Marcel Walz's (Jurassic Reborn, Garden of Eden) Brute 1976 pays obvious homage to films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Hills Have Eyes with its tale of a desert based cannibalistic family, but it is wise enough to not try and hide this, with Chainsaw Massacre in particular being referenced early on (it exists as a film within this movie world). After a slow first half, things really improved, and was often ready to throw expectations on their head.
Unsurprisingly set in 1976, this follows the models and crew of a photo shoot who have headed out to the desert to take some shots for a magazine cover. They stumble across a ghost town and decide to have a look around, photographer Jordy (Adam Bucci - Garden of Eden) in particular inspired by the strange looking location. They soon encounter a mysterious woman who introduces herself as Mama Birdy (Dazelle Yvette - Garden of Eden), she tells the group that she owns the place, and is happy for them to look around as long as they stay on this side of the road. It turns out that Mama is the matriarch of a family of masked maniacs, and that they don't intend for any of the people to leave alive.
The film is almost exactly split down the middle in terms of the pacing. The first fifty or so minutes is an overlong set-up that introduces the cast both on the protagonist and antagonist side. Aside from a side plot featuring Raquel (Gigi Gustin - Garden of Eden, The Retaliators); a character captured during Brute 1976's prologue, this part remains mostly light on horror. The protagonist cast are decent enough, with some who stood out more than others. Roxy (Adriane McLean - Khameleon) is set up to be the main character, with her given slightly more backstory than the others. A few had so little to them that they didn't make too much of an impression, but nor where they off-putting or unlikeable. The location looked great on camera, and it helped at least make this first half enjoyable to watch.
The second half is where things begin to pick up. There is no secret this has been inspired by the classics, Zeus (Andreas Robens) may as well be called Leatherface with his silence, hulking frame, and fondness for a chainsaw, though the character has been split, with another of the crazies being the one who wears masks made of human flesh. There were a decent spread of antagonists but they did sometimes feel a bit random, seeming to be a mix of both the hillbilly stereotype and more surprising characters. I did like this change, how without masks some of these crazies would be able to legitimately pass themselves off as normal. Mama Birdy maybe a prime example. Sure, she was obviously creepy, but she wasn't the wild, over the top psychotic caricature you might expect.
So, cast and locations were both good, even if the first half was a little slow. The weakest part for me however were the kill scenes. There was a lot of blood, and there was a lot of violence, but there were also a whole bunch of lacklustre kills that didn't meet the potential. A whole bunch of characters are killed slightly off-screen, or partially off screen, and a bunch more are killed on-screen, but in an underwhelming and swift manner. For every decapitation and drilled penis(!) there are solitary stab wounds and kills so swift I didn't really see what happened. There were some entertaining death sequences, but this were interspersed with dull ones. For all the blood that sometimes is shown, there wasn't a lot of violence on characters shown in any kind of details.
Brute 1976 wears its inspirations on its sleeve, and it benefits from not trying to pretend it is something wholly original. I liked the general story, had some interesting parts to it later on, I thought the characters were mostly decent, and despite a slow first half the film wasn't boring. I did think there was some lost potential with some of the more tamer kill scenes, but this still had a few good ones. Brute 1976 has a limited theatrical release and is due to arrive on VOD from Cinephobia Releasing on September 30th, and I was also happy to see a sequel titled Brute 1986 is currently in the works.
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