Claysaba Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Matrixiole Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Derrick Gibbons An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

prodigalelf When it really comes down to it, this is not a sophisticated movie. There's this soundtrack, see, and it's pretty goofy with lots of jaw harp boing boing and fiddle-de-doo tunes and that certain barnyard pig chase type music that often accompanies country/co boys falling in the dirt with that "aww, shucks" look upon their faces. But, like with all sorts of movies, there's just something about this (the copy I have of it is called "The Shrieking") movie that I adore. I'm not sure if it's the audacity of the movie for being as weird and unruly as it is yet still holding together, not sure if it's the way the actors all bounce off each other in a nice way or what...I think mostly it's just the unexpectedness of the script, truly one of the strangest stories I've ever seen on film and by the end we can look back at all the oddities and know that whoever wrote it must have had a very healthy supply of something that was probably illegal in the early seventies, because this is a drug movie. I GUESS it could be called "horror" but it isn't that exactly, and it is a "teen movie" more or less, but not like any other "teen horror movie" I've ever seen, and it does have a serious propensity for the incredibly goofy, but that goofiness makes the horror (when it actually does happen) quite horrific (the scene with the frog comes to mind)...I notice that this film has a very low rating on IMDb, and that's a shame because it's funny and kinda scary at times, and altogether interesting and entertaining, not a great film by any stretch of the imagination, but worth watching. Anyone else notice this one "feels" very similar to "Dead Birds"?

udar55 WWI vet Whizzer (Keith Carradine) leads his ragtag motorcycle gang (including Scott Glenn and Gary Busey) into the tiny town of Bingo, Nebraska. They quickly get into it with another gang (led by Dan Haggerty) and hide out on the farm of half-breed sisters Oriole (Cristina Raines, billed as Tina Herazo) and Acacia (Hilarie Thompson). When the gang begins to offend Oriole (either via rape or bad manners), she starts to use her deceased father's shaman tricks to off them. Man, what a totally odd film. The Prism VHS (as THE SHRIEKING) tries to sell it as straight up horror, but this could easily fit on the cult board due to the mixing of genres. Within its horror trappings, it is also a period piece, an art flick, a road movie, a comedy, a drug flick, a romance, and a revenge thriller. I suspect it was greenlit in a post- EASY RIDER haze (20th Century Fox produced it). The story is from Vernon Zimmerman (director of UNHOLY ROLLERS) and Doran William Cannon (writer of SKIDOO and BREWSTER MCCLOUD), so you can guess when the oddness comes from. Director Leo Garen and Stephen Katz receive the screenplay credit. Everyone in the cast is good with Raines/Herazo being the stand out as the sister with the darker edge. Also worth seeing for the bit where Busey refuses to smoke some pot. Gorgeous locales in South Dakota stand in for Nebraska. The film also ends with one of the most baffling shots I've seen it a long time as Whiz and Oriole head off on his motorbike and see modern era jet fighters zoom over their heads.

Woodyanders Nebraska in the early 1900's: Dour, serious Oriole (flinty Christina Raines) and sweet, flighty Acacia (the adorable Hilarie Thompson) are a couple of strange half-breed sisters who live on a remote farm in the middle of nowhere. They give food and shelter to a gang of scruffy, but basically decent bikers: cocky leader Whizzer (amiable Keith Carradine), excitable yahoo Jimbang (Scott Glenn), rowdy good ol' boy Giblets (the ever-wacky Gary Busey), gawky, bespectacled nerd Golly (the likable Mike Combs), mute Chupo (Robert Walker), and feisty motorcycle mama China (sexy, spunky spitfire Doria Cook). Oriole puts a hex on the bikers after Giblets attempts to rape Acacia. Director/co-writer Leo Garen concocts a genuinely bizarre and compelling handy dandy multi-genre period biker Gothic horror-Western combo that emphasizes a spooky and ambiguous atmosphere over snappy pacing and cheap scare scenes. This gloriously gaga feature perfectly epitomizes the anything-goes screwball experimental sensibility of the early 70's; this in turn gives the movie a certain peculiar appeal. Charles Rosher, Jr.'s pretty, picturesque cinematography makes snazzy use of fades, dissolves and freeze frames. Charles Bernstein's eerie, offbeat, flavorsome hillbilly bluegrass score likewise hits the spot. Dan "Grizzly Adams" Haggerty pops up in a small role as macho hot rodder Brother Billy. An engaging and interesting only-in-the-70's cinematic curio.

EyeAskance Marauding early 20th century motorcycle gang takes lodging in a rustic prairie farmhouse owned by two weird young sisters. We come to learn that the girls' parents are both deceased, and that "Ma" was a white woman, and "Pa" was some sort of Native-American spiritualist. Mysterious events soon begin to occur, and the misbehaving motorbike gang loses members rapidly. All this creepiness transpires to the accompaniment of a rather harsh washboard/jews-harp/kazoo music score which will have many folks ripping their hair out at the root within minutes. Things get off to a decent enough start in this rummy little "rara avis", but it soon begins to amble off on a hundred different roads to nowhere. The initial intrigue of the story is quickly lost in a badly overcooked, audience estranging botch. There was a worthy prospect in all this...sadly, what is ultimately given rise is a very curious and atmospheric imbroglio.I suspect this movie could have some type of specious or abstract appeal to a very select few...no way, however, would it get my personal unstinting approval. 3.5/10