lost-in-limbo
Summer in Nebraska, 1919 and a group of bikers on vintage motorcycles ride across the prairies on their way to California. On their journey they find themselves being pursued by a town posse. They decide to lay low, and invite themselves onto an isolated farmed owned by two sisters. Daughters of an Indian medicine man. The younger sister is welcoming, while the older is weary as she uses sorcery to defuse any sort of threat. Trippy rural, low- budget horror-comedy-romance-drama... I don't know how to categorise this one. I mainly sorted this one out for Scott Glenn. A bizarre, laid-back atmosphere with a touch of airy mysticism and a bunch of familiar faces giving animated performances (Keith Carradine, Scott Glenn & Gary Busey playing hillbilly cousins). While atypical (just look at the death scenes and ominous underlining), it was rather annoying to sit through (mainly the performances - Christina Raines taking top honors, music and its erratic mood swings) and its plot is threadbare with very little happening throughout. "Hex" is a neurotic story of love, acceptance and horror. But it doesn't completely come together, as there's not much to hold it there.
udar55
WWI vet Whizzer (Keith Carradine) leads his ragtag motorcycle gang (including Scott Glenn and Gary Busey) into the tiny town of Bingo, Nebraska. They quickly get into it with another gang (led by Dan Haggerty) and hide out on the farm of half-breed sisters Oriole (Cristina Raines, billed as Tina Herazo) and Acacia (Hilarie Thompson). When the gang begins to offend Oriole (either via rape or bad manners), she starts to use her deceased father's shaman tricks to off them. Man, what a totally odd film. The Prism VHS (as THE SHRIEKING) tries to sell it as straight up horror, but this could easily fit on the cult board due to the mixing of genres. Within its horror trappings, it is also a period piece, an art flick, a road movie, a comedy, a drug flick, a romance, and a revenge thriller. I suspect it was greenlit in a post- EASY RIDER haze (20th Century Fox produced it). The story is from Vernon Zimmerman (director of UNHOLY ROLLERS) and Doran William Cannon (writer of SKIDOO and BREWSTER MCCLOUD), so you can guess when the oddness comes from. Director Leo Garen and Stephen Katz receive the screenplay credit. Everyone in the cast is good with Raines/Herazo being the stand out as the sister with the darker edge. Also worth seeing for the bit where Busey refuses to smoke some pot. Gorgeous locales in South Dakota stand in for Nebraska. The film also ends with one of the most baffling shots I've seen it a long time as Whiz and Oriole head off on his motorbike and see modern era jet fighters zoom over their heads.
Woodyanders
Nebraska in the early 1900's: Dour, serious Oriole (flinty Christina Raines) and sweet, flighty Acacia (the adorable Hilarie Thompson) are a couple of strange half-breed sisters who live on a remote farm in the middle of nowhere. They give food and shelter to a gang of scruffy, but basically decent bikers: cocky leader Whizzer (amiable Keith Carradine), excitable yahoo Jimbang (Scott Glenn), rowdy good ol' boy Giblets (the ever-wacky Gary Busey), gawky, bespectacled nerd Golly (the likable Mike Combs), mute Chupo (Robert Walker), and feisty motorcycle mama China (sexy, spunky spitfire Doria Cook). Oriole puts a hex on the bikers after Giblets attempts to rape Acacia. Director/co-writer Leo Garen concocts a genuinely bizarre and compelling handy dandy multi-genre period biker Gothic horror-Western combo that emphasizes a spooky and ambiguous atmosphere over snappy pacing and cheap scare scenes. This gloriously gaga feature perfectly epitomizes the anything-goes screwball experimental sensibility of the early 70's; this in turn gives the movie a certain peculiar appeal. Charles Rosher, Jr.'s pretty, picturesque cinematography makes snazzy use of fades, dissolves and freeze frames. Charles Bernstein's eerie, offbeat, flavorsome hillbilly bluegrass score likewise hits the spot. Dan "Grizzly Adams" Haggerty pops up in a small role as macho hot rodder Brother Billy. An engaging and interesting only-in-the-70's cinematic curio.
EyeAskance
Marauding early 20th century motorcycle gang takes lodging in a rustic prairie farmhouse owned by two weird young sisters. We come to learn that the girls' parents are both deceased, and that "Ma" was a white woman, and "Pa" was some sort of Native-American spiritualist. Mysterious events soon begin to occur, and the misbehaving motorbike gang loses members rapidly. All this creepiness transpires to the accompaniment of a rather harsh washboard/jews-harp/kazoo music score which will have many folks ripping their hair out at the root within minutes. Things get off to a decent enough start in this rummy little "rara avis", but it soon begins to amble off on a hundred different roads to nowhere. The initial intrigue of the story is quickly lost in a badly overcooked, audience estranging botch. There was a worthy prospect in all this...sadly, what is ultimately given rise is a very curious and atmospheric imbroglio.I suspect this movie could have some type of specious or abstract appeal to a very select few...no way, however, would it get my personal unstinting approval. 3.5/10
AD
