The Cycle Savages — The Cycle Savages (Blu Ray)

The Cycle Savages is a 1969 biker movie directed by Bill Brame (Scream Free, Miss Melody Jones and Baby Needs A New Pair of Shoes) and starring Brue Dern (The Burbs, Psych-Out and The Trip), Melody Patterson (Blood and Lace, The Angry Breed and The Immortalizer), and Chris Robinson (Stanley, Sweet, Sweet Rachel and Catch the Black Sunshine). As an interesting aside, the movie was produced by Casey Kasem, the legendary voice of Shaggy from the classic era of Scooby Doo.

Romko (Chris Robinson) is a young artist who has taken to sketching the members of a motorcycle gang. The gang’s leader, Keeg (Bruce Dern) takes exception to him sketching the gang’s activities, beats him up and destroys his drawings. After Romko is sliced up by Keeg, a beautiful young woman, Lea (Patterson) decides to help him and calls a doctor to patch him up. Fearing his sketches will bring him and his gang down, Keeg promises to keep an eye on Romko and if he continues sketching he will destroy his hands. What Romko doesn’t know is that Lea is being intimidated into spying on him by Keeg, with whom she has some shared history. 

The Cycle Savages is an above-average entry in the late 60s motorcycle/counterculture subgenre. Keeg and his gang are a sleazy bunch of degenerates, drugging and gang-raping young girls. Dern is particularly good as Keeg, the sleaziest scumbag of the lot, a violent and deranged psychopath who revels in the maltreatment of his victims. Robinson is also good as Romko, the artist who falls head over heels in love with Lea before finding out that she has been involved in keeping him out of the way while Keeg’s thugs break into his flat to steal his sketches. 

Overall, the production is very solid for a debut feature, the film looks good, the performances are consistent across the board, the script is robust and the psychedelic rock score is top-notch. On the technical front, the print is clean, the colours vibrant and the bonus materials are limited to an interview with actress Maray Ayres and some trailers.