Reviews (676)

A dissapointment
The first Mummy was an enjoyable, if tedious, romp about the struggles of an adventurer and his companions to stop the apocalyptic agenda of an ancient Egyptian priest. Far from perfect, The Mummy nevertheless boasted an infectious blend of high adventure, low-scare horror, and special effects that transformed it into a surprise hit. Now comes the sequel; The Mummy Returns along with most of the original cast. The rather jumbled plot is as follows: A cult of power-mad Egyptologists have concocted a plan by which they can obtain world domination. First, they must resurrect Im-Ho-Tep, the mummy from the first film. Since they are being led by the ancient priest's re-incarnated girlfriend, Anck-Su-Namun (Patricia Velazquez), this proves to be surprisingly easy. Then, with his powers restored, Im-Ho-Tep heads off to do battle with the mythical Scorpion King, whose tomb lies in a pyramid at the center of a hidden oasis. In order to find that oasis, Im-Ho-Tep needs an artifact which happens to be in the possession of Alex O'Connell. And, when the boy is kidnapped, that brings his parents, his uncle Jonathan, and their old friend, Ardeth Bay, into the conflict. This results in a lot of chasing around the globe and a climax that features a special effects-laden battle between two armies. Unfortunately, it becomes obvious real fast that the only reason The Mummy Returns exists is because of Universal Studio's greed, and not due to a creative process. Of course this is the thought process that kills most sequels. The story is told so sloppy and is so unnecessary, the characters are eventually abandoned and it becomes really hard to care about anyone or anything. The plot pot is boiling so furiously with silly deaths-and-rebirths and various attempts at sub-plots, it turns to overkill.

Fraser has never seemed more smarmy; he doesn't retain a smidgen of his usual bumptious charm. Weisz, who must shift from being a strong woman at one instant to a helpless damsel the next (and endure some really embarrassing fight sequences with Velasquez in flashbacks to her former life in ancient Thebes -- she's been reincarnated -- don't ask), is surprisingly nondescript in all these guises. Even the CGI is a let down: The computer generated Scorpion King is simply awful (the warriors of Anubis are so startingly fake you can feel Ray Harryhausen crying out for vengeance). While roller-coaster rides can be fun, even they need proper timing: they require occasional pauses from the plunges, and certainly shouldn't drag on forever. Oh well, I hope Jurassic Park and Planet of the Apes score better than The Mummy Returns.

Action-packed Entertainment - a True Sequel
I tend to rate a movie on it's 'see again' factor - I'd watch this one again and again... I've rarely seen a sequel that follows on so beautifully from where the original left off. It's 10 years later and the O'Connells have a son, Alex, who has a relentless tendency to get into trouble - kind of like his mother, really.

Okay, so there are a few 'seen-it, 'been there, done that' moments, but despite this, "The Mummy Returns" manages to pack in the action and keep your eyes glued to the screen. Best points: the story behind the murder of Pharaoh Seti I in the first movie involving Evy, Imhotep and Anck Su Namun - nice follow on there; the FANTASTIC battle between Anubis's army and the Medjai in the desert - great SFX! And the moment of Anck Su Namun betrayal - one of those rare times your heart goes out to the bad guy.

Most importantly, the movie is about FUN. Yes, there are things that defy reality, the plot isn't water-tight or rock-steady - so what? It's an action-packed, entertaining, SCI-FI movie with memorable characters, great actors that makes brilliant use of special effects and doesn't take itself too seriously. What more could a die-hard movie buff ask for?

All I'm saying is...
...this could have been much better. Three years after the fact, I know many of us are in agreement that this sequel did not live up to the original, so instead of just bashing it, I thought I'd do a take on what NOT to do with a sequel:

1.) Do not sacrifice plot for action. After so many sequels that bombed because of this, the producers still fell for it anyway. Do you know what made "The Mummy" so awesome? The lure of all the ancient Egyptian lore and myth, which, when interspersed with action, brought the entire movie alive. We don't need more brawls and swordfights and self-consuming cities--we need more of the MAGIC.

2.) Don't reference the original more than twice. It's not as if we don't remember the books and the plagues and the happy romance. If anything, constant reflections insult us as an audience. It's another bad trap that sequel-makers fall into, and again, it happened here too.

3.) Don't wreck the memory of a beloved setting. Hamunaptra was chock-full of all that we as Americans want from ancient Egypt: vast treasures, sarcophogi, curses, booby traps, juicy mummies. And what did we see of it in the second film? Sand, teeming with people who couldn't even find it eight years before. Huge electric lights illuminating what once could only be seen by torchlight. Trucks, instead of camels! And some really strangely reincarnated Anck-su-namun. The moviemakers effectively ruined the magic of Hamunaptra, and they didn't have to. Shame!

4.) Never, ever, ever pull a stunt like a CGI Rock again. Could they not afford to pay him for the final scenes? Just imagine the heroic fight between Rick, Imhotep, and the Scorpion King--only all three are in the flesh! People would have been cheering in the theatre watching the Rock fight with Brendan Fraser and Arnold Vosloo. But noooo...let's pull CGI out of our butts for the eighty millionth time. Shame shame!

5.) Don't ruin the best moments of the film by shortening them. Were we too busy playing around with CGI Rock to choreograph a great fight scene between Anck and Evie? I think we might have been. I understand that having Anck shy away from fighting helped set up her not being brave enough in the end for other things, but even just extending the fight a little longer would have helped. Anck could have given her best in an extended fight but still lost, and then we could have watched her bravado melt away and become her undoing.

All that being said, there are some bright spots. The mummy himself, for one. And the character of Jonathan was as lively and funny as ever, thank goodness; Ardeth Bay (Oded Fehr) was even more campily serious and apocolyptic, and that was fun, too. Enough can't be said for Brendan Frasier, who IS the action hero of the the new millenium--handsome, funny, totally self-aware, and he puts his heart into everything completely.

I hope they make a third "Mummy." There's a lot left of ancient Egypt to explore, especially since in the time period of the movies not everything had been discovered yet. I think all the main characters would have to return, and that the plot with the most potential still remains that between Imhotep and Anck-su-namun. With all the money they have in Hollywood, the producers should be able to hire a team talented enough to write a movie as magical as the first.

Mummy Dearest
Such trash the movie studios insult us with. The Cringometer peaked over the red line from the opener and climaxed with some of the worst CG ever. The Rock- more like The Crock! Possibly the worst film in any aspect ratio, preferable on NO SCREEN. Had hoped that Stephen Sommers would be sent into exile for this sub-par Jules Verne abortion, but we've just seen Van Helsing and don't understand why he hasn't suicided.

Mummys Back
The second adventure of this series is set eight years after the first. This time the affects are better and we get to see more of supermodel, Patricia Velasquez, wearing only gold paint as well as toting a machine gun. The most popular scene in the movie is the chic fight between Velasquez and Weiss, no doubt the pause and shuttle buttons will get a work out...

As usuall Brendan Frazer is at his silly best with his now on screen wife, Rachael Wiess a still overly beautiful adventurist. This time they have an equally inqusitive son who simple can't leave things alone... ... Read more

Reviews (3)

This movie shouldn't have been made...
or at least given the same title as the classic by John Dahl. The first movie was great; at one point it was my favorite movie of all time! But Joan Severance tried to make a, I guess, serious movie and boy was that a bad idea. I knew that when seeing this movie that I wasn't getting the origional, but I at least expected to see Joan Severance in a sex fest. Not even that! I was real excited to see Joan Severance get it on again because I hadn't seen her in a while. So I guess I have to wait some more. This is off the topic, but Joan Severance's best role was in a soft core porn called Almost Pregnant. It was totally funny and totally hot. Too bad Amazon doesn't have it.

More wooden than a lumberyard
Last Seduction/Last Seduction II wins the title of 'Greatest Original/Worst Sequel' hands down. Severence manages to at least look like Bridgett/ Wendy, but thats about a far as it goes. The fact that no one from the original movie participates in the sequel begs the question; Could I decide to make a movie entitled 'Godfater part IV' without the consent of Francis Ford Coppola? It looks like that is what happened here. The only borderline clever part of the whole movie is when one character has a hotel televison on, the original movie is seen on the screen. Be warned, this movie B-L-O-W-S.

Liked it better than the first one
First off don't rent or buy this if you are expecting to see Joan severance in the buff. No Nudity in this one. Don't fret this is a pretty good story, and Joan makes a much more convincing b@#ch than Linda Fiorentino. ... Read more

Reviews (676)

A dissapointment
The first Mummy was an enjoyable, if tedious, romp about the struggles of an adventurer and his companions to stop the apocalyptic agenda of an ancient Egyptian priest. Far from perfect, The Mummy nevertheless boasted an infectious blend of high adventure, low-scare horror, and special effects that transformed it into a surprise hit. Now comes the sequel; The Mummy Returns along with most of the original cast. The rather jumbled plot is as follows: A cult of power-mad Egyptologists have concocted a plan by which they can obtain world domination. First, they must resurrect Im-Ho-Tep, the mummy from the first film. Since they are being led by the ancient priest's re-incarnated girlfriend, Anck-Su-Namun (Patricia Velazquez), this proves to be surprisingly easy. Then, with his powers restored, Im-Ho-Tep heads off to do battle with the mythical Scorpion King, whose tomb lies in a pyramid at the center of a hidden oasis. In order to find that oasis, Im-Ho-Tep needs an artifact which happens to be in the possession of Alex O'Connell. And, when the boy is kidnapped, that brings his parents, his uncle Jonathan, and their old friend, Ardeth Bay, into the conflict. This results in a lot of chasing around the globe and a climax that features a special effects-laden battle between two armies. Unfortunately, it becomes obvious real fast that the only reason The Mummy Returns exists is because of Universal Studio's greed, and not due to a creative process. Of course this is the thought process that kills most sequels. The story is told so sloppy and is so unnecessary, the characters are eventually abandoned and it becomes really hard to care about anyone or anything. The plot pot is boiling so furiously with silly deaths-and-rebirths and various attempts at sub-plots, it turns to overkill.

Fraser has never seemed more smarmy; he doesn't retain a smidgen of his usual bumptious charm. Weisz, who must shift from being a strong woman at one instant to a helpless damsel the next (and endure some really embarrassing fight sequences with Velasquez in flashbacks to her former life in ancient Thebes -- she's been reincarnated -- don't ask), is surprisingly nondescript in all these guises. Even the CGI is a let down: The computer generated Scorpion King is simply awful (the warriors of Anubis are so startingly fake you can feel Ray Harryhausen crying out for vengeance). While roller-coaster rides can be fun, even they need proper timing: they require occasional pauses from the plunges, and certainly shouldn't drag on forever. Oh well, I hope Jurassic Park and Planet of the Apes score better than The Mummy Returns.

Action-packed Entertainment - a True Sequel
I tend to rate a movie on it's 'see again' factor - I'd watch this one again and again... I've rarely seen a sequel that follows on so beautifully from where the original left off. It's 10 years later and the O'Connells have a son, Alex, who has a relentless tendency to get into trouble - kind of like his mother, really.

Okay, so there are a few 'seen-it, 'been there, done that' moments, but despite this, "The Mummy Returns" manages to pack in the action and keep your eyes glued to the screen. Best points: the story behind the murder of Pharaoh Seti I in the first movie involving Evy, Imhotep and Anck Su Namun - nice follow on there; the FANTASTIC battle between Anubis's army and the Medjai in the desert - great SFX! And the moment of Anck Su Namun betrayal - one of those rare times your heart goes out to the bad guy.

Most importantly, the movie is about FUN. Yes, there are things that defy reality, the plot isn't water-tight or rock-steady - so what? It's an action-packed, entertaining, SCI-FI movie with memorable characters, great actors that makes brilliant use of special effects and doesn't take itself too seriously. What more could a die-hard movie buff ask for?

All I'm saying is...
...this could have been much better. Three years after the fact, I know many of us are in agreement that this sequel did not live up to the original, so instead of just bashing it, I thought I'd do a take on what NOT to do with a sequel:

1.) Do not sacrifice plot for action. After so many sequels that bombed because of this, the producers still fell for it anyway. Do you know what made "The Mummy" so awesome? The lure of all the ancient Egyptian lore and myth, which, when interspersed with action, brought the entire movie alive. We don't need more brawls and swordfights and self-consuming cities--we need more of the MAGIC.

2.) Don't reference the original more than twice. It's not as if we don't remember the books and the plagues and the happy romance. If anything, constant reflections insult us as an audience. It's another bad trap that sequel-makers fall into, and again, it happened here too.

3.) Don't wreck the memory of a beloved setting. Hamunaptra was chock-full of all that we as Americans want from ancient Egypt: vast treasures, sarcophogi, curses, booby traps, juicy mummies. And what did we see of it in the second film? Sand, teeming with people who couldn't even find it eight years before. Huge electric lights illuminating what once could only be seen by torchlight. Trucks, instead of camels! And some really strangely reincarnated Anck-su-namun. The moviemakers effectively ruined the magic of Hamunaptra, and they didn't have to. Shame!

4.) Never, ever, ever pull a stunt like a CGI Rock again. Could they not afford to pay him for the final scenes? Just imagine the heroic fight between Rick, Imhotep, and the Scorpion King--only all three are in the flesh! People would have been cheering in the theatre watching the Rock fight with Brendan Fraser and Arnold Vosloo. But noooo...let's pull CGI out of our butts for the eighty millionth time. Shame shame!

5.) Don't ruin the best moments of the film by shortening them. Were we too busy playing around with CGI Rock to choreograph a great fight scene between Anck and Evie? I think we might have been. I understand that having Anck shy away from fighting helped set up her not being brave enough in the end for other things, but even just extending the fight a little longer would have helped. Anck could have given her best in an extended fight but still lost, and then we could have watched her bravado melt away and become her undoing.

All that being said, there are some bright spots. The mummy himself, for one. And the character of Jonathan was as lively and funny as ever, thank goodness; Ardeth Bay (Oded Fehr) was even more campily serious and apocolyptic, and that was fun, too. Enough can't be said for Brendan Frasier, who IS the action hero of the the new millenium--handsome, funny, totally self-aware, and he puts his heart into everything completely.

I hope they make a third "Mummy." There's a lot left of ancient Egypt to explore, especially since in the time period of the movies not everything had been discovered yet. I think all the main characters would have to return, and that the plot with the most potential still remains that between Imhotep and Anck-su-namun. With all the money they have in Hollywood, the producers should be able to hire a team talented enough to write a movie as magical as the first.

Mummy Dearest
Such trash the movie studios insult us with. The Cringometer peaked over the red line from the opener and climaxed with some of the worst CG ever. The Rock- more like The Crock! Possibly the worst film in any aspect ratio, preferable on NO SCREEN. Had hoped that Stephen Sommers would be sent into exile for this sub-par Jules Verne abortion, but we've just seen Van Helsing and don't understand why he hasn't suicided.

Mummys Back
The second adventure of this series is set eight years after the first. This time the affects are better and we get to see more of supermodel, Patricia Velasquez, wearing only gold paint as well as toting a machine gun. The most popular scene in the movie is the chic fight between Velasquez and Weiss, no doubt the pause and shuttle buttons will get a work out...

As usuall Brendan Frazer is at his silly best with his now on screen wife, Rachael Wiess a still overly beautiful adventurist. This time they have an equally inqusitive son who simple can't leave things alone... ... Read more

Reviews (24)

It ain't Quadrophenia!
It's something much better! This film may not have much in the way of plot or acting, but what it does have is that most intagable of film qualities-the ability to stick in your head for ever after having seen it. I myself saw it as a young'n on Elvira's tv show back in the 80's, and could never forget the sight of bikers turning to stone! Indeed, I had to ask myself if I saw what I thought I saw. What you have is a movie ripe for the Mystery Science Theater treatment, or just a good time with some friends and a bad movie you can get some good laughs out of. The rundown is: A bratty son of a Medium leads a mod gang of hooligans, "The Living Dead" (complete with skull-painted helmets) and wants mum's secret of eternal life. The butler might be the devil? We're not sure. Brat kills himself, rides his hog out of his grave and convinces his gang that ritualistic mass suicide is fun! Of course, convincing his girlfriend is another matter-hilarity ensues! 90 minutes will go by and you won't know what any of it meant, but you won't be able to forget-Psychomania!

One toad stroganoff, extra cheese, please!
Psychomania (Don Sharp, 1971)

Perhaps the most amusing thing about Psychomania is that it wasn't the first film with that title (a previous film about an axe murderer called Psychomania was released in 1964. The two are completely unrelated).

Avengers TV series director and veteran horror-film helmsman Don Sharp get behind the camera for this tale of a biker gang called The Living Dead. One wonders how, exactly, a town as small as the one in the film could sustain a biker gang, but there you go. Tom (Nicky Henson of The Conqueror Worm, There's a Girl in My Soup, etc.), the gang's leader, is almost too stereotypical for words; rich kid gone bad after catching a case of terminal hippie-dom. (Because, after all, all hippies are bikers.) Tom's mother (veteran TV and film actress Beryl Reid) and her sinister butler Shadwell (George Sanders, the voice of Shere Khan in The Jungle Book, in one of his last screen appearances) are members of an odd cult of frog worshippers who believe they know the secret to coming back from the dead, something they're quite anxious to keep from Tom. Or so we're led to believe. But he manages to trick it out of them...

To call this movie "cheesy" would be understating the case in a major way. When two people commit suicide by jumping to their deaths--one via skydiving!--they're not going to show up in the morgue all in one piece. And yet, through the magic of filmmaking, they do. Lovely. Amusing little goofs like that are scattered throughout the film. And yet, somehow, Psychomania is one of the good bad films, rather than one of the bad bad films. Perhaps it's Nicky Henson's charm. Perhaps, in hindsight, it's playing "spot the bike gang member" (one of them has been in about half the James bond films, always uncredited, always playing a different walk-on character; two others are Shakespearean actors; etc.). Perhaps it's wondering how Don Sharp got George Sanders and Beryl Reid to take these roles seriously. Perhaps it's just the oddly catchy "Riding Free," which drifts through the movie like the wind. Who knows? In any case, this is one of those rare bad films with entirely too much rewatch value for its own good.

Unfortunately, like most of the other Euroshock Collection DVDs I've encountered, this one comes with a dearth of special features (and it looks as if the film was simply transferred without any cleanup being done from a degraded master, just like Oasis of the Zombies). I know there aren't nearly enough fans of movies like this to make a major restoration project worth anyone's while, but it would have been nice to see it as a labor of love. In any case, if you've never seen Psychomania, now's your chance; don't miss it. *** ½ (lost half a star for the lackluster DVD presentation.)

A fine addition to the zombie biker genre
Ah, wait a minute....there isn't any such genre; this movie is one of a kind! How could I say no to a film with the plot premise: zombie biker gang terrorizes small town's inhabitants. To be far to the lack of quality in the movie, I didn't so much as love this film as I was fascinated by the sheer weirdness--the back acting, the occult counter-culter plot, and oh yes, the bad acting! As the Amazon review for this film pointed out, Psychomania avoids the extremes of any particular theme: it isn't particularly scary (there is no blood whatsoever), it isn't all that violent (there is lots of riding around, but that's all Tom and his gang seem to do--there is, however, a great scene where Jane (a gorgeous Ann Michelle), one of the biker members, mows over a baby carriage [that kid's going to be bitter when it grows up!]); you sure don't get much in the line of social commentary either--in fact the morality of Tom and the gang's actions isn't never directly addressed at all--so cautionary tale it is not! The believability factor is pretty extreme also. Hatchet's suicide onto the freeway should have left him a barely recognizable scrape, but lo and behold, he's in the morgue perfectly intact; ditto for the skydiver biker--eeeyouch! he wasn't even dented! As for the occult, it would've been nice to have had five minutes more of exposition devoted to the source of that frog cult or have a little more light shed onto Shadwell's identity. Still it's probably best not to look too far into these kinds of movies. Interestingly, some of the talent cast have been in many other films. As another reviewer pointed out, Nicky Henson was in many other films (I saw Conquorer Worm awhile ago, but don't remember him). I happen to be a huge Doctor Who fan, so I recognized John Levine and Beryl Reid from those shows. If you are a fan of the biker horror genre, then by all means go see Werewolves On Wheels as it has many of the same elements: the cheesy song halfway through, the surly biker gang, the nonsensical plot, and an ending even more bizarre than this movie's. But if you like your movies dark side weird, then start with Psychomania!

Sleep-inducing campy horror
A group of frog-worshipping British bikers learn that the secret to returning from the dead is as simple as wishing you won't die really, really hard when you commit suicide. There's no gore, the zombie bikers look exactly the same as they did before they died, and there's nothing even remotely scary going on here. It's all done with a droll British manner, and is perhaps tongue-in-cheek, but it simply isn't funny enough to really care. There's a reason why movies like this were shown on late night TV - they put most people to sleep!

Call me crazy, but I liked it
I don't know what it is about Psychomania, but I'll be doggoned if I didn't enjoy this movie. This low-budget motorcycle gang horror movie made at the hands of one-time Hammer director Don Sharp looks rather cheesy, revolves around a rather porous storyline, and comes up empty in the special effects department, but it works for some reason. I hate biker movies, but this one is just kooky enough to capture my attention. Tom is not your typical motorcycle gang leader, and The Living Dead is not your typical motorcycle gang. These crazy kids like to hang out and motor around the local cemetery sporting their ridiculous skeleton-like helmets, taking periodic breaks to run drivers off the roads and to terrorize the local community. Tom himself lives in a grand manor house, though, with his séance-conducting medium mother and an ever-present serving man named Shadwell. Tom is somewhat obsessed with death, always asking his mother how to come back from the dead. He has now finally been given the key to the manor's mysterious locked room, the room in which his father died mysteriously eighteen years earlier. This is a scene that is never really explained, but soon Tom has learned the answer to the question he has been asking. It turns out that all you need to do to come back from the dead is to believe wholeheartedly that you will do so while you kill yourself. He actually manages to pull the whole thing off, and the new and even more dangerous Tom soon has the whole gang committing suicide in various ways in order to really live up to the gang's name.

Naturally, such goings-on do not take place without the devil's full knowledge, and ignorance of a debt does not preclude the devil from making his clients pay for their wrongs. The truly awful special effects put a real damper on an already less than exciting ending, but the devil and I seem to be fairly happy with the overall results. The man downstairs seems to have quite a penchant for frogs, by the way, but this is just another aspect of the film that is never really explained. As long as you don't take this film seriously and prepare yourself for some plot elements that go AWOL along the way, Psychomania is quite capable of providing you with an hour and a half of strangely satisfying, albeit rather lame, entertainment. ... Read more

Reviews (24)

It ain't Quadrophenia!
It's something much better! This film may not have much in the way of plot or acting, but what it does have is that most intagable of film qualities-the ability to stick in your head for ever after having seen it. I myself saw it as a young'n on Elvira's tv show back in the 80's, and could never forget the sight of bikers turning to stone! Indeed, I had to ask myself if I saw what I thought I saw. What you have is a movie ripe for the Mystery Science Theater treatment, or just a good time with some friends and a bad movie you can get some good laughs out of. The rundown is: A bratty son of a Medium leads a mod gang of hooligans, "The Living Dead" (complete with skull-painted helmets) and wants mum's secret of eternal life. The butler might be the devil? We're not sure. Brat kills himself, rides his hog out of his grave and convinces his gang that ritualistic mass suicide is fun! Of course, convincing his girlfriend is another matter-hilarity ensues! 90 minutes will go by and you won't know what any of it meant, but you won't be able to forget-Psychomania!

One toad stroganoff, extra cheese, please!
Psychomania (Don Sharp, 1971)

Perhaps the most amusing thing about Psychomania is that it wasn't the first film with that title (a previous film about an axe murderer called Psychomania was released in 1964. The two are completely unrelated).

Avengers TV series director and veteran horror-film helmsman Don Sharp get behind the camera for this tale of a biker gang called The Living Dead. One wonders how, exactly, a town as small as the one in the film could sustain a biker gang, but there you go. Tom (Nicky Henson of The Conqueror Worm, There's a Girl in My Soup, etc.), the gang's leader, is almost too stereotypical for words; rich kid gone bad after catching a case of terminal hippie-dom. (Because, after all, all hippies are bikers.) Tom's mother (veteran TV and film actress Beryl Reid) and her sinister butler Shadwell (George Sanders, the voice of Shere Khan in The Jungle Book, in one of his last screen appearances) are members of an odd cult of frog worshippers who believe they know the secret to coming back from the dead, something they're quite anxious to keep from Tom. Or so we're led to believe. But he manages to trick it out of them...

To call this movie "cheesy" would be understating the case in a major way. When two people commit suicide by jumping to their deaths--one via skydiving!--they're not going to show up in the morgue all in one piece. And yet, through the magic of filmmaking, they do. Lovely. Amusing little goofs like that are scattered throughout the film. And yet, somehow, Psychomania is one of the good bad films, rather than one of the bad bad films. Perhaps it's Nicky Henson's charm. Perhaps, in hindsight, it's playing "spot the bike gang member" (one of them has been in about half the James bond films, always uncredited, always playing a different walk-on character; two others are Shakespearean actors; etc.). Perhaps it's wondering how Don Sharp got George Sanders and Beryl Reid to take these roles seriously. Perhaps it's just the oddly catchy "Riding Free," which drifts through the movie like the wind. Who knows? In any case, this is one of those rare bad films with entirely too much rewatch value for its own good.

Unfortunately, like most of the other Euroshock Collection DVDs I've encountered, this one comes with a dearth of special features (and it looks as if the film was simply transferred without any cleanup being done from a degraded master, just like Oasis of the Zombies). I know there aren't nearly enough fans of movies like this to make a major restoration project worth anyone's while, but it would have been nice to see it as a labor of love. In any case, if you've never seen Psychomania, now's your chance; don't miss it. *** ½ (lost half a star for the lackluster DVD presentation.)

A fine addition to the zombie biker genre
Ah, wait a minute....there isn't any such genre; this movie is one of a kind! How could I say no to a film with the plot premise: zombie biker gang terrorizes small town's inhabitants. To be far to the lack of quality in the movie, I didn't so much as love this film as I was fascinated by the sheer weirdness--the back acting, the occult counter-culter plot, and oh yes, the bad acting! As the Amazon review for this film pointed out, Psychomania avoids the extremes of any particular theme: it isn't particularly scary (there is no blood whatsoever), it isn't all that violent (there is lots of riding around, but that's all Tom and his gang seem to do--there is, however, a great scene where Jane (a gorgeous Ann Michelle), one of the biker members, mows over a baby carriage [that kid's going to be bitter when it grows up!]); you sure don't get much in the line of social commentary either--in fact the morality of Tom and the gang's actions isn't never directly addressed at all--so cautionary tale it is not! The believability factor is pretty extreme also. Hatchet's suicide onto the freeway should have left him a barely recognizable scrape, but lo and behold, he's in the morgue perfectly intact; ditto for the skydiver biker--eeeyouch! he wasn't even dented! As for the occult, it would've been nice to have had five minutes more of exposition devoted to the source of that frog cult or have a little more light shed onto Shadwell's identity. Still it's probably best not to look too far into these kinds of movies. Interestingly, some of the talent cast have been in many other films. As another reviewer pointed out, Nicky Henson was in many other films (I saw Conquorer Worm awhile ago, but don't remember him). I happen to be a huge Doctor Who fan, so I recognized John Levine and Beryl Reid from those shows. If you are a fan of the biker horror genre, then by all means go see Werewolves On Wheels as it has many of the same elements: the cheesy song halfway through, the surly biker gang, the nonsensical plot, and an ending even more bizarre than this movie's. But if you like your movies dark side weird, then start with Psychomania!

Sleep-inducing campy horror
A group of frog-worshipping British bikers learn that the secret to returning from the dead is as simple as wishing you won't die really, really hard when you commit suicide. There's no gore, the zombie bikers look exactly the same as they did before they died, and there's nothing even remotely scary going on here. It's all done with a droll British manner, and is perhaps tongue-in-cheek, but it simply isn't funny enough to really care. There's a reason why movies like this were shown on late night TV - they put most people to sleep!

Call me crazy, but I liked it
I don't know what it is about Psychomania, but I'll be doggoned if I didn't enjoy this movie. This low-budget motorcycle gang horror movie made at the hands of one-time Hammer director Don Sharp looks rather cheesy, revolves around a rather porous storyline, and comes up empty in the special effects department, but it works for some reason. I hate biker movies, but this one is just kooky enough to capture my attention. Tom is not your typical motorcycle gang leader, and The Living Dead is not your typical motorcycle gang. These crazy kids like to hang out and motor around the local cemetery sporting their ridiculous skeleton-like helmets, taking periodic breaks to run drivers off the roads and to terrorize the local community. Tom himself lives in a grand manor house, though, with his séance-conducting medium mother and an ever-present serving man named Shadwell. Tom is somewhat obsessed with death, always asking his mother how to come back from the dead. He has now finally been given the key to the manor's mysterious locked room, the room in which his father died mysteriously eighteen years earlier. This is a scene that is never really explained, but soon Tom has learned the answer to the question he has been asking. It turns out that all you need to do to come back from the dead is to believe wholeheartedly that you will do so while you kill yourself. He actually manages to pull the whole thing off, and the new and even more dangerous Tom soon has the whole gang committing suicide in various ways in order to really live up to the gang's name.

Naturally, such goings-on do not take place without the devil's full knowledge, and ignorance of a debt does not preclude the devil from making his clients pay for their wrongs. The truly awful special effects put a real damper on an already less than exciting ending, but the devil and I seem to be fairly happy with the overall results. The man downstairs seems to have quite a penchant for frogs, by the way, but this is just another aspect of the film that is never really explained. As long as you don't take this film seriously and prepare yourself for some plot elements that go AWOL along the way, Psychomania is quite capable of providing you with an hour and a half of strangely satisfying, albeit rather lame, entertainment. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

This movie shouldn't have been made...
or at least given the same title as the classic by John Dahl. The first movie was great; at one point it was my favorite movie of all time! But Joan Severance tried to make a, I guess, serious movie and boy was that a bad idea. I knew that when seeing this movie that I wasn't getting the origional, but I at least expected to see Joan Severance in a sex fest. Not even that! I was real excited to see Joan Severance get it on again because I hadn't seen her in a while. So I guess I have to wait some more. This is off the topic, but Joan Severance's best role was in a soft core porn called Almost Pregnant. It was totally funny and totally hot. Too bad Amazon doesn't have it.

More wooden than a lumberyard
Last Seduction/Last Seduction II wins the title of 'Greatest Original/Worst Sequel' hands down. Severence manages to at least look like Bridgett/ Wendy, but thats about a far as it goes. The fact that no one from the original movie participates in the sequel begs the question; Could I decide to make a movie entitled 'Godfater part IV' without the consent of Francis Ford Coppola? It looks like that is what happened here. The only borderline clever part of the whole movie is when one character has a hotel televison on, the original movie is seen on the screen. Be warned, this movie B-L-O-W-S.

Liked it better than the first one
First off don't rent or buy this if you are expecting to see Joan severance in the buff. No Nudity in this one. Don't fret this is a pretty good story, and Joan makes a much more convincing b@#ch than Linda Fiorentino. ... Read more

Amazon.com

Somewhere in the English countryside a nihilistic biker (Nicky Henson) decides to make the name of his violent motorcycle gang ("The Living Dead") more than just a slogan. With the help of his dear old mum (Beryl Reid), who just happens to be a frog-worshipping occultist, he dives to his death only to leap out of his grave (still astride his motorcycle) like a black leather bat out of hell. This is one young rebel who makes the dictum "Live hard, die young, and leave a good-looking corpse" a reality. Soon he's recruiting for his undead biker army. ("Oh man, what are we waiting for?!" exclaims a restless gang member before driving headlong into a truck.) This zombie version of The Wild Angels is less horror film than biker nightmare, and Don Sharp, a former Hammer horror director, doesn't quite know how to straddle the line. The obscure supernatural elements feel creaky next to the restless violence of the rebels without a pulse and their sadistic reign of terror. Though he revels in gallows humor (the gang's "extreme sports" suicide montage is ghoulishly hilarious), Sharp never lets it descend into camp--though at times perhaps he should have. It's an inventive if not altogether successful genre mix highlighted with a sardonic turn by George Sanders as a shady servant who seems completely bemused by the entire spectacle. --Sean Axmaker ... Read more

Reviews (24)

It ain't Quadrophenia!
It's something much better! This film may not have much in the way of plot or acting, but what it does have is that most intagable of film qualities-the ability to stick in your head for ever after having seen it. I myself saw it as a young'n on Elvira's tv show back in the 80's, and could never forget the sight of bikers turning to stone! Indeed, I had to ask myself if I saw what I thought I saw. What you have is a movie ripe for the Mystery Science Theater treatment, or just a good time with some friends and a bad movie you can get some good laughs out of. The rundown is: A bratty son of a Medium leads a mod gang of hooligans, "The Living Dead" (complete with skull-painted helmets) and wants mum's secret of eternal life. The butler might be the devil? We're not sure. Brat kills himself, rides his hog out of his grave and convinces his gang that ritualistic mass suicide is fun! Of course, convincing his girlfriend is another matter-hilarity ensues! 90 minutes will go by and you won't know what any of it meant, but you won't be able to forget-Psychomania!

One toad stroganoff, extra cheese, please!
Psychomania (Don Sharp, 1971)

Perhaps the most amusing thing about Psychomania is that it wasn't the first film with that title (a previous film about an axe murderer called Psychomania was released in 1964. The two are completely unrelated).

Avengers TV series director and veteran horror-film helmsman Don Sharp get behind the camera for this tale of a biker gang called The Living Dead. One wonders how, exactly, a town as small as the one in the film could sustain a biker gang, but there you go. Tom (Nicky Henson of The Conqueror Worm, There's a Girl in My Soup, etc.), the gang's leader, is almost too stereotypical for words; rich kid gone bad after catching a case of terminal hippie-dom. (Because, after all, all hippies are bikers.) Tom's mother (veteran TV and film actress Beryl Reid) and her sinister butler Shadwell (George Sanders, the voice of Shere Khan in The Jungle Book, in one of his last screen appearances) are members of an odd cult of frog worshippers who believe they know the secret to coming back from the dead, something they're quite anxious to keep from Tom. Or so we're led to believe. But he manages to trick it out of them...

To call this movie "cheesy" would be understating the case in a major way. When two people commit suicide by jumping to their deaths--one via skydiving!--they're not going to show up in the morgue all in one piece. And yet, through the magic of filmmaking, they do. Lovely. Amusing little goofs like that are scattered throughout the film. And yet, somehow, Psychomania is one of the good bad films, rather than one of the bad bad films. Perhaps it's Nicky Henson's charm. Perhaps, in hindsight, it's playing "spot the bike gang member" (one of them has been in about half the James bond films, always uncredited, always playing a different walk-on character; two others are Shakespearean actors; etc.). Perhaps it's wondering how Don Sharp got George Sanders and Beryl Reid to take these roles seriously. Perhaps it's just the oddly catchy "Riding Free," which drifts through the movie like the wind. Who knows? In any case, this is one of those rare bad films with entirely too much rewatch value for its own good.

Unfortunately, like most of the other Euroshock Collection DVDs I've encountered, this one comes with a dearth of special features (and it looks as if the film was simply transferred without any cleanup being done from a degraded master, just like Oasis of the Zombies). I know there aren't nearly enough fans of movies like this to make a major restoration project worth anyone's while, but it would have been nice to see it as a labor of love. In any case, if you've never seen Psychomania, now's your chance; don't miss it. *** ½ (lost half a star for the lackluster DVD presentation.)

A fine addition to the zombie biker genre
Ah, wait a minute....there isn't any such genre; this movie is one of a kind! How could I say no to a film with the plot premise: zombie biker gang terrorizes small town's inhabitants. To be far to the lack of quality in the movie, I didn't so much as love this film as I was fascinated by the sheer weirdness--the back acting, the occult counter-culter plot, and oh yes, the bad acting! As the Amazon review for this film pointed out, Psychomania avoids the extremes of any particular theme: it isn't particularly scary (there is no blood whatsoever), it isn't all that violent (there is lots of riding around, but that's all Tom and his gang seem to do--there is, however, a great scene where Jane (a gorgeous Ann Michelle), one of the biker members, mows over a baby carriage [that kid's going to be bitter when it grows up!]); you sure don't get much in the line of social commentary either--in fact the morality of Tom and the gang's actions isn't never directly addressed at all--so cautionary tale it is not! The believability factor is pretty extreme also. Hatchet's suicide onto the freeway should have left him a barely recognizable scrape, but lo and behold, he's in the morgue perfectly intact; ditto for the skydiver biker--eeeyouch! he wasn't even dented! As for the occult, it would've been nice to have had five minutes more of exposition devoted to the source of that frog cult or have a little more light shed onto Shadwell's identity. Still it's probably best not to look too far into these kinds of movies. Interestingly, some of the talent cast have been in many other films. As another reviewer pointed out, Nicky Henson was in many other films (I saw Conquorer Worm awhile ago, but don't remember him). I happen to be a huge Doctor Who fan, so I recognized John Levine and Beryl Reid from those shows. If you are a fan of the biker horror genre, then by all means go see Werewolves On Wheels as it has many of the same elements: the cheesy song halfway through, the surly biker gang, the nonsensical plot, and an ending even more bizarre than this movie's. But if you like your movies dark side weird, then start with Psychomania!

Sleep-inducing campy horror
A group of frog-worshipping British bikers learn that the secret to returning from the dead is as simple as wishing you won't die really, really hard when you commit suicide. There's no gore, the zombie bikers look exactly the same as they did before they died, and there's nothing even remotely scary going on here. It's all done with a droll British manner, and is perhaps tongue-in-cheek, but it simply isn't funny enough to really care. There's a reason why movies like this were shown on late night TV - they put most people to sleep!

Call me crazy, but I liked it
I don't know what it is about Psychomania, but I'll be doggoned if I didn't enjoy this movie. This low-budget motorcycle gang horror movie made at the hands of one-time Hammer director Don Sharp looks rather cheesy, revolves around a rather porous storyline, and comes up empty in the special effects department, but it works for some reason. I hate biker movies, but this one is just kooky enough to capture my attention. Tom is not your typical motorcycle gang leader, and The Living Dead is not your typical motorcycle gang. These crazy kids like to hang out and motor around the local cemetery sporting their ridiculous skeleton-like helmets, taking periodic breaks to run drivers off the roads and to terrorize the local community. Tom himself lives in a grand manor house, though, with his séance-conducting medium mother and an ever-present serving man named Shadwell. Tom is somewhat obsessed with death, always asking his mother how to come back from the dead. He has now finally been given the key to the manor's mysterious locked room, the room in which his father died mysteriously eighteen years earlier. This is a scene that is never really explained, but soon Tom has learned the answer to the question he has been asking. It turns out that all you need to do to come back from the dead is to believe wholeheartedly that you will do so while you kill yourself. He actually manages to pull the whole thing off, and the new and even more dangerous Tom soon has the whole gang committing suicide in various ways in order to really live up to the gang's name.

Naturally, such goings-on do not take place without the devil's full knowledge, and ignorance of a debt does not preclude the devil from making his clients pay for their wrongs. The truly awful special effects put a real damper on an already less than exciting ending, but the devil and I seem to be fairly happy with the overall results. The man downstairs seems to have quite a penchant for frogs, by the way, but this is just another aspect of the film that is never really explained. As long as you don't take this film seriously and prepare yourself for some plot elements that go AWOL along the way, Psychomania is quite capable of providing you with an hour and a half of strangely satisfying, albeit rather lame, entertainment. ... Read more