One of my all time favorites.

Excellent but underrated film

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

OK, besides Ed Harris and Tom Savini, who else is in this amazing biker film from the early 80s? Well, it doesn't really matter because sometimes things just come together in a way that transcends what the likely original intent was, to patch together a biker movie about jousting knights who engage in feudal combat from motorcycles instead of horses. Yep. The costumes are a bit cheesy, the acting is a bit raw and amateurish and the story..., ah, the story: The story is the Arthurian tragedy of innocence, self sacrifice, honor and unfaithfulness. The tale works around the triad of the King, the very young Ed Harris, the villain, the wonderful Tom Savini and the knight protector, Lancelot, Gary Lahti. Each of these figures represents an archetype which very likely unbeknown to the film makers and they come through wonderfully in the way in which this tale is patched together. Billy,as the King Arthur prototype is idealistic, uncompromising loyal to his own mythology and like the legendary Arthur, ego-less. His loyal knight retainer, Alan, is Lancelot in his nobility and loyalty to his sovereign while coveting his wife all the time. Savini is purely delightful as the Modred counterpart, even taking Morgan le Fay's name as a pun. Morgan covets the crown and tries to usurp it by going off only to discover his new realm is a forest of paper tigers. The final scene and resolution of the tragedy works wonderfully, giving a the only glimpse of the famous story-teller and raconteur, Brother Blue as the wizard, Merlin.As an anthropologist and mythologist, I saw this tale back in the early 80s and was impressed how the underlying mythology of an essentially low budget film held together in such a wonderful way in spite of a few flaws. I consider it a cult classic.

After going to see "Excalibur" with my brother and his friends, I was told "Next week we're going to see "Knightriders". I said "what's that?" and my brother told me "A George Romero film" and my first response was "Ick!" I'm not a Romero fan (my brother is), so when this came out originally I almost didn't go see it. Then, during the intervening week I saw a single ad on TV for it and thought it was a King Arthur version, but on motorcycles, so I figured, what the heck (especially after "Excalibur" which was both good and bad, IMO). I was stunned. I was completely blown away. I cried. I still cry, all these years later. I'm in the Society for Creative Anachronism (and yes, it was very loosely based on a real incident, and extrapolated very neatly by Romero without actually reporting it) and I tell everyone I know that they should see it, at least once. Yes, it's a low-budget biker movie. But it has heart, and some great performances, and the soul of a poet. It says more about chivalry and honor and truth then anything else I have ever seen. I completely understood King Billy's motivations in trying to keep the others to his code, and in Morgan's initial rejection of them. The look on Morgan's face when he realizes that the crass commercialism of the promoter is completely against Billy's code, and that in spite of trying to rebel against that code it's what he (Morgan) really does want after all -- that's priceless.

This is a great film after the first time seeing it and then watching it twice. When you realize that the entire plot is about a man dying and coming to terms with the fact that his days, hours and minutes are numbered. When I first saw this, Ed Harris, although an excellent actor, annoyed me, but it really was his character, "Billy", who annoyed me since he was so melancholy and took himself so seriously and was such a primadonna to the other riders whom he was the chosen "King". But then I realized something; "Billy" is a man who knows he is basically dead (in a matter of speaking) (which fits being that it's a Romero film) and he must come to terms with letting go of his title, and his troupe. He is not trying to regain anything, which is what it seems like at first; he's trying to give it up gracefully. Tom Savini's "Black Knight" character is the opposite; he is very much alive and knows he won't die but he has to learn to not only humble himself, but to prove worthy of inheriting the king's title, not only through the motor-joust but through his attitude. It was nice to see a few "Dawn of the Dead" alumni, especially Scott H. Reiniger whose character "Roger" is one of the best horror films characters of all time, but we needed more of him. Some other actors came and went without much story but the main characters held everything together. This is an excellent movie, possibly one of the most underrated, and definitely the most ambitious movies ever, ever made. A true labor of love, it is one to watch again and again... because the more you see it, the more you'll get out of it. Watch for Stephen King in a very brief cameo as a hillbilly local who is watching the first jousting match in Bakersfield.

I took it upon myself to watch all of George's movies, although I will admit I've seen his trilogy hundreds of times. This movie started out strong, lagged a little in the middle, but completely sucked me back in at the end. The acting is sporadic, but I always found someone to like in each scene. Ed Harris' butt isn't too shabby, either. The stunts were quite realistic, and I can't believe they actually walked away from some of them.The cameo by Stephen King and his wife Tabitha was priceless - he plays his usual bumbling self.I really started to enjoy the "young apprentice"?, but I never really understood how he became one of the troupe.Okay, moment of truth - I cried at the final scene.All in all, this was a good movie, and I'll add it to my collection.