Knightriders

Thirteen of the sixteen feature length movies in George Romero's filmography are horror. Of those remaining three, two are early career attempts to escape the shadow of his wildly successful and influential debut movie, Night Of The Living Dead. One, There's Always Vanilla, is an insufferable and toxic nightmare of a movie that no human being should ever endure ever again. The other is Hungry Wives, an ambitious mess that tries to atone for the sins of Vanilla by positioning itself as a feminist movie, but often misunderstands what a feminist is. Knightriders is the third and final non-horror movie, and despite the other two being genuine attempts at drama, this is somehow still the weirdest. And it's not because it focuses on a travelling troupe of medieval re-enactors who compete in jousting and duels on motorcycles. Yes, motorcycles. It's not NOT because of that element, though, because that is one weird idea all on its own. No, what makes Knightriders so unique in Romero's canon is that the trappings of this movie are a way for Romero to be the most political he ever had been or ever would be. Knightriders tells the story of this group, led by King Billy (played by Ed Harris) and his girlfriend Queen Linet (who has maybe four lines in two and a half hours, her first scene is done naked, and whose only stage instruction is "look worried"). Billy has founded this act that goes from town to town, playing small fares, barely scraping by. Billy does not take to anybody questioning the ideals of his hippie, egalitarian lifestyle. He views the troupe not just as an act -- in fact, he bridles when that term is used -- but as a family. He takes unkindly to comparisons to Manson or Jim Jones, but he does rule the group with an iron fist. Anybody who doesn't subscribe to his vision is wrong, which includes one of the lead knights, Morgan (played by Tom Savini), who would like to take the crown and steer the act towards larger opportunities and commercialization. Billy is injured from constantly getting in fights, and he refuses to let his most loyal knight, Alan, be his proxy, partly because he doesn't want to show weakness, but also because he feels like the troupe will split apart if he doesn't hold it together. But it starts to split apart anyway as the lifestyle takes its toll on the members. This was, by all accounts I've seen, Romero's passion project, and it shows in every frame. Every. Single. Frame. of this 147 minute long movie. The messaging and themes at play here are more on the nose than a pair of sunglasses. Morgan and his followers are treated not only as villains, but as heartless monsters for wanting a better life than what is presented as a loving family trying to life one another up, but feels more like compulsory poverty. Billy's a mercurial, hotheaded jerk, insisting that dying for his ideals is better than living in comfort. It could not be more apparent how much Romero hates capitalism, commercialization, and the rat race. And hey, I don't like any of those things are. I'd love it if the world were what Billy wants it to be, but it isn't, and barking at people to follow or GTFO isn't going to accomplish it. It's all relayed rather ham-handedly, but bluntness is also the intent here. Romero was not compromising his vision here in any way, so subtlety was never going to be on the menu. I can appreciate him ramming the gas pedal to the floor here on everything he ever wanted to do in a movie and giving a middle finger to the haters. And I think that's why I landed on the rating I have for Knightriders. Creepshow is definitely a more fun movie; Day Of The Dead is more thought-provoking; Night Of The Living Dead is more important. But Knightriders is Romero's uncompromised, undiluted vision. While it sometimes feels self-indulgent, it never feels arrogant. This isn't an Artist making a masterpiece, it's just a director making the movie he always wanted to make. As weird as Billy is written, I appreciate the commitment to making Billy never compromise his ideals. As much as Morgan is right in many ways, I appreciate that when he has a change of heart, it's not because the money and comfort wasn't worth it, but because he discovers the value of found family. And I appreciate that everything in this movie feels genuine. I could feel Romero's authentic, deep-seeded belief in the ideals Billy espouses, and I could feel that these beliefs don't come from a place of contrarian defiance, but an optimistic hope for a better way of life, even if that better way isn't an easier one. Knightriders certainly isn't without fault -- its run time is bloated like a Thanksgiving parade balloon, there are too many characters and too many subplots, and the final battle for the crown is rendered kind of anticlimactic by everybody being friendly with each other -- but it is so bizarre in concept, so earnest in execution, and so unusual in Romero's canon, I couldn't help but enjoy it. It is probably one of Romero's more acquired-taste movies, but given the rest of his canon and his other two non-horror attempts, it's nice to see he could make a good movie under different circumstances. He just had to do it with his own spin.