4/02/2014

SATAN'S SADISTS: A REBELLION OF HUMAN GARBAGE

year: 1969
The tagline for this 1969 biker flick written by Greydon Clark and directed by Al Adamson... "A Rebellion of Human Garbage"... truly says it all...

At times feeling like a snuff film on the verge of payoff, other times sublimely embodying exactly what it is: a low budget drive-in odyssey pitting a gang of scruffy bikers, who call themselves SATAN'S SADISTS, against anyone in their havoc-wreaking path. The bedlam rollers wind up at an off-highway diner harboring tough guys Gary Kent, as a hitchhiking Vietnam vet, and Scott Brady as the vacationer who gave him a lift...

SatanScore: ***
Russ Tamblyn, as the more strategy-minded leader, and his gang of misfits pillage and plunder the greasy spoon in truly shocking scenes, going outside even the limitless box of this particularly violent genre, and then ride off... without even leaving a tip! So the avenging Marine and a surviving waitress head after them, and for the next hour each Sadist, all uniquely odd and perfectly irritating in their own style, gets picked off: resulting in a snake attack on Robert Dix and a terrific knife battle finale between Kent and future KINGDOM OF THE SPIDERS director John Bud Cardos. But that's not before the ragged bikers are raping unlucky female campers, smoking pot, dropping acid, and being gloriously despicable. After all, it's their movie!
INTERVIEW WITH TOUGH GUY ACTOR/STUNTMAN GARY KENT
In the 1969 Al Adamson biker flick SATAN'S SADISTS, a group of hog-riding thugs roll into a small town and turn over a cafe where, besides the owner and a waitress is a tough Vietnam-vet marine, played by GARY KENT, and a seasoned cop (Scott Brady) and his wife who'd given the marine a lift: and here's where they end up, now having to deal with the lethal Sadists, or die...

How was it working with Scott Brady in SATAN’S SADISTS?

Well, I had worked with Scott Brady before, and liked and respected him very much. He was also one of my heroes when I was sneaking off to movies while still in school and dreaming of becoming an actor. So, being able to work with him again was a joy, and the scene itself was cool... I thought Scott was great as the tough cop with a chance at he and his wife finally getting some slack. I mean, here we were, in the desert, beautiful day... doing what we all liked to do. Pleasant feelings in the acting whirlpool...

Then, to have it culminate in that scene in the cafe... where we are immediately confronted by the thug bikers... tough, it would seem, for anyone to handle...

Now, it is a tribute to our acting that Scott and I didn't do some major ass-whupping, as we were not the type of guys to let that happen... but, we were acting, and that ass whupping stuff wasn't in the script...

It also was a good example of how "just going along, and maybe they will leave us alone" mostly does not work. My credo had always been, if you are gonna move, do it soon, fast, and heavy as all hell...or you lose...

Any other recollections of the shoot?

I was disappointed that I was not more charming in the film, didn't smile more...but then, producer Sam Sherman told me "remember...you do not have a lot to smile about!"

At night, after the martini shot, Scott and I and Bob Dix would meet in Bud Cardos's room for drinks before dinner. Bud had whipped up a marvelous pate' that, munched on a Ritz cracker, tasted great... until we found out it was freshly killed and skinned rattlesnake...

And after dinner, there was much singing of "the old songs" and a lot of raunchy joke telling. It was very eerie for me to return years later as a witness for the prosecution in the trial of Al Adamson's killer, Fred Fulford. They put me up at the same motel Bud, Scott, Dix and I had stayed at years earlier, during the making of Satan's Sadists...
Robert Dix as a biker who is soon to meet Gary Kent... and a snake... and his maker...

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