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Released by: Severin Films
Released on: 10/28/2008
Director: Sandy Harbutt
Cast: Sandy Harbutt, Ken Shorter, Deryck Barnes, Hugh Keays-Byrne, Roger Ward, Vince Gil
Year: 1978
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The Movie:
The Gravediggers are the toughest gang of bikers around. They drink, they smoke, they treat their women poorly and they worship Satan! When they show up at a political rally and see the speaker shot dead in cold blood, the victim of an assassins bullet, they get out of Dodge as quickly as they can because the assassin knows that he was spotted by one of the bikers (Hugh Keays-Byrne, better known as Toe-Cutter from Mad Max) who was tripping up on the roof. Soon, one of their own is also murdered, his head severed from his torso by a craftily placed wire that crosses the highway. A couple more dead bikers later and it would seem that someone is after The Gravediggers. Thankfully their spiritual leader, Dr. Death (Vince Gil), is around to bury the dead standing up in the name of their dark lord.
The Gravediggers are obviously upset about this, but they don't like cops at all so they decide to try to figure out who's knocking them off and why on their own. What the gang members don't know, however, is that one of their own, Stone (Sandy Harbutt), is actually an undercover cop working the gang from the inside.
Stone is one seriously bad ass movie. Filled with tough talking grizzled Aussie tough guys, cool stunt riding scenes, gratuitous violence and completely unnecessary though entirely welcome nudity, it reeks of whiskey and gasoline. The film's biggest flaw? The titular Stone himself. Played by director/co-writer Sandy Harbutt dressed in a poofy white shirt and looking like he just walked out of the Renascence Fair, it's a little hard to take him for a cop savvy enough to infiltrate a gang of Satan worshipping bikers because he doesn't look even remotely tough. The picture also spends a little bit too much time on character development that never really pays off like it should - the point being that these bad ass bikers are people too, fine, we can get that, but really it hurts the pacing of the picture in a couple of spots.
That said, the good sure does outweigh the bad here. The violence hits nice and hard and the acid tinged soundtrack adds some seriously tense atmosphere to a few key scenes. The cast, Harbutt not withstanding, all look great and are completely believable while the odd camera angles and periodic freeze frame edits lend the film a quirky rhythm. The Australian location shooting allows this two-wheeled opera of violence to play out against a beautiful backdrop and even if the film doesn't tackle the social issues that lie at its core as effectively as it probably wanted to, there is an interesting social conscience underneath all the chaos. The film has aged incredibly well and it plays out as a smart, exciting and gritty exploitation/drive-in film - well worth seeing and it ranks up there with the best of the biker films like Northville Cemetery Massacre.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Severin presents Stone in a nice 1.85.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer. It's a little on the grainy side but that suits the tone of the movie quite nicely. Color reproduction is nice and bold with the blues of the ocean looking quite nice in a few scenes. Detail levels are nice and strong and skin tones look lifelike and accurate. There aren't any problems with mpeg compression artifacts or heavy edge enhancement and the print damage that pops up now and again is thankfully on the minor side.
The English language Dolby Digital Mono sound track is clean, clear and free of any hiss or distortion. It sounds a little flat in some spots and English subtitles would have been welcome for the scenes where the Australian dialogue gets a little thick but otherwise, the movie sounds very good. The engines have a nice roar to them and the killer soundtrack is nice and fuzzed out.
The only extra on the first disc in this set, aside from some animated menus and chapter selection, is the film's original theatrical trailer.
The rest of the supplemental material is on the second disc, starting with a documentary entitled Stone Forever (1:02:53). This hour long documentary rounds up much of the cast and crew for on camera interviews and shows us some fairly remarkable footage from the Stone 25th Anniversary Party where 35,000 bikers all got together in 1998 to celebrate the film and what it represents. There are some interesting stories told here, particularly about the early career of Ken Shorter, as well as some neat behind the scenes photos used to illustrate the documentary. The use of drugs in the film is discussed and analyzed and the film's impact and box office success is covered in a fair bit of detail (we even get a look at a Stone tattoo!).
Up next is The Making Of Stone (22:47). This vintage segment mixes black and white and color footage shot behind the scenes of the film while it was under production. A narrator discusses what we're seeing and gives us the rundown on the picture before we move on to some interesting cast and crew interviews.
Rounding out the supplements are a Stone Make Up Test (8:09 worth of silent test footage) and the Director's Slideshow (21:22 of Harbutt's narration over top of a great batch of behind the scenes and promotional stills). All in all, this is a great batch of extr a features. Too bad the soundtrack wasn't included…
The Final Word:
Severin gives Stone an excellent NTSC DVD debut by providing a very nice transfer and carrying over all of the extras from the Australian special edition release. The film itself is a blast - it's rough, it's tough, and it's smart. See it.