Knightriders (1981)

A Disappointing Continuation

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

The acting in this movie is really good.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

While not a horror film, Knightriders holds true to one of Romero's main tropes: the struggle to maintain the values of the past against the realities of the modern world. William struggles to lead the group. While constantly injured, he keeps himself front and center. And his dreams are haunted by a black bird.Bontempi, a new promoter, has new ideas for the traveling troupe. Even after Billy spends the night in jail for refusing to pay off the local cops, several of the knights want new leadership. Even William's queen, Linet, admits that her love for him isn't why she stays with the group.Turns out Morgan, the leader of the bikers who are dissatisfied with William, wants the crown. As played by Tom Savini, Morgan chews the scenery with raw sexuality and menace, versus the kindly king that William embodies. Morgan isn't afraid to push that air of danger further, fighting unruly crowds after his wins (Stephen King and his wife appear in one the movie's crowd scenes as he was in Pittsburgh writing Creepshow with Romero at the time).William finally meets the black bird — a rider has the black eagle crest of his chest plate — defeating him but becoming more injured in the process.Soon, everyone leaves — Morgan and his riders follow Bontempi, as even William's most trusted knight, Alan, leaves with his new girlfriend — who is simply using him to act out against her abusive parents. Alan must come to terms with the fact that he truly loves Billy's queen — shades of Lancelot and Arthur.Read more at http://bit.ly/2zCK1Pl

A young Ed Harris is the first thing most people will notice about this movie. But look a little deeper, and you will find a beautiful little story about keeping your ideals amid a world corrupted by money. The Knightriders are a travelling fair of motorcycle jousters comprised of various marginalized characters, who live an idyllic existence outside of society. Tom Savini shines as the unscrupulous knight who falls prey to a greedy talent agent. However nothing is as simple as that. Some characters learn from their mistakes, while others do not. An earnest message about the evils of consumerism and the perils of following the herd that is still relevant in today's materialistic culture. Excellent performances abound from the varied cast. While there are plenty of gut-wrenching motorcycle stunts to keep everyone entertained. This is a film about innocence lost and found, with a bittersweet ending that propels the film into the realm of the mythic. One of George A Romero's finest.

...it seems like you do your best work when shuffling, flesh-craving reanimated corpses are involved. There's a reason the "Living Dead" tetralogy is the stuff of legend and Romero's 'side-projects' are mostly little-known footnotes within his career--while often artistically innovative and unconventional, efforts like "Monkey Shines," "Bruiser," and "Knightriders" are--at best--tonally uneven experiences. Here we have a modern-day Ren Faire tent community that travels from town to town, putting on jousting competitions (done on motorcycles, natch) and living the medieval lifestyle in a modern world. Romero uses this postmodernist fairy tale to frame a heavy-handed (and overlong) meditation on man's code of honor and what it takes to hang onto it in a world where everybody else is "selling out" to live a life of luxury (yes, an up-and-coming rock band could have easily been substituted for the Ren Faire). The film is ponderous at points (with many sledgehammer-obvious monologues), repetitive at others (while the jousting tournaments are a marvel of slick editing, they don't vary much), and the premise is treated so seriously that at times it's hard not to laugh (and granted, there is a lot of intentional humor as well). Despite all this, Romero's voice does come out in certain dialog scenes, and the production is wonderfully photographed by Michael Gornick; the performances vary (with a young Ed Harris all over the map), but Tom Savini shows some formidable chops as a potential traitor to the cause. The commentary on the 'knights'' displacement in a world given in to modernity meets an uneven end (blatantly ripping off "Easy Rider"), but "Knightriders" is an oddly transfixing--albeit inferior--piece of work.

This movie pretty much rocks. The only problem with it is the extras. They remind me of the Toxic Avenger movie - very low class - but the main characters are awesome. Ed Harris totally has the Right Stuff and the mystical qualities of this movie are indescribable. Much like life itself, it strives for the moon and ends up with romantic nonsense and utter disarray. It is perfect.It is a movie about a group of renaissance festival-type motorcycle jousters who confront the possibility of commercial success - at the expense of the altruistic round-table idealism that the group was founded on. The King Arthur of the group (Ed Harris) attempts to maintain his Puritanical hold on the group. His arch-rival (Sir Gallahad?) is the major antagonist and is a poster-child for commercialism. The end result is a cataclysm of Puritinism versus Commercialism that results in the most nihilistic nirvana that the human mind can imagine. For a romantic, it is pure gold - if you can get past the gimmicks.I actually saw this movie on cable as a boy, and I loved it. Then I bought it on DVD as a grown up and still loved it, but I also noticed the low production-quality blemishes. The director's narrative kind of makes up for it though, because you get to understand how this movie got its magical aura.