Lately I've been on a on a independent crime film kick with my most recent viewing being Simon Rumley’s superb Red White and Blue. I was expecting a similar film when I slipped the Butcher brothers' film The Violent Kind into my Blu-ray player. Boy, was I off. Really the only things these two films had in common was sadistic violence and lead characters that appeared to never bathe. Image Entertainment has just recently released The Violent Kind on both Blu-ray and DVD. Is it comparable to other well-made independents or does it stand out on its own? Let's have a look!Buy The Violent Kind [Blu-ray]
or DVD
Cody (Cory Knauf), Q (Bret Roberts) and Elroy (Nick Tagas) are all junior rebel rousers looking to enjoy some time in the woods with their biker family. It's also Cody's mom's 50th birthday so all forms of debauchery are on the table (including a boner-killing striptease by a couple of beastly-biker babes). The fun doesn't last long. The Violent Kind starts out as what looks to be a routine biker flick, but surprisingly, it then veers into Evil Dead territory.
Scream Queen Tiffany Shepis, plays the insatiable Michele. Shepis' energy and sex appeal really seem get the film going early on. Until she arrived onscreen, I wasn't terribly intrigued. After being passed around the party to the several biker members she finds one fellow who she ends up running off with. Not long after, when the party has completely emptied she runs back to the house, covered in blood. Cory and his pals are the only ones left at the house. They take Michele in an attempt to nurse her wounds but that may not be the smart thing, especially since a groovy group of psychotic Rockabillys need her for a ritual.
Vernon (Joe Egender) is the leader of "The Crew". Egender does an awesome job playing the maniacal wafe, Vernon, and definitely steals the movie along with Shepis. Imagine Steve Buscemi and Giavonni Rabisi morphing into one being - that's Egender. Some of the acting by our other players is pretty over-the-top, particularly by Tagas, but it's never bad enough that it effects the film too much.
The Violent Kind is "violent". One scene with Shepis and Tagas has a "are you really going there" moment. No, I'm not going to spoil it. The FX and gore are executed very well, it's just that there's too much damn cgi. I definitely would have enjoyed the film more if it wasn't so poorly done. The possession scenes could have been much more effective in that regard.
The extra features are sparse but do include a "making of" featurette as well as some deleted scenes. These look more like extensions of scenes in the film and really aren’t all that interesting. The Blu-ray looks and sounds fine. This is a newer film so it’s kind of tough to judge, but overall the presentation seemed sharp and has no glaring issues.
The Violent Kind isn't really a ground-breaking genre film and surely is not without its flaws. It's certainly an entertaining film though. With that said, I look forward to future films from the Butcher brothers as they continue to grow as filmmakers.
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