WildoneposterWhile I was researching my Around the World in 31 Days of Horror I stumbled across an interesting phenomena. Several countries around the world have participated in the outlaw biker movie genre.

The genre started in 1953 when Marlon Brando lead an outlaw motorcycle gang and terrorized a small town in The Wild One. In the U.S. the onslaught of biker movies filled theatre screens in the 1950’s, 60s and 70s. The genre died down in the 1980’s and is pretty much extinct nowadays. But at the height of the craze at the end of the 1960’s and through the ’70s other countries started pumping out their own versions of the outlaw biker film.

In the U.K. there were films like Psychomania in 1973 about a group of bikers called The Living Dead who practice black magic and want to return as the undead.

In Japan there was Stray Cat Rock: Delinquent Girl Boss (1970) the first of a five film series about an all girl biker gang.

In Australia there was the 1974 film Stone. Stone (Ken Shorter) is an undercover cop who joins a biker gang to discover who is killing them off.

In Canada in 1971 there was The Proud Rider. In Mexico there was the Siete en la mira series. The plot has a punk biker gang terrorizing a small town and fighting against the sheriff. Sounds familiar.

Where Do You Hide the SunEven weirder in Lebanon, a country which barely made any movies at all in the 20th Century managed to pump a couple biker movies. Which is really weird when you consider that the country didn’t have any biker gangs. There was AL-JAIZA UL-KUBRA (The Big Prize, 1975) and then the cult hit Where Do You Hide the Sun? (1977). These films inspired Egypt to get into the act with the 2000 film The Red Notebook. Other than stills of the films it’s pretty hard to find any footage on Youtube of these films but they do exist.

I’m sure there’s quite a few countries and a ton of films that I’m missing but still it’s one weird genre to catch on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-8j3ylfl1E