“I’m not trying to be a hero! I’m fighting the dragon!”

Drake’s rating: Reliving the Arthurian saga, ‘80s style

Drake’s review: Things were looking pretty good for George A. Romero in 1980. The recent success of his zombie classic Dawn of the Dead had not only solidified his reputation as a film director, it also started to open up opportunities for him beyond the genre of the living dead. Romero certainly had plenty of ideas beyond those of ghouls rising up and eating their friends and neighbors, and one of those ideas was about medieval knights living brutal lives in the distant past.

But a script about knights struggling as much with disease as against each other just wasn’t selling, so Romero kept working on it. Having learned of Renaissance Fairs and the Society for Creative Anachronisms, a group who dressed up in homemade armor and beat on each other with wooden weapons, Romero updated the concept to a modern-day setting with an eye towards his characters engaging in a similar lifestyle. Still, he couldn’t get the concept sold. Even legendary schlockmeister Samuel Z. Arkoff passed, telling Romero to put the characters on motorcycles if he wanted it to sell.

As it turned out, that was the key ingredient that the script needed, and in the summer of 1980 Romero went behind the camera to shoot what is probably the most George A. Romero film of his entire career.

Billy (Ed Harris, The Right Stuff) is the king. He might not have land or a settled domain, but he does have loyal subjects who follow him from town to town, putting on spectacular shows as armored knights who engage in jousts on the backs of motorcycles rather than horses. Merchants sell food and handmade jewelry, jugglers and musicians perform, and audiences cheer with wild abandon.

The movie begins with a show where everything goes right, but even so some tension is obvious. Morgan (Tom Savini, Dawn of the Dead) is the Black Knight. He’s all swagger and bravado, but he’s also literal hell on wheels. He loves the bikes and lives for the jousts, and he’s gunning for Billy’s crown. To make matters worse, Morgan’s been on the verge of winning it for some time. He knows it, and so does Billy, but Billy also knows that Morgan isn’t ready to be the king. Every day is a fight for Billy. He’s fighting for his ideals, he’s fighting to keep his people together, and he’s fighting his own personal demons. But Morgan is just fighting for himself and Billy knows that that’s just not enough.

When Billy gets himself arrested trying to protect a friend, Queen Linet (Amy Ingersoll, Splash) takes charge and moves the troupe to the next town. There, like snakes in the grass, are a pair of show business regulars just waiting to make their pitch. One is a producer, promising bigger venues, and the other is an agent promising better deals. All of it is antithetical to Billy’s philosophy, but Morgan is all ears. He listens to their pitches and happily signs on the dotted line, eager to be declared king even if the crown is a false one. Making matters worse is Billy’s reappearance with the troupe, as his anger starts to boil over. He takes it out on those around him and alienates his closest friends and allies.

It’s at that show that everything falls apart, leaving Billy physically hurt and the company split. Morgan takes several knights and leaves for seemingly greener pastures, while Billy’s stalwart defender Alan (Gary Lahti, The Runestone) and fellow knight Bors leave to visit family, uncertain if they’ll return.

There is a lot going on in this movie. Even as the main plot unfolds, various subplots and threads weave their way throughout the film. Angie the mechanic is involved with Morgan, but loyal to Billy. She sees through Morgan’s platitudes and, though she loves him, knows that he isn’t yet king material. Her good friend Pippin (a terrific Warren Shook, Creepshow), who narrates each event for the audience, is coming to terms with his own sexuality, a journey he’s just not certain how to navigate.

Rocky, one of the knights, is an open lesbian, confident in herself and her choices, but obviously sympathetic to Pip. Alan enters into a relationship with Julie (Patricia Tallman, 1990’s Night of the Living Dead), a local girl from the first show but he also has an ever-growing attraction to Queen Linet and, in true Arthurian fashion, that attraction is reciprocated.

And Merlin (professional storyteller Brother Blue) has his hands full just trying to keep his friend and protege Billy from letting his own demons consume him.

The opening scene of Knightriders takes a full 40 minutes as it navigates through the characters and starts to unpack them for the audience. You can see how everyone interacts, and what the stakes are, so when that second show rolls up and everything starts to go wrong you can feel the momentum shift. And there’s a real feeling of familiarity here, as if these characters really have been traveling together for years, and the strain of all the relationships is taking its toll.

You can also see the definitive divide between Billy’s dream and the ideas of the agent and the producer as they put Morgan in a glitzy commercial photo shoot and design new and incredibly garish costumes for his knights. They don’t understand what Billy’s doing, and they don’t really care about his ideals. All they see is the promise of commercialization and a potential cash cow.

Knightriders is as autobiographical a film as Romero ever made. A director shooting outside of Hollywood, with his own cast and crew and his own agenda, Romero well knew the costs of following one’s dreams. He was often forced to make hard decisions about his films simply because of money and marketing, but also developed a cult following and a real loyalty among those who worked on his films.

It’s not hard to see the parallels, but Billy’s problems run deep. His morality is intractable, and he sees the world in black and white. He can’t compromise, something Romero had to do on many occasions, and that intractability starts to cost him the kingdom he’s worked so hard to build.

Knightriders is a fantastic movie that failed to find an audience back in 1981 but has built up a cult following since. It’s a real shame that this one slipped so far under the radar as it is just filled with great performances and highlighted by some very creative action scenes. I think Knightriders is one of the top 10 movies of the decade, and it’s one of my personal favorites.

And, yes, this is admittedly coming from someone who continually pushes Stone Cold to an almost manic degree, but trust me here. It’s got bikes and knights and all sorts of other cool stuff, and it was one of Romero’s favorites of his own films as well.

So if you don’t trust me, trust Romero. The man knew his movies.

Intermission!

• Yes, that is Stephen King and his wife Tabitha sitting in the front row at the first show. King would soon be working with Romero on Creepshow.
• “You’ve gotta have guts to do what we do, baby. That’s basic number one.” Rocky is the best.
• If you’re a Romero fan, you’ll be seeing some familiar faces in this one, including Ken Foree as the troupe’s weapon master, Little John.
• Disco! Billy is pissed, and I am 100% with him.
• “Give me…dooope!” Morgan falls into that Hollywood lifestyle pretty easily.
• There are a lot of couples in this movie, but Pip and Punch are the cutest.
• “I gotta get rid of Tuck.” The producer is SUCH a sleazeball.
• The cashier calmly ringing up the restaurant fight as the diners cheer. That’s a very unpopular deputy.
• $63.00 for all that damage. 1980s prices!