USA
Review: JA Kerswell
Presumed lost for over 30 years, this punk-rock, classic-era slasher hybrid is a real low-fi gem. A Chicago punk band (the real-life Savage Beliefs, playing themselves) fall afoul of a drug dealer, high and demented on his own supply, who begins hunting them down and killing them off one by one. As of writing, there’s no IMDb entry or Letterboxd reviews, but it’s 100% worth your time.
Whit (Chris Morrison), one of the band's guitarists, goes to score some weed from the local yuppie drug dealer Jake (Michael Dickson), who lives with his girlfriend, Aleisha (Ellyn Duncan). At first, Jake is friendly and offers Whit a spliff and a beer, but he becomes increasingly paranoid after sniffing lines of cocaine. Whit worries that Jake is treating Aleisha badly, and when he sees Jake with another woman, he tells her. When a drug bust is suspected at Jake’s apartment, Whit and Aleisha flee to the countryside and spend a platonic afternoon together. But as Jake grows increasingly paranoid, he falsely accuses Whit of snitching to the police and of sleeping with his girlfriend.
After Jake violently assaults her, Aleisha attends a Savage Beliefs concert without him. Enraged, Jake tracks her down and carries her out of the gig over his shoulder. Whit chases him, and, not understanding what happened, the band kicks him out for abandoning the concert. After another confrontation with the coke fiend, Whit and Aleisha flee the city again. Jake breaks into the band’s apartment with an axe, demanding to know the couple’s whereabouts, but the bandmates manage to overpower and humiliate him. Soon afterwards, two of the group are murdered by electrocution and an exploding car, prompting a police investigation.
During another confrontation, Whit shoots Jake after he goes to attack him with a machete. Even though Jake is presumably now dead, someone starts to kill the rest of the band with the drug dealer’s machete. As the bodies pile up, Whit finds himself suspect number one …
It’s important to manage expectations when watching SAVAGE BELIEFS (available for free on the director’s YouTube channel). Shot on 16mm in late 1984, the film wasn’t completed because funding ran out. However, band member Wes Tabayoyong pieced together the remaining footage in 2016 for a one-off Chicago showing with live performances by the band—and, against the odds, it is a lot better than many other micro-budget slashers from the 1980s.
Despite its low-fi shortcomings (complete with significant print damage) and its not-quite-finished status, the film hangs together surprisingly well. It is confidently and competently directed by Fink (it may or may not have been his college film), who went on to work in Walt Disney’s animation department, where he became the studio’s youngest-ever creative vice-president and is credited with coming up with the idea for smash hit THE LION KING (1994)! Plus, Janusz Kaminski, the cinematographer on SCHINDLER’S LIST (1993), worked on it, probably as his first project. The film also has considerable talent in front of the camera, with great performances from the three central characters—especially Dickson as the crazed Jake, who confidently steals every scene he’s in as the coked-up psycho with a pet snake named Gadafi. It's a gonzo performance for the ages.
555 (1988) director Wally Koz is supposed to be in the mix as a character who gets decapitated (but since no character loses his head in the film, it’s unclear whether he made the cut). Surprisingly, there’s nary a bum note from the other non-acting performers in the real-life band (active between 1982 and 1984); they all bring a naturalistic take to their own personas. Something of a punk rock miracle.
Admittedly, SAVAGE BELIEFS only really kicks into slasher mode in its last third or so. Much of the first part focuses on the dysfunctional love story and features the band rehearsing and playing a couple of numbers at a live show (along with an appearance by fellow hardcore Chicago band Naked Raygun). So, your mileage may vary slightly, but I found it a fascinating, energetic snapshot of the mid-80s US punk and post-punk scene. Still, the last third delivers a genuinely fun slasher experience, with multiple murders and a shockingly dark-comedy conclusion in a three-way duel between a machete, a nailgun, and a pistol.
BODY COUNT 11:
Female 1 / Male 10
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SAVAGE BELIEFS (1984) - full movie uploaded by its director
