Cycle Psycho

This is not the worst movie ever made, but it is pretty close. This hovers near territory inhabited by Monster-A-Go-Go, The Guy From Harlem, The Creeping Terror, and Manos: The Hands of Fate.

The acting is awful, and the writing is even worse. Like Al Adamson's Hell's Bloody Devils, this is a movie masquerading as a biker movie, which is not really a biker movie.

Bikers are involved, but only secondarily. The main focus is a psycho pervert who likes to dance with female mannequins and plunge butcher knives into their chests. Now, he wants to do this on a real live girl, so he hires a "biker gang" (three unshaven bad actors) to kidnap some teenage talent and hold them hostage until Mr. Pervert can show up and have his way with them.

There's very little motorcycle riding, the pace is very slow, and any attempts to build tension are laughable. About the only entertaining things to look at are the truly ridiculous 1972 fashions and furniture. Especially the horrible wallpaper in every room! I can only recommend you watch this film if you like to wallow in low budget 1972 sleaze. I guess there may be a few of you out there, so, by all means, enjoy.

A mama-obsessed psycho (Joseph Turkel) kills the wife of a respected lawyer, and then blackmails the lawyer into kidnapping two teenage girls for more unsound fun. Most of the story, though, is devoted to the poverty-row motorcycles gang, led by Stephen Oliver, who captures the teenagers. Oliver, his girlfriend, and two feeble sidekicks bicker and fight constantly. Turkel gets his hands on the girls, but a sympathetic biker overpowers him and puts him out of his sick misery.

Lawrence's slow-moving B-movie promises teenager torture, but never delivers. The highlight is Turkel, who seduces a mannikin and plays the middle-aged lunatic in bug-eyed lunatic fashion, although his wardrobe -- consisting of early-70s styled flowered shirts -- is pretty obnoxious, too. Stafford Repp (the Irish cop from TV's "Batman") has a cameo role.

Before I get into the review, here are my ratings for the movie.

The story gets a 0.25 out of 2: The Direction a 0.50: The Pacing receives a 0.25: While the Acting gets 1.00: And my Enjoyment level earns a 0.25 out of 2: Bringing the total to 2.25 out of 10.

Oh, deary me. What a snoozefest this turned out to be. The only saving grace to this movie is the acting, and that's average. Regretfully, the story and the direction are woefully lacking. It may stem from the writer and director being the same person; John Lawrence.

As I'm finding out by doing these reviews, there are a lot of stories that sound great when you read the synopsis. However, due to one reason or another - most commonly it the writers lack of imagination or weakness in story structure - the story never meets the viewers' expectations. Savage Abduction is one of these stories.

Lawyer Dick Ridelander wants to be rid of his wife and so makes a deal with a rich businessman. The man is to kill the wife, giving Ridelander an alibi. The killing of the woman is the man's stress point. He starts to remember his troubled past and realises he likes tormenting, torturing, and killing women. He then proceeds to use the crime to blackmail Ridelander into procuring him a couple of girls for his new perverted pleasure. Ridelander, in turn, enlists the help of a biker gang to kidnap the girls and to hold them until the man is ready to play.

Now, you can see the numerous possibilities in this outline. But Lawrence evidently couldn't. Instead, what he gives the audience is a step-by-step telling of the outline. He doesn't add any characterisations. Everybody is interchangeable. The psychopath isn't psycho. The biker gang aren't so rough and tumble as they keep telling the viewers they are. There are two wonderfully awful scenes where this is shown. The leader of the gang is telling his woman they'll make so much on this job that they'll be able to move and form a bigger and stronger biker gang. Which wouldn't be too hard since there are only two other bikers in this gang! I'm not sure you can even call it a gang. They're more like biker pals... who don't have many friends. The other scene is when the biker boss spouts off that it's not his fault the cops have made him public enemy number one. Yeah, public enemy number one? This guy lives in a ramshackle house in the middle of nowhere. The man never commits any crimes. He gets his two pals to kidnap the girls. And, their abduction isn't even savage. The girls are all too willing to hop on the bikers back seats.

The story is so basic it becomes boring very quickly after the girls are kidnapped, and it wasn't too great before.

What doesn't help is Lawrence being as skilled a director as he is a writer. Set the scene, shoot the scene, print the scene - repeat until end. He could have avoided some tediousness if he'd employed a smidgen of imagination.

The real shame is because of the story and direction the cast are wasted. They try to do their best, but by the end of this travesty, they appear as bored as the rest of us. Lawrence even had a decent cast for this picture. Tom Drake, who was a veteran of many TV and Film roles, plays Dick Ridelander. Joe Turkel, who is best known for his role as the bartender in The Shining, plays the businessman, Harry. As well as a couple of actors you may have seen in old telly programmes. Hell, even Stafford Repp makes an appearance.

Savage Abduction could have been such a different movie. However, as it stands, I couldn't recommend this to anyone.

Stay Away from this drivel. It's not worth wasting any time on.

That said, now hop on your hogs and blaze across to my The Game Is Afoot and Killer Thriller Chillers to see where this Z-Movie fell asleep in my ratings... and to find something way better to watch.

Take Care & Stay Well.

Please. You've got to be kidding. How in blue blazes did anyone put up money to produce this worthless piece of heaping, smelly, trash-bag, garbage.

I love the "B" films as much as the next person, but I'm sorry to say I couldn't find one nice thing to say about anyone or anything associated with this movie.

Between the Psycho killer and the Psycho motorcycle gang and the Psycho chicks, this whole thing is one big psycho stinker.

It's just plain boring. Not even entertaining at all. The acting was horrible. Where did they get these people, off the street corner. They aren't even up to par with a grade-school production. They stink. Can't believe that they are not ashamed to be in this "psycho" production.

I'm sorry. This film is not fun. It's not cheesy. It's not a "cult" classic. All it is I'm sorry to say, is a big waste of time. If you want to throw about 2 hours in the garbage, you're better off enjoying nature and sit under a tree and look up at the sky.

Savage Abduction is another cheesy 70's classic in the vein of 'Last House on the Left'. It's now bee bought up by Troma and is distributed as one of their movies. Really though, it's not all that bad. My wife and I had a few laughs at it's expense, and were very entertained.

One of Troma's cream of the crop as far as I'm concerned. There's actually a movie here (albeit not the greatest)!

6 out of 10 (fun)