Werewolves on Wheels (1971)

User Rating:

2.5/10   

Director:

Michel Levesque

Writers:

David M. Kaufman (writer)
Michel Levesque (writer)

Release Date:

October 1971 (USA)

Genre:

Horror | Action

Tagline:

If you're hairy you belong on a motorbike!

Plot:

A biker gang visits a monastery where they encounter black-robed monks engaged in worshipping Satan...

Plot Keywords:

Biker | Werewolf | Desert | Drugs | Satanism

Cast

Steve Oliver	...	Adam (as Stephen Oliver)
D.J. Anderson	...	Helen
Gene Shane	...	Tarot (as Duece Berry)
Billy Gray	...	Pill (as William Gray)
Gray Johnson	...	Movie
Barry McGuire	...	Scarf
Owen Orr	...	Mouse
Anna Lynn Brown	...	Shirley
Leonard Rogel	...	Gas Station Operator
Severn Darden	...	One
Tex Hall
Dan Kopp
Ingrid Grunewald
Kieth Guthrie
John Hull

Also Known As:

Angel Warriors 2 (Australia) (video title)

Runtime:

85 min | Germany:77 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

West Germany:18 (cut) | Italy:VM18 | Australia:R | USA:R | Germany:BPjM Restricted

Company:

South Street Films

Goofs:

Crew or equipment visible: Crew visible when the gang first gets to the Satanic temple. The leader of the gang sees a Satanic cross and starts mono-logging as he's heading toward it with the group. An individual is clearly seen in the high grass to the right of the screen.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Wolfman Chronicles (1991)

extremely entertaining exploitation fun

While shaky in premise, Werewolves on Wheels contains all the absurdity, excess and self-awareness necessary to maintain interest. The plot roams all over the place, the actors mumble a lot of their lines and the ending is distinctly dissatisfying - but nevertheless it's well worth 85 minutes of your time. A rowdy gang of bikers who call themselves the Devil's Advocates shows up at a gas station in the middle of the desert to terrorizes the attendant, then proceeds to stumble upon a monastery while partying in a nearby forest. The ominous monks share suspect bread and wine, greedily indulged upon by the rowdy gang. When they're too drunk to notice, head monk `One,' an interesting role for the usually funny Severn Darden, plucks a hair from one of their heads and places it in a bat buckle. He then prays to Satan and kills a cat. The fun begins at this point, and biker lady D. J. Anderson materializes for some sort of dark ritual. When the bikers realize she's gone missing, they seek out the monks and beat the living pulp out of them. The bikers think little of the events that have transpired, but the following night at the campfire Anderson seems to suck head biker Stephen Oliver's blood, and a mock Satanic dance culminates in the grisly deaths of two members of the gang. After terrorizing another gas station they roam around the desert pretending to make a movie, creating a distinctly self-reflective mood. Nonsense-preaching Duece Berry (whose character is named `Tarot') tries to warn Oliver that something's in the air but he'll have none of his buddy's mystic mumbo-jumbo. They burn a pile of old cars and Anderson sees foreboding signs in the flames. Much of the same insanity carries the film right up to its vague conclusion. Writer-director Michael Levesque, who worked on a couple of Russ Meyer films, is a decent enough filmmaker and the camera work and editing and enjoyable, but the film suffers from over-abuse of the zoom. At least three cast members also appeared in The Last Movie, also made in 1971, and folk singer Barry McGuire appears as a member of the bike gang. Most of the rest of the cast are stunt performers, including a number of the leads. Don Gere provides an excellent psychedelic soundtrack, by far the best of any biker movie I've seen. The unusually diverse cast and enthusiastic amateur creative spirit create an atmosphere more exciting than the majority of contemporary genre filmmaking. What it all comes down to is that this a movie for people who like to drink in the morning, like myself.