The Peace Killers

1971 motorcycle gang vs. hippie movie

Rating: 8/20

Plot: When the leader of a biker gang hears that his ex-girlfriend is living in a nearby hippie commune, he and a few of his comrades bike off to go fetch her. The hippies fight back!

This is a fairly entertaining entry in those no-budget movies that attempted to make a buck after the success of more successful counterculture movies, some featuring both bikers and hippies. The trio of bikers at the beginning of the film--the floppy-hatted and lazy-eyed, a guy who can't quite get his words out, and a short guy--are almost comical until a flashback with a fairly nasty rape scene. You really only root for the hippies because the bad guys are so nasty. Otherwise, you wouldn't like the hippies much at all, especially their leader whose lines consist mostly of crying about how fighting isn't very nice. Jess Walton makes a great damsel-in-distress as the ex-girlfriend. The real star of the show might be the psych-rock soundtrack. The action scenes are fine for a movie like this--a lot of overhead shots of guys riding motorcycles. There's a scene where a pair of motorcycles carry the woman in a bag suspended between the two vehicles which is well done. The climactic fight scene with the hippies teaming up with a rival motorcycle gang including the afro'ed Lavelle Roby as Black Widow is so obviously not choreographed. One guy gets a great dying scene though where he says "Eeeeee!" And there's a scene where the titular killers of peace embarrass themselves by torturing a guy with a pencil, lamely.

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