Stone by Sandy Harbutt (1974)
“Before Mad Max There Was Stone” goes the poster’s tagline. Which might lead you to believe that this 1974 film is some sort of post-apocalyptic adventure when in fact, it’s about the titular police officer (Ken Shorter) joining the notorious Grave Diggers motorcycle gang to track down an assassin who’s killing their members. Writer/director Sandy Harbutt, who also plays the gang’s leader, was clearly aiming for something countercultural, what with all of the sex, drugs, psychedelia, and subversive behavior. For starters, the Grave Diggers are loud and proud Satanists with names like Septic and Scrag, and as the film progresses, the straitlaced Stone actually begins to admire and adopt the gang’s free-spirited ways. Unfortunately, Stone’s not quite as subversive as it obviously wants to be. A meandering and underbaked plot involving environment-destroying industrialists hampers the film, as does dialog that surely must have seemed corny even back in the mid ’70s.
I may earn an affiliate commission on items you buy through Opus. These commissions will go directly to support the site and my blogging.