Zalman King is known today, if he's known at all, as the purveyor (producer-writer-director) of sleazy softcore smut like Red Shoe Diaries - in the early-mid 90s a "Zalman King" film definitely had some meaning in the straight-to-video market, I can tell you.
But in the 70s, Zalman King was a struggling actor doing guest shots on network TV series, and appearing in cheesy low-budget exploitation films like Trip With Teacher. Here he's Al, very tall and hook-nosed but otherwise a near dead-ringer for Bono (well, for Bono 15 years later), a creepy and mentally deranged biker who with his more sane but no less unpleasant brother Pete (Robert Porter) is stuck by the side of the road at the beginning of the flick. The brothers have bike problems, but they're soon bailed out by nice-guy motorcyclist Jay (Robert Gribbin) who gets Pete's bike going well enough to get them to the next service station.
Along the way the three bikers come upon a school bus with several young women - coy waving and less-coy glances from the 2 brothers for a bit, then all stop at the gas station. I think you might be able to guess where this is headed....if it were made 10-15 years later you'd expect a bloody horror film, but back in these pre-Friday the 13th and Halloween days it's just going to be the two creepy guys trying to have their way with the cute girls and get rid of nice-guy Jay and bus driver Marvin (Jack Driscoll). It's all rather long and tedious - bus breaks down, bikers tow it to near a deserted shack, get rid of driver, seemingly get rid of Jay....and all fairly stupid and silly (how dumb are the girls, Jay and the driver that they don't see that the brothers are sickos? and sickos without any weapons apart from one switchblade...but overpowering them would have been too easy and we wouldn't have a movie and an excuse for some nude scenes) until the kind of cool ending as Jay comes back seemingly from the dead and shows that he's a Real Man after all.
The weakest of the three films on the "Drive-in Cult Classics" box set that I've seen so far, but worth it for the cool ending and for King's deranged and freaky portrayal of Al, with one of the creepiest snickering laughs I've ever heard.
But in the 70s, Zalman King was a struggling actor doing guest shots on network TV series, and appearing in cheesy low-budget exploitation films like Trip With Teacher. Here he's Al, very tall and hook-nosed but otherwise a near dead-ringer for Bono (well, for Bono 15 years later), a creepy and mentally deranged biker who with his more sane but no less unpleasant brother Pete (Robert Porter) is stuck by the side of the road at the beginning of the flick. The brothers have bike problems, but they're soon bailed out by nice-guy motorcyclist Jay (Robert Gribbin) who gets Pete's bike going well enough to get them to the next service station.
Along the way the three bikers come upon a school bus with several young women - coy waving and less-coy glances from the 2 brothers for a bit, then all stop at the gas station. I think you might be able to guess where this is headed....if it were made 10-15 years later you'd expect a bloody horror film, but back in these pre-Friday the 13th and Halloween days it's just going to be the two creepy guys trying to have their way with the cute girls and get rid of nice-guy Jay and bus driver Marvin (Jack Driscoll). It's all rather long and tedious - bus breaks down, bikers tow it to near a deserted shack, get rid of driver, seemingly get rid of Jay....and all fairly stupid and silly (how dumb are the girls, Jay and the driver that they don't see that the brothers are sickos? and sickos without any weapons apart from one switchblade...but overpowering them would have been too easy and we wouldn't have a movie and an excuse for some nude scenes) until the kind of cool ending as Jay comes back seemingly from the dead and shows that he's a Real Man after all.
The weakest of the three films on the "Drive-in Cult Classics" box set that I've seen so far, but worth it for the cool ending and for King's deranged and freaky portrayal of Al, with one of the creepiest snickering laughs I've ever heard.