(NOTE: The following review will contain minor spoilers necessary solely for the discussion of plot and/or characters. If you’re the type of reader who prefers a review entirely spoiler-free, then I’d encourage you to skip down to the last few paragraphs for the final assessment. If, however, you’re accepting of a few modest hints at ‘things to come,’ then read on …)
From the film’s IMDB.com page citation:
“In 1976 a group of people in the desert for a photo shoot stumble upon an abandoned town called Savage. But they are not alone. A family of masked psychopaths have claimed Savage as their own and are hell bent on living up to its name.”
As a genre, Horror works best when it sticks to its core principle: build up a measure of sustained suspense in a manner that showcases potential victims striving against dark forces to sustain their own mortality.
Even though that basic formula sounds simple, storytellers have been known over the years to ‘gum up the works.’ Long gone are the days when the lean and mean thrill machines ran on pure juice as Hollywood dug its heels deeper and deeper into franchises with their intention to establish and develop an identity within these once routine chillers. Audiences were treated to more franchise entries than they could shake sticks at – Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger, Pinhead, the Jigsaw Killer, etc. – and the truth is all these watchers really wanted was to show up and be scared out of their wits. Nothing accomplished this more expertly than did 1974’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre; and, yeah, methinks those days are missed.
Now, of course, I’m aware that even Leatherface and family and friends developed into their own bloody franchise; and I’ll always argue that was part of what pushed folks away from the world of basic hack-and-slash entertainment. For my money, nothing that came after the first film ever truly came close to matching its sheer potential; and that’s why I haven’t spent a great deal of time and effort dissecting and/or promoting each and every sequel for SciFiHistory.Net. When you wander too far off the beaten path, then it’s hard to find the way back; and Leatherface – as a commodity – is the kind of thing that works best sparingly. You can always vary the theme just a bit, and that’s mostly what I think the movers and shakers behind Brute 1976 (2025) were trying to do.
From the film’s IMDB.com page citation:
“In 1976 a group of people in the desert for a photo shoot stumble upon an abandoned town called Savage. But they are not alone. A family of masked psychopaths have claimed Savage as their own and are hell bent on living up to its name.”
As a genre, Horror works best when it sticks to its core principle: build up a measure of sustained suspense in a manner that showcases potential victims striving against dark forces to sustain their own mortality.
Even though that basic formula sounds simple, storytellers have been known over the years to ‘gum up the works.’ Long gone are the days when the lean and mean thrill machines ran on pure juice as Hollywood dug its heels deeper and deeper into franchises with their intention to establish and develop an identity within these once routine chillers. Audiences were treated to more franchise entries than they could shake sticks at – Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger, Pinhead, the Jigsaw Killer, etc. – and the truth is all these watchers really wanted was to show up and be scared out of their wits. Nothing accomplished this more expertly than did 1974’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre; and, yeah, methinks those days are missed.
Now, of course, I’m aware that even Leatherface and family and friends developed into their own bloody franchise; and I’ll always argue that was part of what pushed folks away from the world of basic hack-and-slash entertainment. For my money, nothing that came after the first film ever truly came close to matching its sheer potential; and that’s why I haven’t spent a great deal of time and effort dissecting and/or promoting each and every sequel for SciFiHistory.Net. When you wander too far off the beaten path, then it’s hard to find the way back; and Leatherface – as a commodity – is the kind of thing that works best sparingly. You can always vary the theme just a bit, and that’s mostly what I think the movers and shakers behind Brute 1976 (2025) were trying to do.
By going back to the zeitgeist of the mid-1970’s and ‘reinterpreting’ it for the modern era, director Marcel Walz and screenwriter Joe Knetter have churned out a serviceable retread. You want good-looking young men and women travelling the backroads of America? Check! You want some curious yet frightening roadside destinations? Check! You want some backwoods inbred family hungry to sink their knives and teeth into some young and lovely flesh? Well, you just hit the trifecta, my friends, as Brute 1976 struts rather proudly on the same trek charted out by Tobe Hooper and Kim Henkel all those years ago. It looks very much like what came before and – in small ways – tries to tweak the recipe for a new generation, though I think it could’ve used a bit more seasoning to make the grade.
June (played by Bianca Jade Montalvo) and Raquel (Gigi Gustin) are good-looking lesbians free-wheeling their way through what looks to be the Arizona desert with their sights set on some distant location. Fate being the bitch that she is, their car breaks down; and the two ladies must complete the journey on foot. Before they can reach the Promised Land, they find themselves at the mouth of an old mine where curiosity gets the best of them and they opt to explore. Lo and behold, there are those who still live in the mine – did our ladies not see that it was fully lit on the way in? – and they’re inadvertently introduced into the world of bloodshed.
At this point, the film cuts over to another group of travelers who just so happen to be on their way to join the aforementioned lesbians. Roxy – a budding young African-American model – has been selected to do a photoshoot with Raquel in a spread meant to celebrate the ‘coming together’ of the races circa the American Bicentennial festival. When Raquel fails to show, the equally fetching Sunshine (Sarah French) agrees to step in, wave the stars-and-stripes in a bikini, and look good; so, the trip isn’t a total loss. After a time, the group heads on down the road where the find the remnants of a small village named Savage … which incidentally happened to be the name on the aforementioned mine.
It doesn’t take all that long before bodies begin to pile up as Mama Birdy (Dazelle Yvette) – the matriarch of what remains of the town – puts her mask-wearing family to the business of slaying these wayward travelers; and that’s really the whole premise behind Brute 1976 in the proverbial nutshell. Eventually, everything leads to death – entirely senseless deaths, at that – which was exactly what served as the foundation behind The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. There wasn’t any formalized strategy behind the bloodshed: it just had to be because that’s the way of these folks. Anyone showing up looking for greater meaning can check their shoes (and brains) at the door.
June (played by Bianca Jade Montalvo) and Raquel (Gigi Gustin) are good-looking lesbians free-wheeling their way through what looks to be the Arizona desert with their sights set on some distant location. Fate being the bitch that she is, their car breaks down; and the two ladies must complete the journey on foot. Before they can reach the Promised Land, they find themselves at the mouth of an old mine where curiosity gets the best of them and they opt to explore. Lo and behold, there are those who still live in the mine – did our ladies not see that it was fully lit on the way in? – and they’re inadvertently introduced into the world of bloodshed.
At this point, the film cuts over to another group of travelers who just so happen to be on their way to join the aforementioned lesbians. Roxy – a budding young African-American model – has been selected to do a photoshoot with Raquel in a spread meant to celebrate the ‘coming together’ of the races circa the American Bicentennial festival. When Raquel fails to show, the equally fetching Sunshine (Sarah French) agrees to step in, wave the stars-and-stripes in a bikini, and look good; so, the trip isn’t a total loss. After a time, the group heads on down the road where the find the remnants of a small village named Savage … which incidentally happened to be the name on the aforementioned mine.
It doesn’t take all that long before bodies begin to pile up as Mama Birdy (Dazelle Yvette) – the matriarch of what remains of the town – puts her mask-wearing family to the business of slaying these wayward travelers; and that’s really the whole premise behind Brute 1976 in the proverbial nutshell. Eventually, everything leads to death – entirely senseless deaths, at that – which was exactly what served as the foundation behind The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. There wasn’t any formalized strategy behind the bloodshed: it just had to be because that’s the way of these folks. Anyone showing up looking for greater meaning can check their shoes (and brains) at the door.
Now, there is a bit of a plot twist to these modestly gruesome shenanigans, and I won’t spoil it for you. Let’s just agree that someone isn’t exactly who someone says someone is, and those of you watching closely might notice the surprise coming (or else detect a glaring inconsistency that slipped into the shooting script). But that’s honestly all that really separates this film from its inspiration spiritually though something could be said for ‘Leather-face’ getting a makeover into – ahem – ‘Leather-tits.’ (Don’t worry: it’ll make sense when you see it.) If paying their respects to what came before was the goal, then Walz and Knetter deserve a pat on the back … not a knife in it! (snicker snicker)
Ultimately, however, Brute 1976 lacks the true visceral thrill power of the original.
Some of this could be owed to the fact that the years since 1974 has turned Horror’s focus more strongly in the direction of showcasing victims we can identify with; and that doesn’t quite happen in any meaningful way here. The players hit their respective marks (French has always been a personal favorite, and yet she’s somewhat toothless in the last reel), but the script never really asks us to much care about them or their plights anywhere along the way. To the contrary, I found myself wondering why each one felt a bit more bland than the others, like they were competing for flatness all the way.
Furthermore, the picture felt curiously obsessed with trying to almost constantly sound-off on sexuality. The script dabbles with lesbians, homosexuals, transsexuals, inbreeding, and interracial relationships at seemingly every imaginable turn, so much so that I grew tired with the posturing without any narrative or moral substance much less reasoning. Look: love who you wanna love, folks, but if you weave every conceivable sexual relationship into your 90-minute opus then gives the viewers a reason for it to be in there. Otherwise, it feels like your shouting from your soapbox just to hear yourself shouting, and I prefer greater nuance.
Essentially, what survives as a completed picture never quite takes us anywhere we haven’t already been before, nor did we justly need to see again. Some of the staging early on feels like gratuitousness for glamor’s sake – Raquel is bound to a chair and forced to watch these cartoonish cannibals carve up her dead friend, and it’s handled more vaudeville style than it is frightening – making me wonder if I was supposed to be shocked or laughing over their merriment. As a director, Walz clearly prefers sequences that ‘breathe,’ and yet some of the protracted sequences manage to suck more oxygen out of the flick than they ratchet up the fright. There’s even one vignette that’s shot almost entirely in darkness; and – try as it might – it’s hard to salvage any sense of tension when you can’t see what the hell is supposed to be so dangerous to begin with.
Ultimately, however, Brute 1976 lacks the true visceral thrill power of the original.
Some of this could be owed to the fact that the years since 1974 has turned Horror’s focus more strongly in the direction of showcasing victims we can identify with; and that doesn’t quite happen in any meaningful way here. The players hit their respective marks (French has always been a personal favorite, and yet she’s somewhat toothless in the last reel), but the script never really asks us to much care about them or their plights anywhere along the way. To the contrary, I found myself wondering why each one felt a bit more bland than the others, like they were competing for flatness all the way.
Furthermore, the picture felt curiously obsessed with trying to almost constantly sound-off on sexuality. The script dabbles with lesbians, homosexuals, transsexuals, inbreeding, and interracial relationships at seemingly every imaginable turn, so much so that I grew tired with the posturing without any narrative or moral substance much less reasoning. Look: love who you wanna love, folks, but if you weave every conceivable sexual relationship into your 90-minute opus then gives the viewers a reason for it to be in there. Otherwise, it feels like your shouting from your soapbox just to hear yourself shouting, and I prefer greater nuance.
Essentially, what survives as a completed picture never quite takes us anywhere we haven’t already been before, nor did we justly need to see again. Some of the staging early on feels like gratuitousness for glamor’s sake – Raquel is bound to a chair and forced to watch these cartoonish cannibals carve up her dead friend, and it’s handled more vaudeville style than it is frightening – making me wonder if I was supposed to be shocked or laughing over their merriment. As a director, Walz clearly prefers sequences that ‘breathe,’ and yet some of the protracted sequences manage to suck more oxygen out of the flick than they ratchet up the fright. There’s even one vignette that’s shot almost entirely in darkness; and – try as it might – it’s hard to salvage any sense of tension when you can’t see what the hell is supposed to be so dangerous to begin with.
Lastly, it’s always a risky idea to reuse music cues in Horror. (Yes, I know one franchise that built most of its best scares on this idea.) When done properly, it does create the atmosphere suggestive of dread; but when done poorly it telegraphs exactly what’s coming to the audience, killing what might otherwise be an interesting death scene. A bit of variety might’ve helped the mood here, or perhaps it would’ve been better to shuck the score almost entirely. Let the images be the real crescendo, and leave those synthesized horns to New Line’s B-Movies.
Brute 1976 (2025) was produced by Neon Noir. The film shows presently available for streaming (rental/purchase) on Amazon’s Prime Video (and that looks exclusive for the time being). I’ve been asked to also pass along news that producers have secured a limited theatrical release (Laemmle Glendale - Los Angeles, CA - 8/29 & 8/30; Alamo Drafthouse - Indianapolis, IN - opens 8/29) with other potential markets to follow TBA. As for the technical specifications? While I’m no trained video expert, I can still assure audiences that the provided sights and sounds are quite good; and there’s some pretty spiffy photography that elevates the mood though could’ve used some modest trimming here and there. Lastly, if you’re looking for special features? As I viewed this one via streaming, there were no extras under consideration.
Mildly Recommended.
About the best that could be said for Brute 1976 (2025) is that the film – on the whole – functions chiefly as an homage to its inspirational predecessor, 1974’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, though one watching closely might spot some affectionate nods toward like-minded fare of that bygone era. While it brings nothing fresh and new to the field, the flick lacks a bit of editorial efficiency as some of its cinematography is a bit undercooked and/or lingers a bit too long over some unnecessary scenery. Purists might find themselves wondering why even bother with a self-styled knock-off four to five decades later when the original holds up just fine, and such a conclusion is okay: from my perspective, if Brute leads newbies to check out the older films from which the cast and crew clearly drew inspiration, I’ll take that as a win/win either way.
In the interests of fairness, I’m pleased to disclose that the fine folks at Cinephobia Releasing provided me with complimentary streaming access to Brute 1976 by request for the expressed purpose of completing this review. Their contribution to me in no way, shape, or form influenced my opinion of it.
-- EZ
Brute 1976 (2025) was produced by Neon Noir. The film shows presently available for streaming (rental/purchase) on Amazon’s Prime Video (and that looks exclusive for the time being). I’ve been asked to also pass along news that producers have secured a limited theatrical release (Laemmle Glendale - Los Angeles, CA - 8/29 & 8/30; Alamo Drafthouse - Indianapolis, IN - opens 8/29) with other potential markets to follow TBA. As for the technical specifications? While I’m no trained video expert, I can still assure audiences that the provided sights and sounds are quite good; and there’s some pretty spiffy photography that elevates the mood though could’ve used some modest trimming here and there. Lastly, if you’re looking for special features? As I viewed this one via streaming, there were no extras under consideration.
Mildly Recommended.
About the best that could be said for Brute 1976 (2025) is that the film – on the whole – functions chiefly as an homage to its inspirational predecessor, 1974’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, though one watching closely might spot some affectionate nods toward like-minded fare of that bygone era. While it brings nothing fresh and new to the field, the flick lacks a bit of editorial efficiency as some of its cinematography is a bit undercooked and/or lingers a bit too long over some unnecessary scenery. Purists might find themselves wondering why even bother with a self-styled knock-off four to five decades later when the original holds up just fine, and such a conclusion is okay: from my perspective, if Brute leads newbies to check out the older films from which the cast and crew clearly drew inspiration, I’ll take that as a win/win either way.
In the interests of fairness, I’m pleased to disclose that the fine folks at Cinephobia Releasing provided me with complimentary streaming access to Brute 1976 by request for the expressed purpose of completing this review. Their contribution to me in no way, shape, or form influenced my opinion of it.
-- EZ
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