Savage Dawn

George Kennedy is in a wheelchair, and builds rocket grenades in his barn. Lance Henriksen is the bleach blonde hero, but vanishes for long periods of the film. Karen Black mumbles her lines throughout. Richard Lynch plays a priest with impure thoughts and lusts after biker chicks. William Forsythe is the gang leader who steals a tank, to add to the ridiculous mayhem. The movie basically has no plot, just a series of explosions between poorly choreographed fist fights. Despite the intriguing cast, "Savage Dawn" is one to avoid, even for fans of the actors. It is on a trifecta DVD with "Drug Traffikers", and "Caged Fury", which I have not yet viewed, but they will have to go some to be worse than "Savage Dawn". ....... - MERK

"Savage Dawn" is a major disappointment and I can't possibly recommend it. But of course, you'll ignore this statement, as well as the low rating, and watch it whenever you have the change. And I don't blame you; - I would to. Everything about "Savage Dawn" just seems so damn cool! It's biker-exploitation from the mid-80s, with a terrific small-town setting and a downright phenomenal ensemble cast, so how can it possibly be bad, for crying out loud? Well, in all honesty, I don't understand myself. In spite of the enormous potential and all the right ingredients present, Simon Nuchtern's film is an underwhelming and incompetent mess. The director somehow continuously undercuts the pacing himself, Lance Henriksen's tough-guy character is made out overly and unnecessarily enigmatic, most of the iconic B-movie stars are sadly wasted, the action & violence footage is dull and - quite frankly - the symbolical "hell" never breaks loose. Henriksen is supposed to be a former Green Beret. George Kennedy, his old and crippled buddy, manufactures rocket launchers in his basement. Richard Lynch is a priest but primarily a sexual deviant. Karen Black is a treacherous tramp. The town's deputy is a bare-chested cage fighter and has a dwarf as sidekick. What a wonderfully twisted range of characters, and these are just the townspeople, mind you! How can a film, in which people are run over by tanks and blown off their bikes by missiles, be so tedious? Cult/exploitation fanatics can only get frustrated by this type of films.

This is the typical bad late night movie you would expect to see on cable. The movie is about a man who comes to town to save it from a bunch of bikers who have taken over. Some parts were pretty comical, but as far as biker movies go there are a bunch of them out there that are far better than this garbage. You know it's bad when you actually start rooting for the bikers.

I saw SAVAGE DAWN -- for the first, and, sadly, last time -- when I was 14 years old (I'm 32 now); my cousin and I rented it on tape from Southern Star (a cool, now-defunct video store that featured movie rentals and, in the back, a couple of pool tables, a pinball machine, a couple of arcade games, a jukebox, and some tough-looking, pool-playing locals (who were not unlike the bikers in the film) -- and it was a place that turned a blind eye when a horny, gore-obsessed teenager wanted to rent an R-rated picture). SAVAGE DAWN was cheaply made (which was one of the things I liked about), featured lots of guys on motorcycles (another thing I was crazy about) and one bike in particular -- a cool-looking, silver-gray Suzuki GSP1000. I remember a fantastically gory scene -- maybe it wasn't visually gross, but in my mind it was -- where a guy is (taken off his motorcycle, I believe, and) impaled on the teeth of a huge hay-rake. I recall a couple of seedy scenes that really warmed my pubescent loins: (1) where two slutty-looking gals approach a guardhouse (to a trashed-out, post-apocalyptic fenced-in compound) and commence to entertain the guards with very vulgar, yet sexy, forms of distraction; and (2) where the wayward (maybe alcoholic) priest (was this Henriksen?) succumbs to the beautiful, naked upturned breasts of a young temptress. Sadly, I loved it all!

A drifter, loner and ex military badass "Stryker" visits an old friend in an odd town and encounters a Biker Gang who are bent out of shape in destroying the town. Plenty of trashiness, senseless villains who just want to cause havoc with that 80's over-the-top flare. Don't watch with any expectations except to kill some late night movie time, but It has plenty of cheese to keep you watching even if you don't try. Despite the mediocre script, and moments you will laugh at some dialog, William Forsythe still shows his acting chops here early in his career playing the bike gang leader and of course Lance Henriksen holds his ground.