Hellriders

If you are bored and have an hour and a half to kill, you could do worse, but, you would really have to try. It's good for a couple of laughs, but overall, it's pretty generic.

This has got to be one of the worst movies ever made. Even for a biker movie, it's rock bottom. The minimal plot involves a gang of bikers taking over a small town (how original!) and the townspeople's attempts to fight them off. Why don't they call for outside help? Who knows? The fight scenes are obviously fake. Adam West and Tina Louise are in it but both have little to do and both look ashamed to be there (understandably) This movie belongs in the trash heap!

I have been moved to review this movie because I remember it when it came out on cable. This has got to be the worst movie in which an editor has put honest effort into the process of film editing. If you want to see totally random out of place shots of bikers edited with close-ups of Tina Louise and Adam West you have found your movie. The only reason I gave it 2 out of 10 stars and instead of 1 of the 10 stars like 95% of the other reviewers is because the film stock seems to be of superior quality.

UPDATE: I gave the movie a second chance. I realize that the reason why the movie is so bad is that it's a biker movie without T&A. Some scenes have the potential to hold your interest, but there is no continuity throughout the movie to keep you going. Something like T&A in most biker movies to hold you interest.

My review was written in May 1985 after watching the movie on Trans World Entertainment video cassette.

"Hell Riders" is a meek attempt to resuscitate the biker action genre of two decades back. Already released on video cassette, this 1983 production has little theatrical potential outside the drive-in circuit.

Adam West toplines as Dr. Dave Stanley, physician in the small town of Ransburg beset by the violent Hell Riders biker gang. Besides the local folks, also terrorized is Claire (Tina Louise), a former Las Vegas blackjack dealer on the road.

Archaic cheapie features okay stunt work but an uninteresting, trite story. Predictably, West saves the day. Film culminates nastily when the townsfolk band together to mercilessly shoot down the bikers like dogs. Pic is more professionally executed than producer Renee Harmon's prior work (such as "Executioner Part Ii" and "Frozen Screams") but acting by the supporting cast is amateurish (biker extras are credited here as "Rent-a-Gang"). Harmon also casts herself as a saistic, overage biker -campy at best.

This movie feels like someone watched a biker movie in their dream and then got an A. I. to recreate the movie from what they remembered. "I remember Batman was in it but he was a doctor, Ginger from Gilligan's Island, a naked woman on a chain leash, bikers with skulls on their patches, and most of it was filmed on a set that looked like a frontier town from a western."