Brute 1976 isn't to be confused with Brut 1976, the documentary that was never made about the famous aftershave's impact on men in the 70s. No, this film involves a group of Millennials who have been whisked back to 1976 in a VW bus, and before you can say "vocal fry," a family of crazed killers starts hacking them up. Will any of them survive? And if they do, will they make it back to 2025 in one piece? Maybe they'll show the baddies how to make some sourdough bread. The reality is, none of it really matters, it's all about the penis drill.
That's right, the penis drill. It happens at about the 50-minute mark on a 105-minute movie, and that was it for me after that. Stuff was happening, people were getting killed, there was plot exposition going on with twists and whatnot, but my brain couldn't focus on any of that after the penis drill. All that said, there was a lot to like in this movie. It looked beautiful, and some of the shot composition was next level. I also liked the performances by Adriane McLean and Gigi Gustin, the only thing there is with all the other characters we lose them for periods. I did have trouble with a few elements though. No, the story doesn't involve Millennials sent back in time to 1976, but it might as well have. And on some levels, it felt like the only reason why this was set in 1976 was so Gustin's character could have a platform shoe-related ankle break. I can still have an homage to 70s slasher films set in the 2020s and still have it look the way this did, and it would've made more sense to me. The other issue I had is one I'm sure you guessed by my mention of the 105-minute runtime earlier in this paragraph. It took us over ten minutes for the first kill, even though we know that's where we're going; and then throughout we had these moments where people were talking about whatever, and I think you gotta break that up with kills. I mean, how much am I watching a Gene Kelly movie to see him talk? I need my dance numbers, just like in a horror movie I need my kills. And I think that's where I come down on this movie, at 80 minutes, even with fewer kills, with how great it looked and some of the performances, it would've been a favorite for me, but at 105 it's a harder sell.
That previous paragraph might sound like I'm joining the parade of people dumping on Millennials, and that's not really my intention, it's more like people of a certain age--and I think I can even include myself among them to some extent--sound a certain way and carry themselves a certain way, and it stood out to me from the opening scenes when two characters who were supposed to be in 1976 were speaking in vocal fry. Also, since no one puts their ages on their IMDb bios anymore, some of them could've been Gen Z, but the point remains that no one really felt like they were from 1976. And I don't know how you fix that either. The most glaring one for me was the Ray character. He was supposed to be this mustache-wearing 70s dude, but it was more the Portlandia "the dream of the 90s is alive in Portland" kind of thing, as he reminded me of a guy who sold me pizza slices when I was there in the late 2000s visiting my sister. He looked like something out of the 90s 70s revival more than the actual 70s, only he would've been too young for it in the 90s when it was actually a thing. And again, I don't have a ready answer for this issue, I mean, did people born in the 30s think the same thing when they saw Nicolas Cage in Peggy Sue Got Married? I think Dazed and Confused was more made for people my age than people born in the 50s, so maybe this was meant more for people ten years younger than me, which I can appreciate.
Usually when I do a screener, I only use the stills provided, in part because the screener often has a watermark; but also because they provided them for a reason, these are the images they want me to pick from. I went off-script here though because there was no watermark, and I wanted to spotlight the beautiful shot composition. There was a hyped-up remake of a horror classic that came out around Christmas that was all about the shot composition, and I think I'd take the Pepsi Challenge with this movie over that--plus this movie didn't have any DTV Exorcist sequel-level possession scenes. Had the movie been 80 minutes, with a bunch of shots like this and some deaths sprinkled in, it would've been a five-star movie for me. The other thing is there was nothing necessarily 70s about any of this, it just kind of is its own thing, and had they leaned into that more, the Millennials in the cast wouldn't have stood out at all in trying to pass them off as people from the 70s, they actually would've fit that overall vibe--and that overall vibe still could've been an homage to 70s slasher films.
I mentioned Gigi Gustin in the second paragraph, and fun fact about her on the DTVC, she was in Fast and Fierce: Death Race, an Asylum film with DMX that happens to be our second-most viewed post of all time. The film leans much more heavily on her in the beginning, and she was up to the task, so when the story went away from her, it felt like we were missing something. From there we had Adriane McLean anchoring the proceedings more, and she was good too, but it was like "what happened to Gigi Gustin's character?" And then the way everything was resolved, I would've liked better for both of their characters. This also isn't McLean's first time on the site, she was in the Art Camacho-directed Dermot Mulroney flick Ruthless (which, if you recall, could've lacked a little more ruth). I guess what I would say is, if you create strong characters in your movie, book, what have you, they need a proper end befitting that strength, otherwise it's a letdown, and the way this ended for them was a letdown for me.
Okay, it's time. Usually I save the seventh paragraph for something personal about me--and I had that paragraph locked n' loaded as I was going to talk about the 90s 70s resurgence, and how I watched Sponge's "Molly (Sixteen Candles)" video to bring back a better sense of that vibe. But then, we got the penis drill, and all bets were off. We've had the 300-pound Pork Roast. We've had John Barrowman's famous line in Shark Attack 3. And now we have the penis drill. The thing is, said penis is definitely a prosthetic, but even so, seeing a drill get shoved into it and turned on is tough to watch. And that was it for me mentally at that point. All dialog was replaced with "penis drill." Whenever there was dramatic music as someone was about to be killed, I was singing "penis drill" to it. Hell, I had "Sussudio" in my head for some reason, and I found myself replacing the lyrics with "penis drill." "Pee-pee-penis driiiiillll." Going back to what I said earlier, an 80-minute gore fest and I'd say a penis drill is right at home with that; but when you still have 55 minutes of movie left, and a lot of that is talking, there's no way you can hit me with a penis drill and expect me to manage through that. I clocked in the denouement at over ten minutes before anything happens, and they still tacked an additional ending onto that. When you come with the penis drill, you need to be wrapping things up with a flurry of kills, and then a bloodied McClean and Gustin need to be hitchhiking on a desert highway as the credits roll, that's about all I can be expected to give you after that. As an aside, I played "Sussudio" on YouTube, and the algorithm played "One More Night" after. "Pe-nis drill... ooh just pe-nis drill..."
And with that, we better wrap this up. Currently you can get this on Amazon Prime for $1.99, though word on the street is that version puts a censor bar over the penis drill. Normally I'd say that's like ED-209 in RoboCop, where the edited version is scarier than the real over-the-top (Stallone style) gore of the original, but with a penis drill, you may need it. I will say though, penis drill or no, if you're looking to support indie horror this Spooky Season, this is a great choice. (The algorithm just went to "Do You Remember," "we never talked about it, but I hear the penis drill was miiiinnne.)
For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt30561103
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