The Retaliators
The myriad of different films jam packed into The Retaliators are gelled together with blood, guts and body parts galore in this revenge horror.
Bishop (Michael Lombardi) is a pastor, who is in two minds about letting his daughter go to a party, because there might be boys there. He eventually acquiesces, but boys are the least of his worries because crime boss Ram Kady (Joseph Gatt) comes across his daughter and murders her. Now he’s out for revenge, and he’s not the only one. But once the revenge taking mood hits him, he finds there are plenty of people who need punishment; and, indeed, some who you might not exactly call ‘people’.
Directed by Samuel Gonzalez Jr, Bridget Smith and Michael Lombardi, The Retaliators is the sort of low budget revenge-fuelled horror gorefest that is sure to satisfy fans of the genre, but is unlikely to induct any new viewers.
There’s about 65 different stories working together in a tapestry of pastiches to other more famous works; there’s Bruce Campbell, Saw, 28 Days Later and Frank Castle overtones to a lot of it. How does that all mix together you might ask? And the answer would be not well, but also not nearly as poorly as you might think. Sure, it’s a busy film, but in an independent movie where the production is undoubtedly limited by its budget, the mix of these stories and sub-genres provides a sort of thrilling blink and you’ll miss it vibe to the whole 90 minutes. Needless to say, it’s batshit insane.
Bishop certainly has an intriguing morality, but his steadfast goodness mutes some of the more thrilling revenge elements. The rest of the cast of characters oscillates on a sliding scale of bad to worse, with everyone’s motives and morals being called into question at the very least.
From a production perspective, the film does a lot with its indie budget, and often visually surpasses other movies we’ve seen recently with big name stars. That being said, it’s never possible to truly shake the micro-budget feel of this piece.
Musically, the film has a heavy rock soundtrack that forms a character unto itself. Sometimes this overwhelms the piece, but the filmmakers obviously wanted this to be a rock and music inspired and infused movie, so it is undoubtedly a choice. Half the cast of smaller characters are in fact band members from a range of well known rock bands, so for those looking for easter eggs, there are plenty to be found.
At the end of the day, a movie like this can overcome the worst plots and cheapest budgets with a sense of bombastic, big screen, bloody vengeful fun, and while there are deficiencies, that fun is presented in spades, which makes The Retaliators an easy watch.
