The Glory Stompers . Austin Chronicle . 07-13-98

The Glory Stompers

DIRECTED BY: Anthony M. Lanza

REVIEWED: 07-13-98

Terrific drive-in biker movie trash with Dennis Hopper as the deranged leader of a Harley gang (The Black Souls) who have a run-in with the Glory Stompers, man. They whup the livin' daylights out of the leader of the rival bunch and leave him for dead, then kidnap his girlfriend with the idea of taking her to Mexico and selling her on the white-slave market. The dude, of course, doesn't die and hooks up with a retired Stomper to search for the missing girl. They find her, and there's a showdown at the end. Simple, really, but what you gotta love is the screenwriters' all-too-common inability to distinguish between hippies and bikers (check out the bizarre love-in segment in the woods) and the lack of tattoos, grimy clothes, and fucked-up hair on the bikers. Ever called anyone a "mother-lover"? Also contains a great Bronson Canyon acid bad-trip sequence with a blond biker rolling around on the ground and hollering about bugs, a bearded Casey Kasem (!) as comic relief, and Hopper going inarticulate and doing a pre-Blue Velvet Frank Booth-style freakout. The astonishing mosquito-like fuzz guitar soundtrack doesn't identify Davie Allan & the Arrows, but if it's not, I'll kiss Casey Kasem's hairy pseudo-biker butt ñ I'd know the sound of a Mosrite Fuzzrite a mile away. You may not run across The Glory Stompers in the video stores all that often, but if you do, grab it.

--Jerry Renshaw

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