Brute 1986

Following on ten years from the events of Brute 1976 (actually made in 2025 and which I haven’t seen) the Birdy family of killers find themselves up against the twin terrors of 80’s glam metal and its protagonists.

The tone is set when the Sunshine (Sarah French) and Summer (Gigi Austin) and others massacre the band’s roadies who have turned up early at the locations to prepare for a video shoot the next day.

The band Leather Kobra turn up with groupies and their manager. Joining them are the director and assistant. Needless to say they are all caricatures with the band resplendent in their gear, egos and with the inevitable tensions.

It’s not long before they are picked off by the two women or their masked colleagues in very gruesome ways. Eventually they are whittled down to two helped by infighting between the family.

At eighty minutes director Marcel Waltz and writer Joe Knetter don’t mess about and get down to the nitty gritty of the kills. But they do manage to perfectly send up that part of the 80’s music scene. With their hair, clothes, and the song which could only have produced one decade, the film doesn’t need the 1986 in the title.

That element is far stronger than the throwback to the 80’s with the murders being very slasher orientated. The family of Summer, Sunshine, Mama Birdy (Dazelle Yvette), and assorted weirdos’ chimes more with the 70’s and the Texas Chain Saw Massacre and duly confirmed at the end.

These are a fairly standard set of characters however there are some that make things more interesting such as Sunshine’s reflections of what they have done and will do. Then a tryst that in the middle of the super-macho 80’s hair-metal explosion would have been unheard of.

Brute 1986 had its world premiere at Tubi Halloween FrightFest 2026