Night of the Punks – Review

It’s a good sign when a film appears to know its audience, and Night of the Punks certainly does. The film is a throwback to the glory days of punk horror cinema such as Return of the Living Dead and Night of the Demons and for fans of those films, it delivers in spades. If this is any indication of things to come then all horror fans should be keeping an eye on writer/director Dan Riesser. In the film horror punk band The Brain Deads head to their first out of town gig. At the gig they realize most of the kids in the crowd are actually demons and chaos ensues. It’s a simple premise that allows for nineteen minutes of gore, music, boobs, and all around awesomeness.

The gore in the film is stunning considering the small budget. The effects are a mix of practical and CGI and they look incredible considering the small budget. The CGI here honestly looked better than some I’ve seen in major studio productions and never once did it take me out of the film. Regardless if they were practical or done in post, all of the gory effects are nasty in the best way possible.

The music in the film really adds to the overall mayhem. The Brain Deads’ songs are performed by Los Angeles punk band Murderland whose singer, Mike Kinshella, co-wrote the film with Reisser. The fit is perfect as Murderland’s music completely meshes with the chaos on screen. I haven’t seen punk music fit a horror flick so well since the aforementioned Return of the Living Dead. Fans of the punk scene will be in for a treat as there are some references and in-jokes that will leave them in stitches.

The humor in the film is incredibly well done as well. I’m probably not alone in recognizing that many low budget horror shorts tend to have pretty cringe-worthy jokes. This is not the case here as every joke at least made me chuckle. The two stereotypical hipsters in the film especially had me rolling with laughter. Even when the humor gets slightly self-referential it still hits. There’s a comment about vampires here that I imagine is funnier than anything in Vampires Suck. The final scene featuring some kids and their over protective mother also provides some good laughs for any extreme music fan who grew up with parents who didn’t get it.

Night of the Punks looks to be making a run in the film festival circuit pretty soon. This is awesome because this movie will definitely benefit when it’s played to a crowd of like minded people. If you consider yourself a fan of low budget horror, punk music or both then you owe it to yourself to check out this cool flick.

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