In honor of George Romero’s passing I’ll NOT run a full review of his 1981 motorcycle jousting renn faire movie, Knightriders.

I’ll just note that it makes you realize that the guy didn’t consider himself “master of zombie horror George Romero” but “master of small group dynamics under pressure George Romero”.

I’ll also say that it’s a better example than Xanadu or Heaven’s Gate of how the ‘70s auteur-personal “New Hollywood” could go off the rails precisely because it’s more intimate and smaller-scale.

The actual “motorcycle jousting” bit is mostly overlooked, with atrocious stuntwork, Romero says he just tossed the idea in there to get the movie funded. To the extent there’s a throughline at all, it’s the king/troupe leader (Ed Harris in INSANE full-on Method scenery-chewing mode) trying to cleave to some sense of countercultural authenticity in the face of pressures to commercialize.

This is transparently about George’s own quest; if no one tells the king that he’s mated his vision to a flatly absurd style of popcorn entertainment, it’s apparently cause that never occurred to him.

I say TO THE EXTENT there’s a throughline, because the film starts to become near an anthology hamhandedly exploring troupe members’ interiority through disjointed and honestly ‘70s-tropaic mini plots. Like, for a while it looks like “trouble with a local sheriff” will be a coherent plot but then it just jags into some weird Billy Jack/First Blood thing with him wailing on some second-tier character while a handcuffed Ed Harris emotes, AND THEN drops that entirely for two new third-tier characters doing a rushed “coming to terms with your sexuality” arc and ONLY LATER, several false endings later, does Harris show up out of nowhere at a fast food restaurant to beat the sheriff up to patrons’ cheers, and then Easy Rider-style drive his motorcycle into a big rig with the mute Native American boy who was possibly also his eagle spirit animal that he’d been seeing in dreams?

And part of this vision quest was aided by the troupe’s doctor, a black voodoo shaman who speaks in Shakespearean jive? (In the commentary Romero is puzzled why Morgan Freeman, fresh off The Electric Company, was insulted to be pitched the role). Or the plot where some local girl latches on to a rider and then it comes out that her dad is abusive and then rather than take her along the rider drops her off at home crying at night because…??? He’s a rebel, he can’t be tied down, it’s never really made clear? And that’s just the end of that plot

Oh also the opening scene fixes on Steven King as a hotdog-eating yokel, that never goes ANYWHERE