The Tormentors

Yes, this is a bad film, but...

...if you can look past its weaknesses, the story's actually kind of interesting and there are quite a few highlights to make it worthwhile.

"The Tormentors" (1971) is more of a biker film in spirit than in reality since there are only a few motorcycle scenes, but it contains all the trappings of that infamous genre that started with the excellent "The Wild Angels" in 1966 (see my review for details) and fizzled out by 1974. This film is like an early 70's comic book come to life and reminded me of Gary Friedrich & Ross Andru's short-lived "Hell-Rider" from 1971, which was inspired by the popular biker films and was the precursor to Friedrich's better-known comic "Ghost Rider."

The story revolves around a well-dressed neo-Nazi group in Monterey, California, who rob banks on motorcycles. In the opening hold-up they do something that provokes the vengeance of a formidable cop (Anthony Eisley), who goes undercover to join the Nazis. Testing his authenticity, they order him to assassinate a charismatic Jesus freak called The Messiah who is preventing youths from turning to fascism.

It's a wild plot and sounds better than it actually is, mainly because of the film's low-budget failings. In fact, they ran out of money at some point and hired Kimberly Hyatt to finish the project. She bought some film, hired a crew with no money, did a quick rewrite and finished it on the weekends. The "failings" include the bad dubbing, which can be observed early on, especially the dubbing of The Messiah, a blond white dude, with the voice of a rousing black preacher. It's so bad it's funny. There are other funny moments, like Bruce Kimball as the overweight Nazi leader and his campy German accent that mysteriously disappears at certain points. There's also some bad editing and continuity.

Despite these glaring flaws, the film's strangely hypnotic. Comic booky or not, the story kept my interest and the film IS entertaining, and isn't th...