Movie Review: Knight Riders

KnightRiders (1981): This is a movie that you expect to be bad, and it turns out to be better than you thought. The premise is a traveling Ren Faire that uses motorcycles for jousting. They are having money problems. The black knight (played by Tom Savini, aka Sex Machine) and his followers want to do whatever it takes to make money while the faire’s king wants to stick to his values.

This movie actually works on many levels. First, it is an Aurthurian tale. You have the Authurian king figure in Billy (the faire’s king), Morgen the black knight is Mordred and Alan is Lancelot. Morgen is constantly attempting to seize the throne through force of arms. He eventually takes his followers and leaves. But, he learns that there can only be one true king, and he must earn the crown. There is even a Merlin (the faire’s doctor) played by Brother Blue.

The movie is also an allegory for the music industry at the time. Billy is the representation of the older folksy kind of rock (Grateful Dead, The Carpenters and others) while Morgen represents the glitzy glam rockers of the late 70s and early 80s (KISS to be specific). He teaches Morgen that to be truly successful, you can not give in to the temptation to sell out for temproary monetary success.

I think another reason I like this movie is that it evokes the feelings I got from my earliest renaissance festivals. I also get this feeling from the the BBC Robin of Sherwood series.