Richard Dominguez Imagine If You Will Me At 13 Years Old And My First TV In My Own Bedroom ... Imagine Working Hard All Week So I Can Stay Up Late Saturday Night And Watch Late Night TV And "Psychomania" Is The Movie I Watch ... My First (Undead, Zombie) Back From The Dead Movie ... Of Course Not The Movie I Remember In The Dark Of A Late Night Saturday But Still Interesting And A Good Watch ... Yes Campy And Outdated This Movie Never Offers A Dull Moment ...

jamesraeburn2003 The leader of a group of Hell's Angels, Tom Latham (Nicky Henson), through his devil worshipping mother (Beryl Reid) does a pact with Satan in return for the secret of immortality. He commits suicide by riding his motorcycle off a bridge and returns as an Undead. His fellow bikers follow and they embark upon terrorising the people of their community and vow to bring down the establishment.Yes, that's the synopsis! It is errant nonsense of the first order and anybody encountering it for the first time will think to themselves: "Oh, this will almost certainly be unwatchable junk." I thought exactly the same thing when I first saw this at the excellent National Film Theatre in London back in 2006 as part of the BFI's Flipside season. But as it unfolded I suddenly found myself thinking: "God, this actually works." It is shot straight by the talented director Don Sharp (Witchcraft, Kiss Of The Vampire, The Face Of Fu Manchu) and if anybody but him had made it it would have almost certainly been a dud. It works marvelously as a horror comedy and a number of the sequences like one of the Hell's Angels doing himself in by throwing himself out of a plane without a parachute deliver some breathtaking shocks. However, the most memorable sequence has to be the scene where Tom's friends bury him on his motorcycle. A couple breakdown on the main road as a result of a puncture. The guy makes his way across the fields to get help and he gets the fright of his life when the reactivated Undead Tom bursts up through the earth on his motorbike. The film also features the last performance of George Sanders - he committed suicide soon after this film was made - as Reid's butler, Treadwell. Beryl Reid is delightfully eccentric as Tom's occultist mother while the rest of the youthful cast playing the bikers are perfectly in tune with the nature of the production and go through their parts cheerfully.In summary, this is a film that on first glance may detract you from watching it due to its trashy subject matter. But thanks to skillful handling coupled with some neat shocks and real laughs, Psychomania is without doubt a cult classic and is now available as a DVD - Blue Ray double disc set from the BFI.

Tromafreak Well, here it is, gang. Living proof that you don't need gore, or even a single drop of blood, to create quality horror. Not to say that this film is all that scary. It's just an all around entertaining film. This is Psychomania, a very British production about a biker gang called The Living Dead. All The Living Dead seem to care about is creating havoc for the village they live in. The Leader, Tom wants much more, Tom wants to be immortal, so he can create havoc for the entire world. Tom, like most rich kids, is rebellious, yet cowardly. Tom and his mother, along with the butler, who I guess, is Satan, find the rich boy his immortality, so he'll stop whining. All one needs is to truly believe that if you kill yourself, you will come back, and that's pretty much it. Well, that and a frog. That's all there is to it. Only a creative genius could conjure up a powerful plot such as this. With his valuable, new knowledge, Tom soon ends it all, by driving his motorcycle off a bridge, not before terrorizing the village one last time (as a mortal). After returning from the grave, in dramatic fashion, immortal, as well as invincible, Tom has reached new levels of arrogance, he soon convinces the rest of the gang to join him in the dark side. One by one, what follows is the most creative suicide spree in B-movie history.I dig Psychomania for quite a few reasons. for starters, the score couldn't be more fitting, although, how awesome would a Black Sabbath score have been? Just a thought. For something so amateur, Psychomania comes off very professional, at least, the acting, not so much the story, or character development. Although, the camera work is nice. Psychomania has a certain late 60's rebellious style about it that shows in the semi-witty dialogue. The B-movie cheesiness is more subtle in England, but it's most definitely present. If you don't go into this expecting a masterpiece, Psychomania will most likely be a worthwhile experience. For more in awesome Horror from England, check out Vampyres. for tougher bikers, check you Werewolves On Wheels. In closing, Psychomania might not scare the hell out of you, but it is totally enjoyable, and yet another one of a kind, courtesy of the wonderful world on B-cinema. 8/10

moonspinner55 When a motorcycle gang leader was born, his mother apparently signed her soul and his over to a spiritualist whose symbol is the Frog. Now grown up and raising hell in a British village, the hooligan comes to understand that if he commits suicide, he'll soon rise from the dead an indestructible zombie. This catches on, and pretty soon all his followers (in a biker gang called The Living Dead!) are throwing themselves out of planes and over bridges. Low-budget wheeler from the UK isn't badly made, but doesn't have its tongue far enough in cheek. As a result, some of the mayhem the kids create is ugly and disturbing rather than gleefully nasty. George Sanders (looking sadly aged) plays the occult leader who doubles as Beryl Reid's butler (!), while good girl-biker Mary Larkin amusingly resembles Mariel Hemingway. Watchable enough, yet the supernatural plot twist on the genre isn't taken to the bizarre highs one may hope for. The picture stays depressingly grounded, despite ethereal directorial touches and a nightmare-in-the-daylight ambiance. ** from ****