Bury me an angel (1972)

“A howling hellcat humping a hot steel hog on a roaring rampage of revenge”

Adopted siblings Dag (Dixie Peabody) and brother Dennie (Dennis Peabody) are close, real close. Dennie runs in the biker scene and even steals sister Dag her very own bike.

After a romping beer swilling party complete with cocaine snorted off of daggers, and eyeball hits in Annie’ (adopted mom) garage, Dag and Dennie head home where a biker (from the gang The Angels?) bursts in and blows brother Dennie’s face off quite dramatically by shotgun (aspiring FX artist PA?) for stealing his bike. Dag is devastated.

Annie: “She hasn’t said anything. Showed no emotion. She just tinkers with that bike.”

Dag can’t get the flashbacks of Dennie out of her head. Buying a gun, and fixing up the bike, she turns her thoughts to nothing but revenge. She asks the local hoodlums if anyone’s heard anything and gets directed to “Peaceful Preacher” who tries to talk her down, but suggests she might try tracking him to Canada.

Cop: “Dag, that sure is a funny name”

Dag: “Not really any funnier than…Pig!”

Hitting the open road with shotgun, stolen bike and Childhood friends Bernie (Clyde Ventura) and Jonsie (Terry Mace) in tow, they make their way from town to town, inquiring about any strange bikers that might have passed through ahead of them. Being one tough cookie, every pit stop ends in violence, whether picking fights with cops who hassle them while camping, or starting brawls in bars while hustling pool.

“Chicks sure can get weird on ‘ya”

Dag who’s still having a rough time, freaks out on her companions during a skinny dipping break in the desert (there had to be a prolonged, introspective nude frolicking scene didn’t there?), when they steal her clothes and goof around dunking her under water, reminding her yet again of Dennie.

“A girl on a bike, the gun, it’s terribly phallic…the way you clutch the gun”

Next on their Oedipal journey, seeking refuge from a nasty dust storm, the crew comes across a strange, closed up bar where a mysterious hippy who “deals in witchcraft” invites them in for Cannabis stew.

They trip out for a while with the witch who tries to convince Dag to quit the mission, and to let go of her“obvious, negative anger”. Of course the drugs only fuels the revenge fantasy more, as she has elaborate hallucinations of blowing the Angel to smithereens.

“So long. Good luck with your karma”

Finally tracking the murderous Angel biker to a small town, they learn he has found employment at the local high school. The crew of course takes the opportunity to interrogate the blustering principle and a mousy administrator at gunpoint to a bizarre novelty sound clip.

Waiting for her brother’s killer to return to work, Dag finds herself being wooed by Ken (Dan Haggerty aka tv’s Grizzly Addams) the sweet, local art teacher who offers to show her around town, which mostly means his bedroom, but Dag’s demons get the better of her, as visions of Dennie send her running for the hills, though the teacher is nothing but loving.

Gathering the boys, they track the murderous Angel (Stephen Wittaker playing himself) to an abandoned shack. The Angel begs for his life, swearing he only meant to scare Dennie, not kill him. That he just wanted his stolen bike back. Crazy with rage, Dag won’t relent. Pushed to the end, in a bizarre plot twist, the Angel resorts to spilling the dirty family secret…

“You and your brother were sick…Sick…SAY IT….INCEST!”

And with that final revelation, Dag promptly blows him to pieces. Though just as the witch predicted, the pain is not eased and poor Dag collapses, weeping in the dirt over a half dug grave while the credits roll to a melancholy tune.

-Corinna

This odd, feminist cult classic was Written and directed by Barbara Peters, one of the few female filmmakers who specialized in entertainingly trashy low budget drive-in exploitation fare in the 70s and early 80s. Peters often worked for Roger Corman’s B-flick studio New World Pictures. She made her feature debut as co-writer and co-director of the soft-core lesbian outing “The Dark Side of Tomorrow.” Barbara followed this movie with the gritty distaff biker item “Bury Me an Angel.” – IMDB

Barbara Peters would also later go on to helm the mutant-fish epic “Humanoids from the Deep”. – Radio Active Reviews

The oh so groovy sound track, was composed by Richard Hieronymus (who would later lend his musical talents to many a porno), and was preformed by East-West Pipeline.

Watch the Trailer: