Bury Me an Angel (1971)

Sometimes the poster is better than the movie. Beyond the kicky graphic of a curvy woman brandishing a shotgun, the one-sheet for Bury Me an Angel offers this priceless copy: “A howling hellcat humping a hot steel hog on a roaring rampage of revenge.” If you insist on learning whether Bury Me an Angel lives up to his hype, don’t say I didn’t warn you. Although the film’s underlying plot is serviceable—after a biker kills her brother, badass mama Dag (Dixie Peabody) hops on a scooter and hunts down the killer—the execution is atrocious. From the first scene, which depicts aimless debauchery in a garage, writer-director Barbara Peeters displays pure ineptitude, failing to give scenes focus while also failing to define characters. It even takes a while to realize that the victim was Dag’s brother and not her boyfriend. Given the sloppy start, it’s no surprise the movie regularly veers off course. Dag recruits two male bikers, Bernie (Clyde Ventura) and Jonsie (Terry Mace), to accompany her on the road, but the scenes involving the trio lack purpose and urgency. About the only cogent fact to emerge is that Dag has some sort of sexual hang-up. (Scuzz-cinema fans can rest assured that Dag’s hang-up doesn’t prevent Peeters from filming Peabody in the altogether.) In the dullest sequence, Dag interacts with a biker artist named Ken, who’s played by Dan Haggerty, the biker-movie regular who later found fame playing mountain man Grizzly Adams. Also of minor interest is an appearance by gangly character actor Alan DeWitt, previously seen as an undertaker in the biker flick Angels Die Hard (1970). Anyway, you can see the problem—not only is the poster for Bury Me an Angel more interesting than the movie, even the IMDB credits of the supporting actors are more interesting than the movie. Sure, there’s a kinky twist at the end, but it’s so sudden and unearned that, like everything else about Bury Me an Angel, it’s not worth investigating.

Bury Me an Angel: LAME