INTRODUCTION: WELCOME TO THE APOCALYPSE OF COHERENCE
Every so often, a horror film comes along that makes you reflect deeply — not about morality, mortality, or the fragility of human existence, but about how to get back the 90 minutes you just lost. The Violent Kind (2010), directed by The Butcher Brothers — which is a red flag in itself — is one such cinematic achievement. It’s like someone watched The Devil’s Rejects, The Exorcist, and a 1950s sock-hop movie, threw them into a blender, and then filmed whatever leaked out the sides.
The movie promises possession, gore, and biker mayhem, but mostly delivers confusion, bad lighting, and dialogue that sounds like it was written by a demon with a head injury. It’s the kind of film that dares to ask: What if “hell on earth” was just a poorly written screenplay?
MEET THE CAST: GREASED LIGHTNING MEETS GREASY STORYTELLING
We open with a group of bikers named Cody (Cory Knauf), Q (Bret Roberts), and Elroy (Nick Tagas), who look like they just escaped a community-theater remake of Sons of Anarchy. They head out to a remote cabin for Cody’s mother’s birthday — because nothing says “family celebration” like meth, misogyny, and poorly mixed whiskey.
They’re joined by Shade (Taylor Cole), Cody’s cousin-slash-Q’s girlfriend, because why not make every relationship in this movie slightly incest-adjacent? At the cabin, they encounter Cody’s ex, Michelle (Tiffany Shepis), and her sister Megan (Christina Prousalis), who immediately falls for Cody — because nothing fuels romance like a beer-stained leather jacket and an emotional void.
What follows is a cinematic tug-of-war between biker melodrama, demonic possession, and 1950s alien jazz band apocalypse. If that sounds insane, don’t worry — it’s much stupider in execution.
THE HORROR BEGINS: MOSTLY FOR THE AUDIENCE
After a night of awkward partying that feels like it was shot inside a basement with one working bulb, Megan stumbles outside and finds her sister Michelle — bloody, traumatized, and barely alive. This would normally set the stage for a terrifying survival story, but instead, it triggers a sequence of events that feels like the filmmakers dropped the script, picked up random pages, and said, “Yeah, close enough.”
Michelle suddenly becomes possessed, or maybe she’s just having the world’s most aggressive sugar crash — it’s hard to tell. She seduces Elroy (in one of horror’s least sexy “sex scenes”), bites a chunk out of his neck, and begins tearing through the cast like a rabid possum.
Meanwhile, the film’s camera crew appears to have been possessed too, spinning wildly between handheld chaos and zooms so awkward they’d embarrass your dad’s vacation footage.
Cody and Megan go looking for help, only to discover — surprise! — that everyone in the area is dead, missing, or too smart to be in this movie.
ENTER THE GREASERS FROM OUTER SPACE (YES, REALLY)
Just when you think The Violent Kind has settled into a low-budget demonic cabin flick, the Butcher Brothers slam the steering wheel hard left into What the Hell Was That? territory. Out of nowhere, a gang of 1950s-style greasers shows up, complete with pompadours, leather jackets, and dialogue stolen from rejected Cry-Baby auditions.
These aren’t your regular delinquents — oh no — they’re actually cosmic entities who’ve been “hiding in human form” for 60 years, which conveniently explains neither their behavior nor their hair products. Their leader, Vernon (Joe Egender), monologues about music from the void, the end of humanity, and how Michelle is “special.”
It’s like watching the devil’s TED Talk, but with worse pacing and a switchblade.
TORTURE, EXPOSITION, AND EXISTENTIAL DESPAIR
The greasers tie up the remaining bikers and proceed to interrogate, stab, and monologue for what feels like an eternity. The scenes are meant to be shocking, but they’re mostly tedious — the cinematic equivalent of being waterboarded with Monster Energy.
Vernon tortures Q for answers, which is ironic, since we’re the ones who deserve answers — like why this movie exists. Murderball (yes, that’s actually a character’s name) kills people for fun, Jazz smirks menacingly, and every scene stretches out longer than the runtime of The Irishman.
Even the film’s attempts at cosmic horror fall flat. Vernon claims to be from “a void beyond time and space,” which apparently looks exactly like a Reno gas station. He drones on about the apocalypse while Cody and Megan try to escape, and the audience quietly starts checking their phones.
WHEN YOUR MOVIE FORGETS ITS OWN RULES
The final act collapses under the weight of its own nonsense. Possessions, aliens, interdimensional beings — pick a lane, Butcher Brothers! Instead, the movie juggles all three and drops them like greasy bowling pins.
Michelle, who started as a possessed murder machine, becomes a tool for Vernon’s apocalyptic ritual. Cody and Megan run for their lives, and just when it seems like the film might finally end, the sky goes dark and people start dropping dead. Is it the end of the world? A mass hallucination? Gas leak? Who cares — the credits are coming.
The movie concludes not with a bang, but with a sigh of relief — from the audience.
THE DIRECTION: BLOOD, SWEAT, AND NO CLARITY
The Butcher Brothers have a certain reputation in indie horror circles for their “grindhouse” style, which usually translates to “loud, disjointed, and inexplicably sticky.” Here, they double down on shaky cam, grimy filters, and editing so erratic it could trigger vertigo in a statue.
Their idea of building tension is dimming the lights until you can’t see a thing, then cutting to someone screaming. It’s like watching a student film made by people who once saw The Texas Chain Saw Massacre on VHS and thought, “We can do that, but worse.”
THE ACTING: THE REAL CASUALTIES OF THIS MOVIE
Cory Knauf as Cody tries to inject some sincerity, but he’s fighting an uphill battle against dialogue that could’ve been written by a drunk parrot. Taylor Cole’s Shade is the movie’s token “tough girl,” but her toughness seems to vanish every time the script demands a damsel moment.
Joe Egender as Vernon deserves some credit for going full Nicolas Cage — all wide eyes, manic grins, and Satanic poetry slam energy. He’s the only one who seems aware that the film is ridiculous and plays it accordingly. Everyone else looks like they’re trapped in an experimental therapy session they didn’t sign up for.
THE REAL HORROR: THE SCRIPT
The script, written by Adam Weis, reads like it was generated by feeding a computer the phrases “biker horror,” “possession,” and “1950s demons” and letting it freestyle. The dialogue swings between melodramatic (“You can’t fight what’s inside you!”) and moronic (“I think the radio’s possessed, bro”).
Every twist feels like it was added in post-production by someone who lost a bet. And the tone? Imagine The Evil Deadtrying to be The Road while occasionally cosplaying as Grease.
FINAL THOUGHTS: NOT VIOLENT ENOUGH TO BE FUN, NOT SMART ENOUGH TO BE SCARY
In theory, The Violent Kind could’ve been a grindhouse gem — a crazy mashup of biker horror and cosmic dread. In reality, it’s an incoherent slog that mistakes loudness for intensity and confusion for mystery.
It’s gory without purpose, weird without wit, and violent only in how aggressively it assaults your patience.
Rating: 1 out of 5 Exploding Greasers.
Because “The Violent Kind” isn’t just the title — it’s also the category of audience member you’ll become when you realize this movie got into Sundance. 🏍️🔪💀
