BRUTE 1976 (2025)

Will be available On Demand September 30th from Cinephobia Releasing and Raven Banner!
Directed by Marcel Walz.
Written by Joe Knetter.
Check out the trailer here!!

It’s 1976 and a van full of hip models, a photographer, and some assistants are trying to get some cool shots in the middle of the desert. But as the group approaches a ghost town named Savage, they find a twisted family of masked maniacs ready to take them apart with chainsaws and a toolshed full of other weapons.

The director behind BLOOD FEAST, PRETTY BOY, and THAT’S A WRAP, Marcel Walz and the writer behind George A. Romero’s TWILIGHT OF THE DEAD team up and deliver a gory tribute to desert grindhouse terrors like THE HILLS HAVE EYES and TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE. BRUTE 1976 is heavily influenced by those two films and it shows in every sun-bleached moment. This is a violent, exciting, and surprisingly funny little movie that wallows around in the gore and goo like a pig in slop. The film knows what it is and is proud of it—an uncomfortable, low hug to those perverse, twisted films that you watched as a kid when your parents weren’t looking. While things seem to be played very tongue in cheek, there is a serious tone to BRUTE 1976. The threat is real and in your face. Walz pulls no punches with some of these kills and manages to put a creative twist on some textbook slasher moves we all know and love. The outhouse scene actually made me scream out loud. It’s just…I just wince thinking about it.

BRUTE 1976 is also a good-looking movie. Walz uses dank caves, dusty roads, and decrepit shells of houses to make every corner feel dangerous. At times, there’s a nice, strong HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES vibe going on in BRUTE 1976. There’s a great scene where Walz flips between the photo shoot of two gals in bikinis and then to a girl being tortured in a chair by masked lunatics all set to an old version of “America the Beautiful” playing on a record. It’s unsettling and funny all at once and kind of encapsulates the entire tone of the film itself as it doesn’t take itself too seriously, but still, it’s going to unnerve you. BRUTE 1976 ends up feeling like a mix between John Waters and Rob Zombie, setting ultra-violence to a very dark sense of humor, and lots and lots of perversion, and depravity.

A lot of these soon-to-be-victims are fleshed out quite nicely. I especially liked the cliched, but still fun will they/won’t they relationship between Roxy (Adriane McLean) and Adam (Ben Kaplan). Sara French, who has starred in quite a few Walz films, is awesome as Sunshine and Gigi Gustin is put through the wringer and back again as Raquel. It’s too bad more of the man-monsters don’t get equal development. Most of them wear masks and for the most part are just silent, brute killers. I understand that the name of the movie is “Brute,” but I still feel a little distinction between these guys would have made things more interesting. Among the killers, though, there is a standout; the strange and deranged Daisy (Jed Rowen) steals the show early on with his bald head, makeup, and apron made of a woman’s breasts. I wish there were more perverse characters like this one, but the rest of the group are pretty one-note.

Yes, this is basically another TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE film. Yes, it is a horror cliché to have a family of inbred monsters chasing around pretty people around in the desert. But Walz and Knetter clearly have a love for the original TCM and its ilk, and this twisted love really shines through with BRUTE 1976. If you’re a fan of grindhouse grime and nasty perversion like I am, BRUTE 1976 is going to be your kind of wrong.