A glorious and enjoyable b-movie brought to you by “The Butcher Brothers”, The Violent Kind is actually directed by Mitchell Altieri and Phil Flores (with both men having co-written the thing alongside Adam Weis) and moves quickly from it’s seen-it-all-before opening scenes to something mixing genres and unpredictability with aplomb.
We start off meeting Q (Bret Roberts) and his fellow bikers (Cory Knauf and Nick Tagas) before they head off to a party. Tiffany Shepis (playing Michelle) is also at this party so you just know that death and bloodshed are going to stop by. And, after a few character-establishing scenes, death and bloodshed stop by. In style.
The Violent Kind is a rare thing, the b-movie that has enough twists and turns in it that you want to try and avoid mentioning any of them, allowing others the chance to be surprised by the film.
It’s also got some decent acting throughout and, overall, makes the most of the relatively small budget (some FX shots are a bit underwhelming but most of them are pretty well done). I always enjoy seeing Tiffany Shepis onscreen but Roberts and Knauf, in particular, do well in their main roles while Christina Prousalis is likeable enough as young Megan and Taylor Cole is both capable and gorgeous as Shade. The appearance of Joe Egender, as Vernon, and his troupe signals the whole movie moving to a slightly higher level and Egender is an enjoyable and charismatic “baddie”.
There are certainly moments throughout that have those typical low-budget independent movie problems (dialogue that’s supposed to maintain your interest but doesn’t, scenes running slightly longer than necessary in places, the occasional moment of stupidity from the characters) but I must say that, for the most part, the film admirably avoids many of the pitfalls. Even in the weaker moments it’s clearly trying to stay ahead of the pack and be above average fare. The characters may make some typical genre mistakes but also react pretty well to the situation, all things being considered. The focus often stays on the more enjoyable and interesting folk and, best of all, there’s plenty of onscreen time for the lovely Miss Shepis.
This won’t please everyone (especially genre fans who like their movies easily pigeonholed and categorised) but it’s a very good attempt at mixing some horror standards with something a bit off-kilter and for that it deserves a bit of praise. I look forward to other movies from “The Butcher Brothers”.
The Violent Kind hits DVD on 25th July here in the UK and I highly recommend that horror fans shop around, snap it up at a decent price and give it a whirl. You could do a lot worse.
DIRECTOR: MITCHELL ALTIERI/PHIL FLORES
STARS: TIFFANY SHEPIS, CORY KNAUF, BRET ROBERTS, TAYLOR COLE, CHRISTINA PROUSALIS, JOE EGENDER
RUNTIME: 85 MINS APPROX
COUNTRY: USA
Film Rating: 
