Biker Mania

Released by: Raunchy Tonk
Released on: 2/24/2009
Director: various
Cast: various
Year: various
Purchase from Amazon

The Movie:

There are those of us that can't get enough of B-movie (and lower) trailer compilations. There's all kinds of different reasons to watch them. Maybe it's a short attention span or maybe it's a way to pick and choose what movies to seek out. Or maybe you just get a kick out of watching a bunch of scenes (sometimes the best parts of a movie) jumbled together in a random order, sometimes more enjoyable than sitting through the whole picture. Often times these trailers have laugh-out-loud material in them too, which makes them all the more enjoyable. Raunchy Tonk has produced (Johnny Legends Presents) Biker Mania, one hour and six minutes of biker flick trailers, and there's some good stuff in here.

Many trailer compilations have surfaced in the market, and many of the trailers on this disc can be seen on other collections. On some they look a heck of a lot nicer than they do on this disc, but it's nice to have a bunch of biker movie trailers all together, rather than a just few in a row on a collection that encompasses many genres. There are over three dozen trailers in semi-chronological order spanning three decades, the 50s, 60s, and 70s. There's one from the 80s at the end, but other than that, the disc represents the heyday of the genre.

Here's the trailer list:

The 50s
The Wild One, Motorcycle Gang, Dragstrip Riot, Racers From Hell, Road Devils

The 60s
The Wild Ride, The Choppers, Teenage Gang Debs, The Horror Of Party Beach, Wild Ones On Wheels, The Wild Angels, Hells Angels On Wheels, Born Losers, The Hellcats, Wild Wheels, The Savage Seven, Angels From Hell, The Cycle Savages, Run Angel Run!, Satan's Sadists (two different trailers, one of which uses the Sharon Tate murder as a selling point), The Mini-Skirt Mob, The Girl On A Motorcycle, She-Devils On Wheels, Hell's Angels '69

The 70s
Outlaw Riders, Devil Rider!, Hell's Bloody Devils, Bury Me An Angel, Angels' Wild Women, Rebel Rousers, Angel Unchained, C.C. and Company, Chrome and Hot Leather, The Losers, Black Angels, Pink Angels, Werewolves On Wheels

Then there's the last one, Chopper Chicks In Zombietown, from the late 80s. Mixed in are a couple of vintage motorcycle/scooter commercials, which were pretty cool to see.

Many of the highlights for me were from the black-and-white trailers. The narration is what kills me: “His first theft was a peanut butter sandwich when he was six,” plus some of the lingo used like “dungaree doll” or “bare-fisted hate.” Another movie, The Horror of Party Beach, boasts as being “the first horror monster musical”, complete with an sea monster that looks like he has a pack of hot dogs in his food hole. There's some great freeze frame shots, bad dialogue (“I'll kill those bananas!”), plus there's plenty of good stunt-dummy action to boot. An overall fun group of trailers that kept me entertained throughout.

Video/Audio/Extras:

If you're hoping to find restored trailers in anamorphic widescreen, you'll be disappointed. The disc is presented in 1.66:1, and has the “black bars” on either side, for those of you watching this on a widescreen television. There are some widescreen trailers, they still fill the same amount of space as the fullscreen ones. Some of these have a lot print damage and many have washed out colors. These trailers are by no means stunning in this presentation, and actually don't look a whole lot different than seeing them on VHS. If you can look past that, they are all watchable at least.

The audio is mono, nothing fancy. There's all kinds of pops and noises, but considering that these look like they were pulled from a VHS source, what does it really matter? Everything can be understood clearly and the disc does not suffer because of it.

There are two items on the disc besides the trailers. One is a separate two-and-a-half minute trailer for another Raunchy Tonk release, The Sadist. The other is a 36-minute video magazine called “Biker Beat”, which features an interview from the 1990s with Johnny Legend that was found on the VHS release Bikers, Blondes, and Blood, an earlier Legend trailer collection. A few more interviews follow: a musician who did music for many of the films featured in the trailers, an actor in an as-yet-to-be-released biker chick movie called Killer Biker Chicks, as well as the director. The 'zine ends with a spoof on Easy Rider, where the main characters come back as zombies. Thankfully that part is only about 5 minutes long. Oh, and there's a nice set of biker boobs in one spot. Overall the feature is worth a peek.

The Final Word:

At only a little over an hour Biker Mania may not quench the thirst of some trailer junkies, but it's an enjoyable enough collection to entertain most anyone who even has a passing interest in low budget movies. Good fun and worth the time spent with it.