You should know what you're going to get from this low-cost midnight drive-in schlock that represents the sleaze and sadism in a decade of scuzzy low-brow exploitation. It gets all the ticks of being raw, gritty and sordid. Yes, it's rough around the edges and director Earl Barton's minimal handling makes sure it works to its strengths, and surprisingly strikes up a bit of tension, and unease. However it couldn't escape that cheesy daftness, which loomed largely by its repetitively funky and racy music score. It was quite an unusual one though, which doesn't always fit in. The shallow story is plain and simple, if a little meandering from time to time and few senseless occurrences are hard to believe. I don't know how many opportunities arose to escape, or do something, but everyone seemed happy to sit and watch. While the obvious script starts off awkwardly and melodramatic, it then gains control and builds tension. Sure it isn't first-rate, but it holds your interest and includes a surprise or two. Performances are workable enough. Zalman King terrifically chews it up as the menacingly neurotic loon biker, that along with his brother (played placidly by Robert Porter) go onto terrorise a small group of teenage school girls (Cathy Worthington, Dina Ousley, Susie Russell and Jill Voight pull off their parts), teacher (a fiery Brenda Fogarty), and a fellow biker (a fine Robert Gribbin) in the forlorn California desert. Due to the relaxed pacing, it gives you time to soak up the situation and the harshly captured bare-desert backdrop that complements the bare-knuckle survival tag. Then it pulls out the punches, and ups the notch. Some of the action scenes are over-the-top, and corny but amusing. The cruel violence is sexually scathing, and nasty. While we see little flesh, the leering camera-work focuses on the scummy side of things, and can get up within the action.
That bad not that bad. Definitely nothing special though, but the intensely bold theatrical turn of King makes it worth-a-peek.
That bad not that bad. Definitely nothing special though, but the intensely bold theatrical turn of King makes it worth-a-peek.