Mad Foxes

Mad Foxes
Original German language poster
Directed by	Paul Grau
Written by	Hans R. Walthard Paul Grau Melvin Quiñones Jaime Jesús Balcázar
Produced by	Erwin C. Dietrich (uncredited)
Starring	José Gras Laura Premica Laly Espinet Peter John Saunders Brian Billings Eric Falk
Cinematography	Kurt Aeschbacher Hans-Toni Aschwanden
Edited by	Peter Baumgartner
Music by	Walter Baumgartner
Production companies	Reflection Film Balcázar Producciones Cinematográficas
Release dates	16 September 1981 (1981-09-16) (Spain) 1 January 1982 (1982-01-01) (Switzerland)
Countries	Switzerland Spain
Languages	English Spanish German

Mad Foxes, known in Switzerland as The Mad Foxes – Feuer auf Räder (lit. 'The Mad Foxes – Wheels on Fire'), and in Spain as Los Violadores (lit. 'The Rapists'), is a 1981 Swiss–Spanish vigilante action film directed and co-written by Paul Grau, starring José Gras, Laura Premica and Eulalia "Laly" Espinet.^[1][2] It chronicles the rivalry between a Corvette-driving playboy and a neo-Nazi biker gang, which escalates from a futile traffic altercation to an all-out vendetta.

Mad Foxes is regarded as a quintessential example of European exploitation cinema, and has been noted for its lurid violence and disjointed plot, which initially caused producer Erwin C. Dietrich to disown it.^[3] In some countries including Switzerland and Germany, it was marketed with the subtitle Stingray 2, to tie it to the 1978 American film Stingray, which had been distributed in the region by Dietrich but is otherwise unrelated.^[4]

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Paul Grau was an established music video director in both Spain and Germanic Europe. In addition, he worked as a production manager for Swiss exploitation film mogul Erwin C. Dietrich. In 1980, Grau founded his own company Reflection Film,^[5] and approached Dietrich about helping him put together his feature debut.^[6][7] Through his distribution outfit Ascot, Dietrich had released the German-language version of the 1978 American film Stingray, to some success. Unimpressed by Grau's original ideas, he instructed him to make a derivative of that movie, again showcasing the eponymous sports car.^[6][8]

The director convened with a friend who worked for Swiss tabloid Blick, and they hastily cobbled together eight pages worth of sensational crimes that would form the synopsis of the new project.^[6][9] Some of the men hired to play the bikers were actual Hells Angels, with whom actor Eric Falk had had a heated encounter during his day job as a bodyguard. He was able to defuse the situation by inviting them to participate.^[7]

Photography spanned two weeks in December 1980.^[9][10] The filming title Stingray II remains visible in the background of one scene.^[11] Zurich, Switzerland, hosted interior scenes while the rest of filming took place in Barcelona, Spain, in partnership with local company Balcázar Producciones.^[10][12] The Nazi ceremony was shot at the Teatre Grec in Montjuïc.^[13] In this scene as in most outdoor bits, the swastikas are absent from the bikers' flag and armbands due to laws proscribing the public display of such symbols.^[7][14] The stunt coordinator behind the anglicized stage name Ronnie Lee was a Swiss named Roland Kathriner.^[15] The hero's vehicle was a customized Corvette C3 from Neufeld's Special Cars, a Zurich exotic dealership, which was brought to Barcelona.^[10][16][17] However, the production had to make do with light bikes such as Spanish Montesas, rather than the choppers expected from a biker gang, which threw off the riders.^[7][13]

As the project had been brought to him by Grau, Dietrich did not closely oversee the making of it.^[8][18] Actor Helmi Sigg noted Grau's disorganization compared to Dietrich's regular productions,^[7] while Grau himself conceded that his directorial effort had "failed terrifically".^[6] When he screened the finished product, Dietrich was so appalled that he could not watch it to its conclusion, and opted to pass on his producer credit. He later claimed that this was the only time in his entire career that he ever tried to obfuscate his involvement with a film.^[3][7]

Mad Foxes opened in Germany on 14 August 1981 through Dietrich's company Ascot Film, drawing an estimated 225,000 admissions over its national run.^[19] The German poster added the subtitle Stingray 2, after the picture it was designed to cash in on (see § Production).^[12] The film debuted in Spain on 16 September 1981 through distributor Regia Films Arturo Gonzales, drawing a total of 147,830 patrons in the country.^[20] In Switzerland, the film debuted on 1 January 1982 in Burgdorf before touring other cities.^[21]

The film was released on German-language VHS in 1982 by Movie-Video Verkaufs, which carried many Dietrich productions.^[22] In Spain, the film was released by Norma Video in 1984.^[23] Although not distributed in the U.S. during its original release window, it did receive an English language tape from Cinépix's distribution arm Cinema International Canada (CIC) in 1982.^[24] It retained the Stingray 2 subtitle in that market.^[25]

Dietrich brought the film to DVD on his own ABCDVD imprint in 2003, which featured an English track.^[26] In 2018, the film was brought to U.S. DVD by Full Moon Features.^[27]

Mad Foxes was indexed in Germany in 1982 by the Federal Review Board for Media Harmful to Minors. It was pulled from the index in 2017.^[7][22] The film was also named to Section 3 of the so-called "Video Nasties" list during the infamous British moral panic of the same name, which meant that people found in possession of the title would not be prosecuted for obscenity, but were still subject to seizure and destruction of their copy.^[28]

Mad Foxes has been universally panned by reviewers. British compendium DVD Delirium declared: "Bullet-paced and completely indefensible, Mad Foxes is one of the most absurd trash-epics ever made. Every single element screams outrageousness — from its tasteless acts of violence and gore to its non-stop slate of sexual shenanigans and nudity (including some startlingly casual male full-frontal shots)."^[29] In his opus about 1980s low-budget films, author Daniel Budnik called it "one of the nuttiest films ever" which "there is no proper way to critique".^[30] In her 2011 book Rape-Revenge Films: A Critical Study, Alexandra Heller-Nicholas called the film a "brazenly incoherent mélange of kung fu, softcore porn, Nazi fetishism and bike film pegged loosely to a rape-revenge structure, albeit one caught in a garbled narrative loop".^[31] American publication Shock Cinema deemed that Mad Foxes "takes you on a truly rancid joyride" which "flows along with its own unfathomable logic" and "combines the brutality of Last House on the Left with the rampant stupidity of Eric Von Zipper."^[32]

Grau later became a high ranking television executive in Switzerland, and has faced occasional scrutiny over the film's controversial content.^[6] Towards the end of his life, Dietrich had come to grips with the film's dubious legacy and looked at it more amusingly, even though its censorship issues prevented him from recouping all of his investment.^[18]

In a 2011 article, American magazine HorrorHound included Mad Foxes on their list of the most significant revenge films of the 1960–2010 era.^[33]

Grau, who shot promos for Krokus and designed the cover of their 1980 album Metal Rendez-vous, was granted access to the band's catalogue.^[5][10] Two songs from their latest record Hardware were featured in Mad Foxes. Reflecting the group's mainstream emergence, its logo was displayed on the film's German poster.^[12] More incongruously, the club scene includes a dancesport routine set to a track by boogie-woogie act The Jackys. The song and accompanying footage, which was taken from a TV spot made by Grau for the band's 20 Rock'n'Roll and Boogie-Hits album, were spliced in to pad out the running time after it came up short.^[10][34]

• Mad Foxes at IMDb