Straight Edge Kegger

Straight up sucked! Dumb premise. Relied heavily on appearance of bands. The music was great. It was really hard to sit 80 minutes till the end. After a good night of short horror films, this movie started. And alot of people got up and left.

My cinematic standards are pretty low: I can forgive less than stellar acting; I take great joy in non-sensical plots; I even find there's a certain charm to low-budget effects and filming techniques. What I can't forgive though is being boring, and unfortunately Straight Edge Kegger commits this most unforgivable of sins.

The film is only 75 minutes, but the first 40 of those are spent on an overly drawn-out setup. The second half is where the action starts, but surprisingly even then it all still feels like a slog. I found myself constantly checking to see how much longer I had left to watch.

For a film about punk, the plot and action also feel maddeningly mainstream. It feels restrained, conservative even. I got the sense that the film thought it was being really balls-to-the-wall, but I felt it never truly committed. I wish they had just gone for it, even if ended up as a complete failure. Interesting failures are at least memorable. Right now though the film stands in this awkward middle ground: too low budget to be an effective normal horror film, while also far too normal to be an underground gem.

I hate dunking on a smaller production like this. Just getting a film to screen deserves commendation, all the more so if that film is reasonably competently made like this one is. However I just can't really recommend Straight Edge Kegger. It feels far too long even with it's short runtime, and ultimately does not capture any of the punk spirit.

Just sat through this and for the first half of the movie I contemplated walking out. The opening is just torture as you are forced to listen to incomprehensible music for about 4 songs. Then you suffer through what feels like an hour of "story" that should have been and easily could have been condensed way down. Heck they introduce a ton of characters that other than the main 4 I couldn't tell you who they were or anything about them. There is a person playing Edward 40 hands that they kept showing that I am not 100% sure the fate of because of the awkward cuts and pacing. The movie gets bearable once it turns into a murder fest. Though even that is weak as it goes from 0 to 100 on violence and doesn't show a lot of it or gets real close when it does. Then right at the end the tone shifts from omg there is violence and death everywhere to jokes and that was crazy but oh well. More of the second half none of the first next time.

Following a series of confrontations, a man grows disillusioned with his friends in the straight-edge punk scene and befriends a more liberal fan of the movement, but when his friends learn about this decides to attend a house party their throwing and kill off everyone there forcing him to fight them off to get away alive.

Overall, this one was enjoyable if still heavily flawed. Among its more negative features is the obvious disconnect possible here with the films' music and politics. Despite being painted as the hero, a holier-than-thou type hanging out with others even more extreme than he is doesn't make the lifestyle all that appealing especially seeing how the near-militant fanaticism is seen as a good thing. The association with awful, unappealing music at the shows throughout these scenes doesn't help matters at all either. On top of this, there's not much to like about the motivations and reasoning for carrying everything out. The extreme nature and barbaric treatment of other random kids in the scene serve as a fine extreme point but the militant fanaticism that would require a brutal, violent home invasion killing off anyone they come across at a strangers' party. There's little to recognize how that snap would occur and lead into such a violent confrontation, much less explain the motivation of the faceless goons following along. The other issue here is the rather bland and uninteresting first half that doesn't have a lot of excitement going for it. Adeptly working through his personal crisis with the music scene and wanting to abandon his friends still doesn't inspire a lot of interest in what's happening, and with the bland music happening leaves the first half so awfully paced that a severe case of boredom can easily emerge. Overall, these are what drag this one down overall. That said, there are some enjoyable elements here. Those are all relegated to the finale with the home invasion antics where this turns into a solid slasher. The ambush and surprise attacks they carry off are quite fun, especially with the highly enjoyable attacks outside the house where they pick off the escapees trying to get away. These are brutal, graphic and often outright fun with the shockinness of their action and the enjoyable moments where they fight back which makes for a grilling segment and the film's biggest attributes.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence, Extreme Graphic Language and mild drug use.

Exactly the type of premise my buddies and I would have come up at 3am, and a few cases in. Somewhat clever winks and nods to the real subculture that I got a chuckle out of. But after the initial 20 or so minutes, the nostalgia really started to wear off. After that you start to question almost all the stylistic choices and tone of the movie. I couldn't help but to just wonder, "Why"? Almost an impossible movie to settle into. They couldn't even get the continuity of the color of blood right. It was hard not to pick apart.

Shout out to the actor that played the laidback, but possibly alcoholic hardcore "kid" though. He was alright, and had a nice Bane tee.