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Our
film opens on a highway leading into
Northville, Michigan where an elderly
couple are sidelined with a flat. Soon
they are surrounded by a horde of bikers.
And things appear ominous as they noisily
swarm all over the car, but things are not
as they seem. The Spirits aren't about
that kind of thing, man, and soon have the
flat off and the spare on and send the
couple peacefully on their way. Bluntly in
the face of this act of altruism, the
Spirits are stopped at the Northville city
limits by the police, rousted, hassled and
jailed on several bogus charges just
because of what they are. (And here we
have the entire theme of the film wrapped
up in a nutshell.)
The
Club celebrates their incarceration by
sharing the pot that Chris,
a hitchhiker they picked up on the way
into town, managed to smuggle in. Chris (David
Hyry and voiced by Nick Nolte) is
returning to Northville after his tour in
Vietnam, to see his girl Lynn (Jan
Sisk).
Now Chris appears to be a long-haired
hippie, and hippies and bikers are like
oil and water, right? But the Spirits
don't hassle him -- after all, it's his
pot, and the mongoloid menagerie tokes the
night away.
After
being sentenced to a wash and wax at the
local car wash (much to the locals
amusement), the Spirits are escorted
out of town. Chris peels off, finds Lynn,
and invites her to a wedding -- Spirits
style. The ceremony takes place in an open
pasture, and while the majority of the
bikers scrum for the garter belt, Chris
and Lynn sneak off to a nearby barn for a
roll in the hay. (And at this point I
have to pause and say that Ms. Sisk -- or
maybe the actress dubbing her over, has
all the acting skills of an avocado, but
bless her, she tries real hard. Nice rack,
though.)
No
matter where the Spirits go, Johnny Law
doesn't seem that far behind. The party is
soon busted up and the bikers are sent
packing, leaving Chris and Lynn alone in
the barn where they have the misfortune of
being discovered buck-naked by a sadistic
little sociopath with a badge named Putnam
(Craig
Collicott).
Putnam quickly bludgeons Chris unconscious
with the butt of his shotgun, and then
turns a lecherous eye on Lynn. Oozily,
with his pants around his ankles,
everything else soon follows. The dirty
deed done, Putnam continues to beat on
Lynn, threatening that if she doesn't say
it was the bikers who raped and brutalized
her, he'll kill Chris and slice her face
to ribbons.
*
* * *
Film-buffs
always argue over where a particular genre
started. Some say the outlaw biker flick
began with Brando's The
Wild One,
others say it was Corman's The
Wild Angels.
Most, but not all, agree the genre reached
its zenith with Easy
Rider --
I
say it was
Satan's Sadists,
but almost everyone agrees that the genre
officially died with The
Northville Cemetery Massacre.
TNCM
is more Easy
Rider
than Chrome
and Hot Leather
(and what a stinky piece of poop that
film was), but it's a lot more blunt
with it's message on the dangers of
misperceptions based solely on what you
see and what you think you see.
TNCM
had a -- well, interesting birthing
process from script to screen. Inspired by
the works of Hunter S. Thompson and Sam
Peckinpah, first time filmmakers William
Dear and Thomas Dyke (they wrote,
directed, shot, and edited) began
production in 1971, and due to a constant
lack of a budget, the film was shot
piecemeal over the course of almost two
years. Their cast consisted mostly of a
local Detroit club called The Scorpions.
They made contact with them through a
friend of a friend who was a member, and
the only thing they had to show the bikers
of what they were capable of, film-wise,
was an anti-drug educational short they'd
just finished called Jump.
Nobody knows if it was the quality of the
film or the kahonies it took show an
anti-drug short to that crowd, but the
Club signed on. And according to Dyke, it
was several "encouraging" calls
from the Scorpions to "keep on
keeping on" to finish the film so
they could get paid. (I assume they
were promised a piece of the pie.) The
cast was rounded out by several local
actors who range from good to passable to
downright awful, and to be honest, the
bikers handle their lines better than
anyone else.
When
filming was finally completed in 1974, it
took almost another two years to complete
post-production. Editing began in New York
until they ran out of money. Vacating
those facilities, the production moved to
L.A. Upon arrival, they discovered most of
their negatives were missing; they were
back in New York and wouldn't be returned
without payment (they skipped town
without paying rent.) A red-eye back
to New York and a midnight raid (they
still had a key) on the editing
studios didn't turn up their film but they
did find a copy of the newly finished Fritz
the Cat,
which they pilfered and eventually traded
back for the much needed negatives.
The
negatives were okay, but the audio track
was a shambles and work commenced to try
and salvage it. Former Monkee Mike Nesmith
provided the soundtrack. He was approached
at a gig, shown the film, which he --
according to Dear, thought was awful but
still agreed to score it and serve as the
occasional balladeer. Nick Nolte was
approached the same way and agreed to dub
over Hyry over a free beer and a promise
of $150.
With
their film finally complete, they found a
distributor with Roger Corman's Cannon
Films, but then ran into a snag with the
MPAA which threatened to scuttle the deal.
TNCM
was
slapped with an X-rating for its
gratuitous violence. They made some cuts,
appealed the rating, and won an R. With
that final obstacle cleared, Cannon
released the film in 1976, and Freedom
R.I.P.
finally hit the theaters. Now whether that
title means Freedom: Ride in Peace or
Rest
in Pieces kinda depends on how the rest of
the film plays out...
Putnam
stays ahead of his lie by personally
escorting Lynn to the hospital. Scared of
him, and what he might do to Chris, Lynn
refuses to tell her father, John Tyner (Herb
Sharples),
what really happened. But Putnam is -- his
version of the truth, anyway. Laying the
blame on the Spirits, Putnam presses
things further, stoking Tyner's need for
revenge, by saying they'll never be able
to prove what happened due to a "lack
of evidence." He keeps pushing the
father's buttons until Tyner is well past
the point to kill, and he's more than
willing to help eradicate those animals
who hurt his daughter. Putnam seeks out
one more person for his crusade: a local
businessman with a Count Zaroff complex
named Armstrong (Len
Speck),
who's more than happy to help hunt and
kill the most dangerous game. (And be
sure to enjoy his wonky justification
speech about culling the herd.)
At
the Spirits Clubhouse, the wedding is
finally winding down. While Chris relates
to Deke (Carson
Jackson),
the president of the club, how the cops
attacked him and Lynn in the barn, and how
he woke up to find everyone gone, a couple
members step outside to take a whiz --
'cuz you don't buy beer; you only rent it.
Both soon fall -- very messily, to a
sniper's bullet.
Thinking
at first a rival gang was behind the
ambush, Deke sets up a meeting with The
Road Agents at an abandoned drive-in
theater to settle things. The Agents deny
any involvement, and this is quickly
verified when the sniper strikes again,
taking out bikers from both sides. Never
leaving a man behind, the bikers pull the
wounded and the dead onto their bikes and
haul ass out of there. The Agents leader
takes one in the leg, leading to some
impromptu surgical procedures in a gas
station restroom. (I'm gonna assume
Chris was a medic in Vietnam -- or at
least the guy with a bullet being pried
out of his leg hopes he was medic in
Vietnam.)
Whoever
is attacking them is packing some pretty
high caliber heat. Knowing they're
outgunned, Deke leads the Spirits into
Detroit to see Captain Freedom (Ray
Gardener);
a whack-o radical who runs guns out of his
garage. All of his automatics are
"spoken for" but the Captain
tops off their order with several hand
grenades to make up for it.
Any
doubts about Putnam's manhood are put to
rest when he ambushes a lone Spirit,
broken down on the side of the road. He
spills his psychosis, and it's
depressingly familiar, before blowing a
hole in the other man's chest.
Suspicious
of psycho Putnam from the beginning, Chris
has this confirmed when Lynn finally
reveals what happened in the barn. She's
aware of what's been happening, and fears
her father might have something to do with
it. Chris agrees, but feels Putnam is the
root cause of everyone's grief and is
ready to kill him for what he's done. Lynn
doesn't think he should (or could)
kill anybody. She promises to tell her
father the truth, and that will be the end
of it.
She
never gets the chance.
Things
reach a climax at the Northville Cemetery.
A procession of bikes and hearses wind
their way to the secluded spot -- and one
of the hearse drivers has the ballgame on.
The National Anthem plays, and it gives
you the sense that something very
gladiatorial is about to happen. As the
Spirits try to bury their fallen comrades,
the cemetery is buzzed by a Armstrong's
helicopter. Armstrong, Tyner and Putnam
open fire, but the Spirits are ready for
them. They break open the coffins, filled
with the weapons they got from Captain
Freedom and return fire. Chaos reigns and
the blood flies. And unfortunately, the
Spirits prove better targets than
marksmen.
After
several sweeps, it appears they got
everyone. The pilot lands and the men get
out to mop things up. This time, though,
they're ambushed as the Spirits still
kicking were playing possum. Another
firefight erupts, and the helicopter and
its pilot are taken out with several hand
grenades. Chris moves around to try and
help the wounded, but takes one in the
shoulder. The Spirits have them
outnumbered but Armstrong, Tyner and
Putnam take cover and pick the bikers and
their old ladies off one by one until none
are left standing. Not quite all; Deke
manages to get to his bike and takes out
Armstrong -- how exactly I'm not sure, but
trust me, he's dead -- before he falls in
a hail of bullets.
Then
all is quiet.
Lynn
arrives on scene, and tearfully confesses
that all this carnage was for nothing. The
Spirits didn't hurt her; she angrily
points at Putnam, and says, he's the one who
raped her. Putnam replies by blowing Tyner
away. He hears a shotgun being racked and
turns to see that Chris -- bloodied but
still kicking, has the drop on him. After
a brief Mexican stand-off, we have a
close-up of a trigger housing, a finger
twitch, and the sound of a gun clicking
empty. But whose? As the stand-off
silently continues, we switch to an aerial
shot to view the carnage and fade to
black.
The
End
Now
it is that concluding, almost operatic,
bloodbath that has cemented The
Northville Cemetery Massacre's
status as a cult movie. Dear and Dyke
wanted to keep the ending ambiguous -- and
it took me three viewings to realize whose
gun clicked empty. From the editing, to
the slow-motion shoot-outs, to the
volcanic blood squibs, the filmmakers were
definitely big Sam Peckinpah fans. The
squibs were done on the cheap and on the
fly, consisting of baggies of fake blood
and illegal firecrackers strapped to their
actors and actresses chests -- who risked
life and limb and ear-drum to get the
shot. One of the film's sponsors was place
called Burger Chef, who provided food for
the production, and most of the leftover
burgers were mangled up and added to the
concoction to make the hits more messy.
I'm amazed at how well it worked. This
appears to be Dyke's only production, but
Dear went on to have quite a career
helming Harry
and the Hendersons
-- one of my all time favorite bigfoot
movies, and also directed Mummy
Daddy
-- thee greatest episode of Amazing
Stories;
that's the one where the actor, trapped in
his mummy costume, tries to get to the
hospital for the birth of his daughter --
if the locals, thinking he's a real
monster, don't kill him first.
It
was Cannon Films that changed the name
from Freedom
R.I.P.
to the more lurid Northville
Cemetery Massacre,
and that wasn't the only change they made.
A lot of the satire and comedy scenes were
left on the edit room floor (about eight minutes
worth) but all the blood and violence
was left in. VCI Entertainment has managed
to cobble it all back together in a spiffy
new DVD released last year, marking the
film's 30th Anniversary. And again, VCI
has packed their DVD with a ton of extras
including three separate commentaries: one
from Dyke, one from Dear and one by the
surviving Scorpions. They're all a hoot.
Personally,
at heart, I think Northville
Cemetery Massacre
is a western (another genre that was
dying out by the mid-70s.) The Spirits
are cowboys out of time, with no place
left to roam in this world. The script had
some lofty ambitions to show that
"the perception of reality is
reality." At the time filming
commenced the counter-revolution of the
'60s was fizzling out and Nixon was on his
get-tough law and order kick; a bad time
to be a disillusioned freak just wanting
to wear your colors, ride you scooter,
smoke, drink and screw without being
hassled by the man. Dear and Dyke's goal
was to satirize this notion by making the
bikers the good guys and the clean-cut
cops the bad guys. (And I think it
would have been made better if the the
club had remained The Scorpions and not
changed to the more milder Spirits.)
Things get more complicated when you
realize most of the "bad guys"
in this film act the way do only because
Putnam is manipulating them. All of the
chaos and bloodshed that follows is based
on a lie, to feed and fuel Putnam's
psychotic bloodlust under the excuse of a
crusade against the outlaw bikers. And
once the others buy into that lie (some
happily, others reluctantly),
everybody's screwed. A strong metaphor for
the time, that still has some resonance
today. So despite
all the technical hiccups and gonzo
execution, when it's all said and done, Northville
Cemetery Massacre
has a lot to say about society and its
ills; and despite a limited budget, a bane
of rudimentary acting skills, and an
atrocious audio track, it says those
things pretty darn well.
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