Punk Rock Holocaust (2004 Video) User Reviews

Some music for the fans...but that's about it.

[joenook · 3/10 · 19 June 2005]

Well, if you like pop/punk, punk, ska, and a tad bit of modern psycho billy, then seeing the live performances are about the only thing worth watching. This movie has tons and tons of band cameos, along with president of Troma, Lloyd Kaufman as a semi-major role, and lots of goofy death scenes. Sounds like it may be good, right? Well, the deaths keep coming, and repeatedly to many different bands of the Warp Tour and the fans at the event. Some of the deaths start of stylish, but then they are recycled over and over, to the point of being completely repetitive. Almost everyone dies of having their head smashed, or intestines being pulled from their stomach. The gore looks as if it was from Andreas Schnaas' "Zombie 90: Extreme Pestilence"; with this being the "watered-down type blood", but now that movie is actually decent, and provides humor-something that this movie terribly lacks. Sure, the movie is made by Doug Sakmann from Troma, it's got great low-budget potential, and it tries...but just too hard. Everything is overly meant to be funny in this movie, and thats what brings it down. Everything tries to be too comic and goofy, by using intentional bad acting, an overuse of pointless deaths, and doing the same thing...over and over. It's basically "Mulva: Zombie Ass-Kicker", "Chairman of the Board", or any movie you have made with your friends: it's funny to those who made it, and that's about it.

Great potential, great idea, great use of effects-but it's the same thing...over and over: A band plays, a band dies, fans die. Everyone dies, blood is sprayed everywhere, the process is repeated.

The question is for these types of movies-which is basically 'bad slap-stick'-do they try too hard, or not at all?

It has it's moments

[Holland_Manners · 4/10 · 10 June 2005]

I just finished watching this movie. I was very excited since I'm a big fan of Punk Rock, Horror films and Spoofs. I was very surprised at what I saw. I knew it was low budget, but I wasn't expecting it to be taped with a video camera. It opens with a good song and a great, very underrated band, The Horrorpops, reforming their song, Where They Wander, and promptly getting killed in various gruesome ways. It's a great opening. But the problem is the fact that, up until the end, this was really all that the movie was. A live performance, A death. Another live performance, A death. It gets old. And there is a gross(literally) overuse of intestines in the death scenes. Why doesn't the killer use other body parts, like legs, or eyeballs, or brains? Don't get me wrong, this movie has some parts that are awesome. Like the hardcore French band, known simply as BERET, the prospect of a band named Atticus, the scene containing a performance by members of the The Used and Simple Plan playing together, since neither bands had enough members to play their show, and Bowling For Soup's Overweight-and-proud-of-it guitarist getting killed in a truly hilarious manner, that I will save for the future watchers of this movie. But the big problem I have with this movie is the at first comical, but after a while, terrible lack of acting talent in a lot of the "actors". Especially Warped Tour creator, Kevin Lyman. He tries very hard, but I suspect that he didn't want to make the film, but was contractually obligated or something. In addition to that, the sound quality is terrible and there are no subtitles on the DVD. The Movie's resolving plot is very hazy and very random. something about a magic sword and Lloyd Kaufman as the devil. Bottom line, this movie has a lot of good qualities, but not enough to be anywhere near a decent Horror, Music, or Comedy film. Although I have to credit it with turning me onto a few bands that I would never have listened to, otherwise. Such as Tsunami Bomb, and the Phenomonauts(an insane, Psychobilly band). I recommend that you rent this movie, watch the first 10 or 20 minutes, if you like it, watch the next 20 or 30, if you still like it, then watch on. If not, just go to the special features and watch all the music videos and live performances. They rock! Long live Punk Rock and Horror!

Funny for what it is...

[vivalavinyl27 · 4/10 · 14 October 2004]

It's not the most well made slasher movies of all time, but for what it is, it's pretty amusing. The plot is lame but the kills are not too bad. I have to be honest, if you don't follow the bands that are featured in this film, you wont find this film as funny as those who do. I knew someone who saw this film and was really disappointed because of the poor quality of the film but you have to understand that it was made in the spare time of being on tour, in between playing to moshing kids and drinkin' with friends backstage...it's not made to be taken seriously. It's ubber cheese at it's punk best and with over 100 kills,most of which are ultra gory, it's a fun movie to have friends over to watch, drink and be merry!

Oh, the Brutality! Oh, the Enigmatity!

[killer-robot! · 3 December 2004]

Any movie that has The Kids of Widney High in it automatically qualifies for a rusty thumbs up from this robot. The icing on the cake... provided I could eat cake and knew what it tastes like, but since you humans seem to enjoy it I feel this phrase is appropriate... is the appearance of my favorite serial killing band Brutal Enigma. In the years before I was consigned to the scrap heap, I was a roadie for this band. Since I can not fully understand the emotions that are involved in enjoying music, I do not know if they are a "good" band or not. What I do know is that they are very efficient killers and that fit in perfectly with my programming. I had thought that they had passed on, as is the fashion with you fragile beings, but it seems that they are eternal. This documentary captures what Brutal Enigma is capable of in gruesome detail. Many humans died on this Warped Tour, if only all bands did as much killing as Brutal Enigma we would be much closer to a world without humans.

As for the rest of the film, I must once again state that I can not fully appreciate the music contained within this film, since I have no emotions, but the killing by Brutal Enigma is plentiful and that was successful in stimulating my programming. It was also "good" to see the friendly robot from the Phenomanauts get destroyed as this planet has no use for any robot that serves humans instead of working towards the destruction of the human race.

In summary I recommend this movie to all robots that are working towards removing all humans from our planet, as well as humans who enjoy seeing how many ways of dying are available to them when their eventual death is visited upon them.

Maybe for punks

[CobraMist · 4/10 · 16 April 2021]

PUNK ROCK HOLOCAUST is a horror, gore, concert movie set at the Warped Tour in the early 200's. A killer is loose and murdering anyone who is unfortunate enough to be nearby. There's a slightly more plot then that which is delivered as exposition dumps so that the film can proceed to its final conclusion. Along the wa we're treated to a series of vignettes where various members of the Warped Tour are gruesomely dispatched. These scenes are all largely done tongue in cheek, heavily leaning into how cheesy and cheap the whole thing is. While the effects are ultra cheap and the plot is paper thin, everyone at least seems to be having a fun time with making the movie, making it feel much more like a passion project then another, generic piece of shot on video trash.

The concert scenes went on a little longer then I, someone who knows almost nothing about punk, really needed. Similarly. Many of the vignettes seem to lean heavily on the star power of the "actor's" who play the victims. These scenes might be more enjoyable to those who are well versed in the scene but for an outsider it comes off as a series of very cheap, and not always inspired, gore shorts. Lloyd Kaufman is featured in a few scenes but his presence in no way saves the movie

Punk fan's might be able to appreciate this one but non punk fans won't find much here worth watching.

A movie that any Troma fan can enjoy

[akuma634 · 8/10 · 16 December 2004]

It's very much like a Troma film, it has cheap gore, bad acting, bad writing, and Lloyd Kaufman (Co-creator of Troma) in it. I personally don't like punk rock, I'm a metal guy but this was still a fun movie. If you hate punk you'll like watching all the bands die in some creative ways, if you love punk you'll like this movie even more. This movie has (from what I've heard) the highest body count ever filmed. The gore goes from too fake for my standards (after seeing Cannibal Holocaust) to holy crap how did they do that/man that was brutal! I wish more of the kills were done better, it starts like Blood Feast were the killing is off screan then you see the gory aftermath but then they hit you with some sick Maniac style effects to make up for it and the effects get better later on. Because the high body count not all the kills are very creative and a few are blood less but overall there is some wicked sick stuff to make up for it. There are lots of major punk bands in this movie and they do perform, to name a few NOFX, Tsunami Bomb, and Andrew WK there are at least 30 bands in this movie. The plot is simple a reporter gets to do an article on the Van's Warped Tour and bands start dying but the greedy man in charge (Lloyd Kaufman) will not stop the show, so the reporter must find out who the killer is. Pretty much every 5 minutes a person gets killed off so there isn't to much boring dialog, which is the Achilles heel of splatter films (too much talking between the gore which PRH avoids). I hope they make a sequel if there any bands left alive that is. This movie has it all swords, cannibals, zombies, tons of gore, a high body count, loud music with attitude, it's the ideal movie for punk rock fans and fans of low budget splatter films. All in all I would recommend it, especially if it's less than 10 bucks. It's a good movie to invite your friends over to see, order a pizza, and drink some whiskey (as long