Rebels Without a Pulse

Despite popular opinion the 70s were a golden age for cinema, especially for the underground. One of the true lost classics of the era was a little known Brit horror from 1971 called Psychomania.
Tom, the leader of a (oddly middle-class) gang of outlaw bikers, finally unlocks the secret of eternal life from his barking mad, spiritualist mother. After killing himself he returns from the grave and convinces the rest of his gang to do the same. Mayhem promptly ensues as the newly undead bikers murder and pillage their way across the home counties.
While this may sound like pure occult/horror nonsense (no bad thing) the film has been blessed with some awesome visuals. The title sequence for one, featuring slow motion footage of the bikers, skulls emblazoned on their helmets, riding in formation around a circle of standing stones in the grey dawn light, sound tracked by a slab of eerie, Sabbath-esque, downer rock.
Tom’s funeral is another beautiful soft focus scene, where his comrades bury him in the centre of the standing stones, upright, on his bike. The group sit around making wreaths from wild flowers while one of their number plays a piece of trippy acid folk, celebrating the freedoms of the open road. It’s cheesy as, but it beautifully captures the nature of the outsider. The scene is only rally beaten by Tom’s eventual resurrection, with the sound of a revving engine coming up from the soil and the bike exploding forward out of the grave. How is that not cool?
The film is steeped in 70’s camp and bad acting, which to me at least is almost half the fun. The gang act like nihilistic maniacs, but sound like a bunch of Etonians on a punting trip. Tom’s mother (played to perfection by Beryl Reid) is the kind of mad medium who seemed to only have existed in Shepperton studios while her man-servant, Shadwell, is a suitably creepy.
Despite its rather limited availability (it hasn’t been out on DVD for years) the films influence is vast, with everyone from Gabba DJs to Doom Metal bands sampling the film and various experts on British horror championing it as a high water mark.
This movie isn’t going to appeal to everyone, let’s face it the cheese factor is gonna be too much for some people, and the idea that Bikers, even in the early 70s, were as hippyish as this lot is laughable. However for those with a taste for the Satanic, the kitch, or the just plain fucking weird, it is a movie well worth tracking down.