A knight and his lady awaken, naked in the forest. She pins up her embroidered gown while he begins his ablutions in a pond. Thwack! Thwack! Thwack! He plants a stick between his shoulder blades before getting dressed himself. On goes his tunic, gauntlets and plated armour. And then they both climb on to his motorbike before riding out into the morning mist.
Hang on a second – a motorbike?! It sounds ridiculous, but that’s how it is in George Romero’s Knightriders (1981), now out on DVD for the first time in the UK. Our knight in the forest is actually Ed Harris’s Billy, the leader of a troupe of men and women who travel around America putting on shows in small towns. They dress up in knock-off medieval garb, hop on bikes, and joust with each other and with modernity, man.
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