Savage Abduction/Review

A "perfect crime" has just occured involving the murder of the wife of lawyer, Dick Ridelander (Tim Drake). Dick later stops by to visit the killer named Harry (Joe Turkel), a deranged lover of mannequins. But it turns out that Harry wants a little more killing action. This time, Harry wants to snuff out two teenage girls. Dick refuses to help Harry out in this one, but after the screwy mannequin-lover reveals that he taped the conversation between the two as evidence for the previous murder, the lawyer has no choice but to play along. Dick decides to hire a biker (And old client) by the name of Chelsea (Steve Oliver) to kidnap two, young random girls. There's $10,000 in it for Chelesa and his two other biker pals to do the deed and the offer ends up being accepted. Since the other bikers are told that they're just to have the girls delievered to Mexico for White Slave Trade business, enough friction is soon caused in the abduction which leaves Chelsea explaining the truth to his biker buds. As for the other bikers, there's hot-headed and remorseless, Irish (Bill Barney) who's willing to go through with the plan, but it's the biker with the heart of gold, appropriately named Romeo (Sean Kenney) who soon develops feelings for the girls and will have second thoughts about leaving these innocent girls to die in the hands of a murderer.

Both titles for the movie, "Cycle Psycho" and "Savage Abduction" might leave curious viewers disappointed because there really isn't no seriously disturbing or violent moments to qualify for the suggestive titles. Although the movie does seem to steer in uncomfortable territory whenever crazy Harry shows up (Which could be thanks to Turkel's performance. By the way, if the name "Joseph Turkel" rings a bell, it's because he later played The Bartender in Kubrick's The Shining) Just to let you know, this movie is mostly a very talkative affair with the lone action climax occuring in the final 10 minutes. But as in most kidnapping/abduction movies, there's always a steady amount of tension all throughout and I must say that even a low budget, exploitation flick like Savage Abduction managed to keep that rhythm the way the best genre flicks often do. Although there was one little problem that bugged me throughout and it involved Chelsea's girlfriend, Lorie (Amy Thomson) Lorie was against the idea of kidnapping the girls in the first place. But then later on (After the girls have already been abducted and held up in the gang's hide-out) she acts real warm towards Chelsea, but flips out again once the girls are forced to strip. Then she tries to protect Chelsea after some neighborhood kids almost come close to discovering the girls. Jeez! Make up your mind, girl!

Reviewed by Laydback