - amazingly in both a good and bad way. Expecting a simple clichéd biker movie, instead I discovered a movie that somehow manages to encapsulate every major theme from early '70s filmmaking, from the counter-cultural bikers of "Easy Rider" to Southern California commune hippiedom, blaxploitation, and even the ultra-violent vigilante-ism of Sam Peckinpah ("Straw Dogs"), "Death Wish," "Last House on the Left," "Switchblade Sisters," and "Billy Jack." So much crammed into one movie, Quentin Tarantino must have seen this at some point and been at least somewhat inspired in his own style of multi-themed filmmaking.

By no means a great film, and really not a good one either, I still found myself glued to this amazing cultural artifact. I'm really surprised that this movie has basically been forgotten, having never been released on DVD; amateur B-movie connoisseurs and midnight movie-houses would eat this one up if they got their hands on it. The director, Douglas Schwartz (this was his first feature film) would soon go on to make the excellent forgotten film "Your Three Minutes Are Up" starring Beau Bridges, and "Baywatch" many years later. The tone of these two movies ("Your Three Minutes..." was a light comedy with serious undertones) could not be more different, yet in both of them Schwartz displays a near-brilliant ability to evoke the socio-cultural milieu of Southern California in the early-'70s (even early Baywatch episodes carry some of this skill in his feel for settings.) If you are in the least bit turned off by violence, I recommend not watching this, as there is blood, mutilation, rape, and plenty of general nastiness. On the other hand, if you can laugh along with the irony of "serious-themed" pictures like this one and "Billy Jack" (released the same year) portraying "pacifism through the barrel of a gun," then you should have yourself some trashy drive-in good times.

Kristy used to be the 'old lady' of the leader of a biker gang. However, after seeing another woman brutally raped, she'd had enough and ran off--even though they promised to track her down and kill her if she did. Some time has passed and by chance, a member of this old gang sees her in a general store--and not surprisingly, he goes to get the gang. As for Kristy, she's being hidden by a group of annoying hippies--annoying because they promise a lot but won't lift a finger to fight. What will become of her? I sometimes enjoy an old biker film--mostly because they are so cheesy. However, "The Peace Killers" was not a film I particularly liked since it went farther than most films in the genre. For most of the films, the gangs looked mean, talked mean and even did a few mean things. These folks, in contrast, really are evil--and the film is pretty vivid in its depiction of rape and nudity. I just felt uncomfortable with a film glamorizing or exploiting rape...and never actually finished watching this one. See it if you like--I just think it crosses the line from entertainment to sleaze. Not enjoyable--just nasty.

Siblings Kristy and Jeffrey are buying supplies at a remote desert gas station when some members of a biker gang come cruising in. The bikers recognize Kristy, who used to be the main squeeze of the gang's leader before she ran away.

What is the deal with hippies versus bikers? I presume this trend was inspired by "Easy Rider", but it seems like there is a large (but still obscure) subgenre of films about hippies who get attacked by bikers. Some from Roger Corman, and some from even lower budget producers.

In this film, the hippies are so obsessed with love, with their leader being a perverted sort of Christ figure. I could not decide if I was supposed to sympathize with them or not. While the siblings are obviously the protagonists, the "new age" factor was just a bit too much for me.

A young woman (Jess Walton), who is the former "old lady" of the vicious leader of a motorcycle gang, is living in a rural hippie commune with her brother (Michael Ontkean) when she is spotted by several members of her former gang. The bike gang ("Death Row") shows up at the commune, "crucifies" the pacifist leader of the group on a peace symbol (some heavy symbolish here), and takes off with the girl, planning to "teach her a lesson" by gang-raping her. She escapes again with the help of a bizarre interracial rival biker gang, which is led by a black woman(!). They return her to the commune with the "Death Row" gang hot on their trail, and the brother tries to convince the pacifist leader to fight back this time.

This biker vs. hippie movie is no masterpiece, but it's surprisingly entertaining. Whatever message it is making about violence and pacifism seems a little confused, but I still find movies like this vastly preferable to the mindless, simplistic movies that have dominated the action/revenge genre since the era of Reagan and "Rambo". In real life, of course, the bikers actually got on pretty well with the hippies, despite their diametrically opposed politics and attitudes towards women, mostly due to their mutual interest in drugs (which said a lot about the priorities of the hippie movement). It's also a little hard to believe anyone still regarded hippies as naive, gentle pacifists after the Manson Family murders.

The lead actress Jess Walton is absolutely beautiful (and has nude scenes). She kind of reminds me of British actress/singer Jane Birkin. This is her only major movie, but she would go on to a long television career. The director Douglas Scwartz would also go to a long television, uh, career (he later created "Baywatch"--oh, the horror, the horror!). Michael Ontkean though is the most recognizable talent having appeared in both famous movies ("Slapshot") and TV series ("Twin Peaks"). This is definitely worth a look.