This oddball Brit-horror obscurity
is played with tongue firmly in cheek, thus invalidating its potential
for unintentional amusement, but it’s
definitely worthy of comment, if only for the fact that it’s the
only chance you have of seeing the man who voices Bob the Builder wrestling
with a mouthful of talking poo.
The strangeness all kicks off when two biker gangs clash in the badlands
of Birmingham. One of the gangs is in the middle of a black magic ritual,
the net result of which is the summoning of a demon from the netherworld.
Trouble is, by the time the beast’s spectral form arrives, its
intended host has been killed – along with everyone else. So the
demon takes up residence in the nearest alternative – a classic
Triumph motorbike.
The bike ends up in the hands of the eternally dopey Noddy (Neil Morrissey),
who buys it from a bike dealer, restores it and then discovers that the
vehicular quirks are somewhat more unusual than a slightly rough shift
into third gear. For one thing, the bike refuses to start during the
daytime. During the night, however, it takes off with a mind of its own,
hunting down the gang that killed the original bikers. It even sprouts
blades and spikes, and runs on human blood. It is, as the title cunningly
suggests, a vampire motorcycle.
The first victim is Noddy’s friend, Chopper (Daniel Peacock) who
ends up messily decapitated and the case attracts the attention of Inspector
Cleaver (Michael Elphick) – a particularly unpleasant policeman,
with a fondness for garlic. Hmm, that might prove useful later…
Noddy is plagued by dreams in which Chopper tries to convince him that
strange things are afoot, at one point appearing as a talking turd in
a scene which begins with a sanity-destroying view straight up Morrissey’s
asshole. The yapping turd flops about in the bowl for a bit, then leaps
into Noddy’s mouth, and the two flail around in an orgy of bad
taste slapstick.
After that sort of invasive plea, Noddy finally twigs the truth and enlists
the help of a local priest (Anthony “C-3PO” Daniels) in his
quest to destroy the mechanical monster.
Filmed using most of the same locations and cast as the Eighties TV series
Boon, which starred Morrissey and Elphick as motorcycle couriers,
there’s an undeniable air of mates mucking about in this film,
but the lumpy screenplay and often painful humour are helped along by
lashings of surprisingly good gore – including the aforementioned
severed head, C-3PO’s fingers getting chopped off and a nurse who
gets messily sliced in half. Already enshrined in the annals of British
cinema as one of the worst films ever made, I Bought A Vampire Motorcycle
is harmless fun, and just bizarre enough to be worth checking out.
Need to know: Prior to making Vampire Motorcycle, director Dirk Campbell
had only one credit to his name – the whimsical 1984 TV costume
drama, The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady, which regrettably featured
no scenes of turd munching or nurse bisection.
Availability: I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle has received the special
edition DVD treatment in the UK.
