Wild Riders/Review
From The Grindhouse Cinema Database
< Wild Riders
Q: What do you get when you combine Easy Rider and The Last House On The Left?
A: Wild Riders!
Most hardcore Grindhouse movies don't begin with a rape/murder scene. Well, Wild Riders does! Not only that, it combines these kinds of scenes with screwball humor which in some ways makes the film even more repellant than a lot of the heavier exploitation classics.
Two outlaw bikers, Peter (Arell Blanton) and his dumb pal Stick (Alex Rocco) are our main characters here. They are basically like the evil versions of Captain America and Billy (from Easy Rider). Instead of one mellow guy and one crazy guy, you get one crazy guy and one REALLY crazy guy. But these two arent looking to find freedom, they're looking to fuck anything that moves! After being KICKED OUT of their current biker gang for being too disorderly (yeah, these guys are too wild even for the average rowdy biker crowd) they both take off by themselves and head out to California to live the good life. Only trouble is, they have no money and nowhere to live.
The two arrive at the Griffith Observatory (out of all places) in Los Angeles and hang out for awhile. Peter scares a guy looking through one of the observatory telescopes and uses it to find a place to stay. Not a vacant house mind you, but a house where people are living! Peter and Stick spot two women lying outside by a pool, and decide to just drop in. They drive over to the house and Peter tries to get one of the girls to give him some money for gas. When the woman tells him to wait, he drives right into the back and barges in.
Pretty soon, Peter is putting on his best rebel moves, playing Marlon Brando and using some very corny lines on Rona (Elizabeth Knowles). Rona, being a bit wild herself is (amazingly) turned on by Peter, but when ol Stick tries to get Rona's sexy friend Laure's (Sherry Bain) attention, Laure takes off inside the house. Laure is very "square" and doesnt like whats going on. While Peter and Rona get to know each other and share the free love, Stick tries to get Laure in the mood...by ordering her to try on some of her panties. When she relents, Stick begins tossing her around like a ragdoll. Its almost comical as Laure gets thrown about. Laure doesnt like Stick, and Stick feels rejected and later on as hes drinking some beers, he finds a little porcelain frog sitting on the kitchen table. In Stick's warped mind he thinks Laure is using it as a symbol to make fun of him.
After the drunken paranoid meltdown, Stick goes nuts and rapes Laure. This scene is intercut with Peter and Rona making love. For what reason, I'm not sure. After Stick is finished, Laure lies bruised and in total shock. Stick tells her "Hey you're alright, you're pretty good" and turns a brutal rape into a goofy game that actually makes you laugh at how innocent Stick's mind really is. Amazing! Even with Peter and Rona being friendly, after they find out Stick has raped Laure, things begin to spiral downwards and it gets really nasty when Peter takes Stick's side and they hold the girls hostage and decide to run the household by any means necessary.
One thing that I couldn't understand was how Alex Rocco wound up in this film! It's really weird to see Moe Green from The Godfather with his lazy New York accent playing a biker. It doesnt really fit, but that only adds to the outlandishness of the film which I actually liked.
Wild Riders is still a very entertaining and pretty edgy early 70s exploitation film. While its not heavy on actual bike riding scenes, its an interesting hybrid of the biker and rape/revenge subgenres. Something Grindhouse fanatics will want to check out for its strange qualities.
Peter Roberts is the co-founder/editor-in-chief of the Grindhouse Cinema Database (GCDb) and contributor to the GCDb's sister site Furious Cinema. A Massachusetts native, he is an avid film fan that has been immersed in the world of entertainment and pop culture his entire life. He is a professional digital media designer and educator.
