Good afternoon, House of Madness gangsters:
They sure don't make things like they used to. Cars made of steel built to withstand a high speed collision with an atom bomb have been replaced with motorized engines encapsulated in enough plastic to resuscitate Joan Rivers three times over. Gone are the days of buying a television screen reinforced in a 300 lb casing of solid wood, and if that fucker stopped working, a repairman was at your house faster than you could say "Bonanza". Nowadays if your 87" screen gives you trouble, you simply toss it aside and buy a new one; the tarnished one only had 4K resolution anyways, so it was time to upgrade either way. Remember drive-in movies? In today's world, if you plan on watching a film in the comfort of your driver's seat, you must watch it on your minuscule cellphone screen while driving 60 mph, which significantly increases the risk of spilling your beer. As for the movies themselves, they definitely don't make 'em like that anymore.
Tom (Nicky Henson) is the leader of a gang known as 'The Living Dead'; a gang which prides itself on tormenting the public with games of 'chicken' on the roadways, stealing apples in town squares, and even toppling foot ladders that are currently occupied by unsuspecting civilians. Oh, my! Such rebellious behaviour hasn't been witnessed since the old Murphy house egging incident of 1929, and this gang of misfits are surely a force you don't want to reckon with unless you have not so much a death wish, but definitely an annoyance request. Speaking of death wishes, the caretaker of Tom's mother's (Beryl Reid) house Shadwell (George Sanders) never seems to age or suffer from any sort of maladies, so Tom suspects Shadwell to be the recipient of some sort of spell or object locked away in his deceased father's study that grants eternal life. After not very much convincing, Tom's mother and Shadwell let him know there is indeed such a magic in place, derived from a bargain the family made with an ancient evil long ago. Awesome! Tom just needs to get his girlfriend Abby (Mary Larkin) and the rest of his gang on board, and they soon will be able to bulldoze pedestrians with their motorcycles as they upend soup aisles in supermarkets, terrorizing a world with no end for themselves. First things first though, and as their leader, Tom must take his own life and prove there is truth to his preachings of madness.
At Tom's funeral, Abby and the gang.........What's this? Oh, sorry, music break!
Aaaaaaaaaaaaand we're back. No way anyone pulls off a musical fuckin' interlude like that in today's world. Incredible! After the gang pays tribute to their soon-to-be resurrected head honcho, they all return to their mundane lives with no real expectations of Tom's rebirth into existence. Much to their horror and delusional delight, Tom indeed does resurface from his buried state, and is once again free to lead his troop of mischievous misfits into the afterlife. Does everyone else in 'The Living Dead' possess the required bravado to live up to such a name, or has Tom's current state of egotistical madness left them feeling he needs to be halted at all costs? If the consensus feeling is that Tom has indeed gone too far, how can he be stopped, and who is willing to make the ultimate sacrifice in order to ensure the rest of the world can continue riding free?
They definitely don't make movies like "Psychomania" anymore, but thankfully we have endless archives at our fingertips which are easily accessible, only in today's world the archives are digital, and 83% asbestos free.
Madness Meter: 5.9/10
NB
