{"id":6619,"date":"2016-09-25T18:54:24","date_gmt":"2016-09-25T17:54:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/?p=6619"},"modified":"2016-09-25T18:54:24","modified_gmt":"2016-09-25T17:54:24","slug":"psychomania","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/2016\/09\/25\/psychomania\/","title":{"rendered":"Psychomania"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"psychomania\"<\/a>
Psychomania<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n

\nFormat:<\/B> Dual Format (DVD + Blu-ray)

\nRelease date:<\/B> 26 September 2016

\nDistributor:<\/B> BFI

\nDirector:<\/B> Don Sharp

\nWriters:<\/B> Julian Zimet, Arnaud d\u2019Usseau

\nCast:<\/B> George Sanders, Beryl Reid, Nicky Henson

\nUK 1973

\n90 mins\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The unlikely mix of black magic, undead bikers and Safeway makes this 70s British oddity endurably appealing. <\/I><\/b><\/p>\n

\u2018Deep shame,\u2019 was how Nicky Henson characterised his feelings about this suis generis<\/i> exploitation weirdie, when quizzed by Matthew Sweet, but really, though the lovable thespian has obviously had great moments on stage, this is the one he’ll be remembered for. Witchfinder General<\/i> is the superior film, but it’s not really a Nicky Henson film. Psychomania<\/i>, God bless it, despite top-lining oldsters George Sanders and Beryl Reid, is Nicky Henson’s film, whether he wants it or not.<\/p>\n

As if cobbled together from a fever dream about The Wild One<\/i> and Polanski’s Macbeth<\/i>, the film combines black magic and biker gangs, stone circles and juvenile delinquency. The script is by the same duo of blacklisted Americans who wrote Horror Express<\/i><\/a>, and it has the same rather appealing mixture of strange, vaguely clever ideas, goofball nonsense and bizarrely naive exploitation elements. I wish the pair had written a whole bunch more horror films: they had a unique sensibility.<\/p>\n

Genre specialist \/ all-rounder Don Sharp directs ably, starting the film rather brilliantly with slomo cyclists roving round a set of papier m\u00e2ch\u00e9<\/i> megaliths on a misty morning, with John Cameron’s sonorous wacka-wacka score adding a kind of camp solemnity. Sharp had an affinity for overcranking, opening his Curse of the Fly<\/i> (1965), a belated sequel to the Hollywood teleportation horror, with a surprisingly atmospheric, oneiric nocturnal chase, shot at around 48 fps. He’d also made Witchcraft<\/i> (1964) with Lon Chaney Jnr. as an unlikely English warlock, and Hammer romps Kiss of the Vampire<\/i> (1963) and Rasputin: The Mad Monk<\/i> (1966), as well as the first two of Christopher Lee’s Fu Manchu<\/i> outings.<\/p>\n

Henson plays the biker son of medium Beryl Reid who acquires the power to come back from the dead through a mysterious ritual involving a frog (don’t ask). Sanders plays a butler who might be Satan, or something (I wasn’t totally clear: see what you think). Soon, Henson, looking damned good in his leather trousers, is converting his whole gang to an afterlife of mayhem, running amok in a Walton-on-Thames branch of Safeway.
\nThe film’s take on youth culture is wonderfully peculiar: the bikers bury their leader on his bike in the stone circle to the tune of a folk song strummed on acoustic guitar; the gang wear crocheted waistcoats; nobody smokes (the producers were afraid they wouldn’t be able to sell the film to TV); nobody swears. But they run over a baby in a pram, and that was considered perfectly OK.<\/p>\n

The violence and criminality is still slightly shocking, maybe because all the surrounding action is so absurd. The bikers are the main characters, and they will<\/i> keep killing people. Elsewhere, there is amusing dialogue: \u2018Abby’s dead.\u2019 \u2018You must be very happy.\u2019 \u2018I’ve always fancied driving through a brick wall.\u2019 But then the movie will alternate pathetic, puerile hi-jinks (spanking a young mother in a hot-pants one-piece) with cold-blooded murder. The two tones only come together as black comedy during the impressive stunt sequences where the bikers commit suicide in order to rise again.<\/p>\n

Rumours that old pro Sanders killed himself in response to seeing a print of this, his final movie, are doubtless false. The old rogue had gotten himself involved in a crooked business venture, hilariously called Cadco, and was facing possible financial ruin and legal proceedings, a likelier motivation for suicide than either a bizarre horror film or boredom, the cause cited in his note. And after all, the man had already worked for Jess Franco.<\/p>\n

Scattered throughout Psychomania<\/i> are familiar faces from TV shows like All Creatures Great and Small<\/i>, Eastenders<\/i> and Dad’s Army<\/i>, with everyone managing to appear perfectly earnest and, in Henson’s case, actually cool, even though his character is a colossal jerk. The leftist writers appear to have had some kind of critique of youth culture in mind: Henson’s undead cyclist espouses a plan to kill every policeman, judge and teacher in the land, but once back on his bike, he always seems to gravitate back to Safeway. <\/p>\n

David Cairns<\/I><\/B><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The unlikely mix of black magic, undead bikers and Safeway makes this 70s British oddity endurably appealing.
\nReview by David Cairns<\/I><\/B><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11,3],"tags":[1288,437,1379,121,75,111,1380,1382,1381],"class_list":["post-6619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-check-it-out","category-dvds-and-blu-rays","tag-1970s-film","tag-biker-films","tag-black-magic","tag-british-cinema","tag-hammer","tag-horror-film","tag-nicky-henson","tag-satanism","tag-youth-culture"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","wps_subtitle":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/purUP-1IL","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6784,"url":"https:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/2017\/03\/23\/haruneko\/","url_meta":{"origin":6619,"position":0},"title":"Haruneko","author":"Pam Jahn","date":"March 23, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Hokimoto Sora's debut feature is a quirky, somewhat surreal oddity. 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