Fatal revenge

A mother, son and new stepdad move from the big city to a rural area in the shadow of the Rockies in the Great Northwest (Janet-Laine Green, Jonathan Crombie and Stephen Hunter). The teen meets an intriguing lass (Olivia d'Abo), but she's a member of a hostile moonshining family that grossly bullies the citizenry of the area. Dehl Berti is on hand as an American Indian who befriends the kid.

"Bullies" (1986) is curiously listed as a horror flick in some sources, but it's not; it's a hillbilly romance mixed with crime drama/thriller. The confusion is likely due to it being directed by Paul Lynch, known for "Prom Night" (1980) and "Humongous" (1982), plus the fact that there is some shocking gore for back then in the last half-hour. The movie is actually a meshing of the basic plot of "The Karate Kid" (1984) with the setting of "I Walk the Line" (1970) and "First Blood" (1982), along with the one-man-army element of the latter.

The first two acts are a really good set-up despite the overdone villainy of the antagonists (I mean these guys are just frothing at the mouth with ee-vil). It smacks of a real-life situation and you care about the protagonists while loathing the arrogant intimidators. At around the hour-mark, however, there's some awkward editing and the story switches to an over-the-top action flick while inexplicably forsaking a key character. It's as if the writers never heard the proverb "Less is more."

Still, if you can roll with these issues there's enough good here to make "Bullies" worthwhile for those interested. For instance, the relationship of the boy and Will Crow, some quality life-lessons, the teen romance and Olivia d'Abo's fun swimming scene.

The film runs about 1 hour, 30 minutes, and was shot in Marysville & Kimberly, British Columbia, which are located an eight-hour drive east of Vancouver in the Canadian Rockies of southeast BC, as well as Thunder Hill Provincial Park 40 miles north of there.

GRADE: B-

It seems to me that perhaps the incessant violence in this film is what saves it, and what ruins it. I have to confess, the first scene of senseless violence got my attention in a big way, but after a while it began to get rather repetitive. There were just too many beatings, and there was too much intimidation for the film to be enjoyable. Was it interesting? For the most part, yes. Unfortunately, anyone who has seen a film before would know that this family would eventually be put in their place, so the interest was only maintained by waiting to see who would be attacked next.

Criminally unsung British horror movie maverick Paul 'Prom Night' Lynch's super intense backwoods nightmare is not only blessed with another righteous Paul Zaza soundtrack and the deliciously luminous presence of Olivia D'Abo but is an usually bleak and mean-spirited redneck head-wrecker about the suburbanite Morris family moving to a rather isolated ski-resort town and instead of enjoying a little respite from the stresses of the big bad city only to discover the country can present a uniquely unpleasant threat all of its own. Very soon all the members of the Morris family have a series of increasingly violent confrontations with wealthy, profoundly inhospitable land owners The Cullens, a despotic clan of thugs who run the town like it was their own personal fiefdom. The director does a bravura job of raising the volatility of his bellicose 'Bullies' to a feverish pitch of intensity, delivering a truly exhilarating and breathlessly satisfying, if not to mention highly combustible conclusion!

While the film is far from unpredictable there is an undeniable primal viscerality to Lynch's pulse-pounding filmmaking which maintains rigorous interest throughout, cannily replacing originality with unleavened emotional force. It must be added that youngsters Jonathan Crombie and Olivia D'Abo truly make a delightful pair of greatly embattled lovers. Great stuff! Blu-ray Please!!!!

Around the same time as Sean Cunningham's similar in vein "The New Kids", came director Paul Lynch (the original "Prom Night", ''Humongous'' and ''Cross Country'' to his name) with his Canadian produced mean-spirited, brutal and intense small rural town revenge / vigilante thriller. Quite grippingly bold, dangerously impulsive and competently made, making it just as good if not better than Cunningham's feature. It won't win any awards for its simple, routine plot, but it's pulled off with such exploding ticker and vigorous verve in really exploiting its primitive thirst for violence and control. There's no holding back, but what really makes this one work are the villains of the piece. The Cullen family (well the father and three sons) are a really hateful bunch of intimidating psychos that will always get their own way, until the city folks the Morris family arrive on the scene. While passive at first to the Cullen's strangle hold over the town, the Morris' soon begin to question the Cullen's on-going harassment until one unpleasantly scarring incident occurs that really tips the once mild-mannered father over the edge and the fear is turned around for a bloody confrontation. This is when it opens up to a thrilling last half, which is excitingly electrifying and dark. Bill Croft crafts a dominating presence as the father Ben Cullen. Bernie Coulson, Adrien Dorval and William Nunn are solid as sadistically nutty sons. Then you have the drop dead gorgeous Olivia d'Abo as the unlucky sister, who numerously finds herself at the wrong side of her father and brother's aggression. The Morris' are likeably played by Stephen Hunter (who mightily grows in the role), Janet-Laine Green and Jonathan Crombie as the tough, determined lad Matt. Dehl Berti is appealingly good as somewhat a mentor figure for Crombie's character. Especially those talks of the spiritual side of his people and you can't go pass the spearing skills he taught him that did come in rather handy outside of just fishing. The relationship and lessons formed between the characters (mainly between Crombie and Berti and Crombie and Hunter) might be old-hat, but remain thoughtful in its character drawings to make the gruelling situations even more stirring. It's emotionally driven by its characters, which are helped by the convincing performances when everything erupts. Lynch's grounded style keeps it edgy and well-paced in a technically sound production, blending the dynamics of its atmospheric score and picturesque mountainous backdrop. The latter having many stunning background shots.

The Cullen boys are a nasty bunch. They take whatever they want from the local shops, dance with whoever they like at the local bar, beat their sister and blame it on one of the local boys. If anyone stands up to them, they know they're in for a taste of Cullen family attention, which is particularly brutal.

There are a few good scenes of intimidation, especially the treatment of Vern the mechanic, but somehow, they're just not made out to be as scary as they should be. Pity, because the actors were good at being bad when they were allowed to be.