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Northville Cemetery Massacre
[VCI]
1976; color
Directed by Thomas Dyke & William Dear
Starring: Scorpions Motorcycle Club (Detroit, MI), Craig Collicott, David Hyry, Carson Jackson, Jan Sisk & James King
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While it's not the best biker movie ever made, Northville Cemetery Massacre is deserving of it's apparent cult status. Shot in and around the then-desolate and crumbling city of Detroit in 1971 and '72, the overall vibe is noticeably darker and grittier than your average genre flick. Originally titled Freedom R.I.P., this movie probably puts the bikers in the most favorable light of any picture in the genre. The gang—in reality they're members of real Detroit clubs the Scorpions and the Road Agents—are the good guys in this movie; much more interested in partying, hanging out and having a good time than breaking the law. Of course they get hassled by the man and looked down on by the general populace, because—as we've all learned from these flicks—if you had long hair in the early '70s, especially if you had long hair and rode a motorcycle, you were an easy target for any and all forms of authority. The story itself revolves around a 'Nam vet / hippie whose brother was in the gang, but killed in a wreck prior to his meeting up with the group. The guy is literally just back from the war and takes to riding with the Spirits (as they're called in the movie) pretty much because he's got nothing better to do. Soon he and his girlfriend attend a biker wedding out in the country which is broken up by cops. Actually, when the fuzz arrives they're fooling around in a barn on the property and have no idea the party's been raided until they look up and see a shotgun staring them in their faces. When hippie boy objects to being harassed for no reason, he gets a class-A beatdown from a psychotic cop that leaves him knocked out cold. The cop then rapes the girl and tells her that if she breathes a word of it to anyone, he'll kill them both. When the girl comes to in the hospital, her dad is under the impression that "those dirty animals," aka the bikers, did this to his little girl and, later, talks to the cop about seeing what can be done to avenge her defiling. The cop suggests they take the law into their own hands for a little revenge and the father agrees. They "recruit" a friend of the cop, who's rich enough to have his own helicopter and target range, and set about with their master plan. While the bikers are at their clubhouse celebrating the wedding, two of them step outside to piss and are blown away by unseen gunmen. (From a style standpoint these shootings, as well as all of the gunfire deaths that follow—and there are plenty of 'em—are clearly inspired by, if not directly ripped off from, Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch.) The immediate suspects are the rival gang in town, the Road Agents, but when the two gangs meet at the local abandoned drive-in, everyone quickly becomes a target by the still-unseen snipers. A couple days later when the bikers try to have a funeral for their slain brothers, it becomes a massive shootout at the cemetery (thus the title of the movie) that leaves almost every biker dead. Then the film closes with one of the most unresolved endings in the history of cinema. Absolutely essential viewing for fans of the genre, and worthwhile for everyone else as well.
—the Kommandant
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