It is the greatest frog-worshiping zombie biker occult horror film ever made. Possibly the only one. It's certainly like no other movie you've ever seen.
Today in pulp, I look back at the 1971 classic Psychomania...
By the early 1970s British horror films were trying to get 'with it' to attract a younger audience. So it wasn't surprising that in 1971 screenwriter Arnaud d'Usseau tried to create a biker horror movie.
d'Usseau had previously written Horror Express, an Anglo-Spanish sci-fi/horror movie loosely based on John W. Campbell's novella Who Goes There. Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and Telly Savalas did their best with the material.
For his next project Arnaud d'Usseau was paired with veteran Hammer director Don Sharp, who knew a thing or two about budget filming, and together they thrashed out a plot...
And what a plot it was: part Aleister Crowley, part Clockwork Orange and part Easy Rider. Shooting began in 1971 at Shepperton Studios, with location filming at the Hepworth Way shopping centre in Walton-on-Thames.
Nicky Henson was cast in the lead role of biker Tom Latham, the arrogant, spoilt and very well-spoken frog-obsessed son of witch and medium Mrs. Latham (Beryl Reed).
George Sanders was the big name star of the film, playing sinister, demonic, ageless butler Shadwell. Alas it was also his last ever film: struggling with dementia and the effects of a minor stroke he later sadly took his own life.
Psychomania starts in a mysterious stone circle, where Tom's biker gang 'The Living Dead' slowly drive around in the mist before heading into town for some ultraviolence on the Queen's highway.
After becoming obsessed with a frog (don't ask) Tom asks Shadwell if he knows the secret of eternal life. Indeed he does, and he shows Tom the locked room in which his father unsuccessfully sought immortality. Hallucinations (and more frogs) ensue.
Beryl Reed explains to her recovering son, the secret to eternal life is to die believing you will come back. If you believe it enough, it will happen!
Demented by this knowledge Tom and his gang smash up a Fine Fare supermarket, before Tom roars past the Frosties, out of the door and over a bridge.
The gang bury Tom sitting upright on his bike, while singing the worst folk song ever. Then, as his mother casts a frog-based spell, the immortal Tom roars out of the grave on his motorcycle before killing everyone in a local pub.
Once Tom's gang realise how easy immortality is they all kill themselves in various ludicrous ways so they can return as zombies. But Tom's girlfriend Abby can't go through with it, so she pretends to be a zombie instead to ensure she can still join in.
The undead gang then cause mayhem in the local shopping centre (with some genuinely dangerous stunts) before dragging Abby to the stone circle to kill her so she can also become a middle-class zombie biker.
I won't spoil the ending of Psychomania except to say Beryl Reed turns into a giant frog. It is perhaps a fitting denouement, in as much as it doesn't really explain what you've just watched.
Psychomania was retitled The Death Wheelers in the US. Other titles used worldwide include The Frog, The Living Dead, and Death Wheelers Are Psycho Maniacs.
Psychomania is genuinely unlike any other film you've seen: almost absurdist, certainly confusing, often very funny. It was a genuine attempt at genre-crossing experimentation, and that's always to be applauded.
The British Film Institute recently issued a remastered Psychomania on Blu-Ray and DVD so do keep an eye out for it, or check your favourite streaming service to see if they have this horror gem available.
More stories another time...
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In January 1919 a new magazine heralded the dawn of the Weimar era. Its aesthetic was a kind of demented Jugendstil, and its stories were dark gothic fantasies.
This is the story of Der Orchideengarten...
Der Orchideengarten: Phantastische Blätter (The orchid garden: fantastic pages) is probably the first ever fantasy magazine. Published in Munich by Dreiländerverlag, a trial issue appeared in 1918 before the first full 24 page edition was published in January 1919.
"The orchid garden is full of beautiful - now terribly gruesome, now satirically pleasing - graphic jewelery" announced the advanced publicity. It was certainly a huge departure from the Art Nouveau of Jugend magazine, which German readers were already familiar with.
If stock photography has taught us one thing it's how to recognise a hacker! But how much do we really know about these shady characters, with their ill-fitting balaclavas and their Windows 7 laptops?
Here's my essential stock photography guide to cybersecurity...
First things first, hacking has come on leaps and bounds in the last few years. Backing up your sensitive data on C60 cassette and labelling it "Flock of Seagulls Megamix' is no longer enough to keep your information safe!
And hackers are actually very hard to spot. That's because they dress head-to-toe in black (or very very very dark grey) since they live on the Dark Web and want to blend into the background.
Today in pulp, one of the most influential and outrageous illustrators of the Italian Italian fumetti scene: Emanuele Taglietti!
This will be interesting...
Emanuele Taglietti was born in Ferrara in 1943. His father worked as a set designer for director Michaelangelo Antonioni, often taking Emanuele with him on set.
In the 1960s Taglietti moved to Rome, where he studied stage design. He began a successful career as an assistant art director, working for Federico Fellini and Marco Ferreri.