Lobisomens sobre Rodas

This was a cool, funky little film, kind of an attempt to mix Easy Rider with any werewolf film. The Devils Advocates are a dirty, sleazy, nasty biker gang who live on the road, stopping only to sleep, drink and screw. When they stop one night at the foot of a Satanic Temple, and are offered food and drink by the monks, their life on the road gets a little weirder.

No, sadly, you really don't get to see hairy werewolves howling maniacally as they drive down dark highways illuminated by the full moon. What you do get is an attempt at artiness, as scenes are intercut with shots of black birds wheeling through the still air, a drugged girl dances naked before a fire as deranged monks deliver a spooky chant and a tarot reader displays talents more accurate than many I've seen in the movies. There's some absolutely hysterical additional dialogue and parts of the film almost have a documentary type feel to it. No, it's not the worlds most flawless film by any means, but it's better than a lot of the crap that was coming out around the same time. It has a realistic grittiness to it, yet at the same time possesses an ethereal atmosphere. It was just funky enough to impress me.

A biker gang, The Devil's Advocates, is driving desert roads, perhaps a little lost. At a resting spot, some hooded monks serve them wine and bread, and they pass out. The monks have some sort of satanic ritual with the girlfriend of the gang's leader, who they call the bride of Satan. She winds up dancing on a table nude, when the bikers come to, grabbing her, and beating up the monks.

They hit the road again, but something's wrong. Whenever they stop, some of their members die, apparently killed by wild beasts.

At one point, the movie almost seems like a parody of a classic Universal monster movie, when a wolfman is riding on a motorcycle (!) being chased by bikers on their motorcycles who are wielding torches. What, no pitchforks?

I saw this on an old videotape, full-frame. If it was shot in widescreen, I'm sure it looks better that way, what with the desert locations. Still, the visuals are pretty nice at times, as when the bikers disappear in a cloud of smoke and the camera quickly pulls back from a truck. There's also a neat old gas station, with old-fashioned glass-topped pumps that actually need to be *pumped* with a lever.

The instrumental guitar songs on the soundtrack are enjoyable. A real fuzzed-out rock sound.

To the extent that it's not all that good, hey at least it's not that long either. The ending is weird, but maybe it's supposed to be a little trippy, man!

I have wanted to see this movie for YEARS, considering it has one of the greatest titles ever. What I was hoping for was bikers riding along in full wolfman makeup, like the poster suggests. What I got was hippies galavanting across a desert and two(I think its two, it might be just one) members of the crew change into wolf form within the last 2-3 minutes of the movie. I can't say that I think it's art, unless you can watch 'Manos, the Hands of Fate" and think that's art...attempted art, I suppose. To be clear, this movie is NOT as bad as Manos, as very few movies ever made are awful to that degree. Still, the title made me think I would enjoy this movie enthusiastically as it implies the kind of shlocky camp I find amusing and I came away incredibly disappointed...and bored.

This film is a masterpiece! Thrill to hairy, disgusting guys riding enormous motorcycles with no hands! Cringe in horror as they beat the living daylights out of some guy at a gas station. Wonder just what the heck is going on as hordes of barefoot monks descend from the hills to offer bread and wine. Keep your notebook handy, because a step-by-step lesson in dark spirit-summoning is there waiting for you (hint: freshly cut Hazelwood). Ponder the homoerotic subtext. See the worst Tarot card reading in all history. There's even a charming softshoe routine for the kids. There's a couple of decent corpses in this movie, too. and the soundtrack is hot, hot HOT!!! I liked the ending.

If you watch B movies long enough, you'll learn that movies with goofy titles usually aren't very good at all, and this one is no exception. It plays like they only had a rough outline connecting a few scripted scenes, because a lot of the time the movie forgets the story and has the bikers basically goofing around until something bad happens. A low budget and clumsy camera work just add to the aura of shabbiness.

I can't completely dismiss it, because there are a few small but good touches here and there. Some of the music isn't bad, and there are also a few visuals (a gigantic flock of birds, desert landscapes) that do pop out and grab your eye. And there are also a few surreal sequences that do show that the filmmakers were not completely without imagination. But such moments are very few, and don't even get this movie up to the rank of movies to watch with fast-forward.