Wild Riders

This low budget b-movie is very much on the sleazier end of the exploitation spectrum. It was released by those dependable purveyors of good time schlock, Crown International Pictures. In advance, this one looks like it's another in the biker film cycle that followed in the wake of the big box office success of Easy Rider (1969). But despite its title, poster and two central characters, there is actually little in the way of biker action to be found here. Instead, it is a very early example of a type of movie which would become more popular as the 70's went on and would go on to be one of the most controversial sub-genres, namely the house invasion movie. In this respect, Wild Riders is quite clearly ahead of the curve and this does make it interesting.

It's about two biker thugs, who are exiled from their gang for killing a girl, they go on to conduct a house invasion of an affluent suburban home; their victims are two unfortunate women. From the outset this one makes it clear how it means to go on with a savage opening scene where a girl is nailed to a tree. Later there is more nastiness in the form of rape, murder and verbal abuse. It crescendos with a violent finale that was not only satisfying but also very funny. Despite how it may sound it's really not as disturbing as most films of this type that followed it but it definitely has a mean streak to it quite a bit of the time. It was after all refused a certificate in the UK when initially released and then re-refused again when it was submitted for home video in the late 80's. Definitely one of the tougher films released by Crown and one well worth checking out if you enjoy 70's exploitation.

WILD RIDERS is a slick and sleazy 'home invasion' type movie masquerading as a biker flick. Despite the opening scene this isn't a biker movie at all, but more of a grubby thriller. Throwing in a couple of biking scenes and having the main characters be members of a motorbike gang doesn't make it a biker flick.

Instead it's a bad taste film that seems to glorify violence and abuse against women. A couple of Neanderthal characters end up holding two women captive in their home and proceed to abuse them mercilessly in various scuzzy and unpleasant ways. There's gloating nudity and enough misogyny and rape that the BBFC banned it here in the UK, although amusingly enough I caught a showing on late night TV regardless.

WILD RIDERS feels slow and pointless for the most part, and the only real thrills and action come in the last twenty minutes or so. The ending is particularly satisfying, but there's a whole lot of bad stuff to sit through before then. Main star Alex Rocco was well known for starring in THE GODFATHER the following year.

The Wild Riders will be dismissed by the casual viewer as Mr. Crown's Drive-In Schlock. Actually it is a deeper commentary on the Sixties period, a period that began on January 1, 1963 and ended on March 31, 1973 when the last US Combat Troops came home from Vietnam. This movie is also a commentary on the Manson Family. The Sixties being an era of free love, free movement and free wheeling, kids were hitchhiking all over creation. At the beginning of the movie, our protagonists Stick (Alex Rocco) and Pete (Arell Blanton) crucifying a hippy girl played by Linda Johanesen for sleeping around on Pete. This gets Pete and Stick exiled from their Biker Gang. The two drift out to California and while bullying a nerd at the Griffith Observatory, Pete looks through the telescope and sees two young women home alone. He then plans a trip to their home. He and Stick arrive where Pete comes onto Rona (Porn Actress Elizabeth Knowles). He then decides to break into the back patio/pool area and does. Rona's friend Laure (Sherry Bain) immediately realizes things are going from bad to worse, but is too scared to leave the house or call the cops. After a few days of rape and torture, the man of the house (Ted Hayden) returns and exacts a fatal revenge. The movie is a comment on the Sixties culture, showing the ugly underbelly of it. The movie also is a commentary on how lax the wealthy in Los Angeles and in most areas were with security. Up until the Tate-Labianca murders, stuff like this could easily happen, some Hollywood stars didn't even lock their doors. This movie also showed the fear the wealthy and Hollywood had of the bikers, black radicals and the hippies of invading their privileged spaces. A good time capsule.

This film starts off promisingly, (for sick, sick thrills) when our two main characters torture and kill Pete's girlfriend because she dared to cheat on him, and with a man who had the gall to be born with a high melanin content, no less. This is too much to stand, even for the rest of the scuzzy biker gang they are riding with, so the gang leader tells them to beat it, hit the road and don't come back, the gang is splitting up and some of us are going to California.

So, the two scuzz buckets, Pete (reminiscent of Peter Fonda's Heavenly Blue, only meaner) and Stick (he's a bit slow but lovable, for a moronic sadist), go off by themselves like some crank-addicted George and Lennie in a white-trash version of "Of Mice and Men". Out of money and desperate, our two anti-heroes take over a somewhat posh suburban home where two sisters are holed up, bickering, since hubby is away on business.

The two creeps take over the house and hold the ladies hostage, and we settle in for over an hour of what appears to be a sort of bargain-basement "Who's Afraid of Virgina Woolf" on meth. Various physical and psychic tortures are inflicted upon both the victims and tormentors, as mind games galore play themselves out, until the inevitable, bloody conclusion. And since this was made during the post-Altamont era, you just know that the ending is most certainly NOT going to consist of the main characters going off into the sunset or sharing milk and cookies. Let's just say you'll never look at the cello the same way again.

A violent creep fest full of ugliness, recriminations and unnecessary cruelty. But in spite of that, I still didn't like it.

I can sum up the problem here in four words: not enough bike riding. A few more chase scenes, biker parties with naked chicks, or even a shootout with the police, and I might have gotten on board with this little sleaze fest. But, they blew it. I totally get that they had a very low budget to work with, but this wasn't the way to solve that problem. In spite of this, I give it a three since Alex Rocco puts in a good performance as a mildly retarded reprobate.

Two young men who bear a physical resemblance to Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper perform a slow-motion home invasion while on-the-lam from a crime so despicable as to get them ejected from an erstwhile biker gang. Somehow the writers discovered a way to start at the bottom and go downhill from there. The victims are as helpless, unsympathetic and cooperative as possible which is important as the perpetrators are as hapless as they could be. It begins as a "biker-gang" movie made just two years after "Easy Rider" hit the big screen and could have been named "Queasy Rider" as the bikes these "gangsters" use appeaar to be 75cc miniature ponies rather that the big ole Harley hogs used in similar productions. In terms of technical achievement continuity wasn't a big issue for the movie-makers so it better not be for those of us who are watching. If you are inerested in a derivative "B" movie from the very early 70s this is your cup of COORS (product placement).