Film

The Retaliators [Film Review]

Walladmin

Heavy Metal Wordsmith

Sep 12, 2022

7 min read

The Retaliators
Released: September 14, 2022

Run time: 1 hour 50 minutes
Writers: Darren Geare and Jeff Allen Geare
Directors: Samuel Gonzalez Jr., Michael Lombardi and Bridget Smith

Starring: Michael Lombardi, Marc Menchaca, Jacoby Shaddix, Katie Kelly, Abbey Hafer, Doc Coyle, Zoltan Bathory, Ivan L. Moody, Chris Kael, Tommy Lee and Spencer Charnas

What would you do if your daughter were murdered? Would you turn to the bible for solace in your time of grief or would you hunt down the man responsible and go Old Testament on his ass? That’s the big question in The Retaliators as a young girl is murdered and her grieving father battles with his faith.

Better Noise Films (of Better Noise Music) are about to release their 2nd film titled The Retaliators, a horror/thriller focusing on grief, religion and trying to make good life choices. The movie centres on Pastor Johnny Bishop (Michael Lombardi - Sno Babies), a widower raising his two daughters. While out shopping for a Christmas tree, their fun day out ends with a dose of toxic masculinity from some clown (Brian O’Halloran) who found it easier to steal a Christmas tree from a teenage girl rather than pick his own. It’s not like there was a tree shortage, there was a field full of them to choose from. While Bishop tries to calmly speak to this man that this is their tree, the tough guy aggressively yells and shoves him scaring the girls. The following night, this becomes a topic during the Christmas Eve church service as Bishop tries to teach his daughter Sarah that life isn’t like an action film. You can’t fix a problem with violence.

However after Sarah is murdered on the way to a party, Bishop wants to do just that and find the person responsible for her death. Detective Jed Sawyer (Marc Menchaca - Ozark) claims to be on the case and later turns up with an opportunity for Bishop: he can have one minute alone with Sarah’s killer. The only condition is he can’t kill him. As Bishop goes with Sawyer he has no idea he is about to get a crash course into the underbelly life of New Jersey.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8YfBIX8qvU

If you like your music on the heavy side then you can have fun playing spot the Better Noise Music artists. The Retaliators features Jacoby Shaddix (Papa Roach) as the creepy psychotic rapist Quinn Brady, the guys from Five Finger Death Punch are members of a bikie gang trying to find where their drugs and money went. There’s also a couple of cameos from members of All Good Things, Escape The
Fate and The Hu, as well as Tommy Lee (Motley Crue) who pops up as a strip club DJ, From Ashes To New rock out in a church and Spencer Charnas from my least favourite band on Earth (Ice Nine Kills) has a role, but to my delight, it was short-lived AND (spoiler alert) he dies with a plastic bag over his head.

Horror movies and metal music have been best buds for decades - to the point where it’s actually weird hearing anything else in a horror film. I watched They/Them recently and there’s a sing-along to a Pink song which left me wondering what in the Glee shite is this?? So it’s pretty cool seeing a music label get into filmmaking. Films made by musicians in the past haven’t always been successful (Dani Filth made Cradle Of Fear back in 2001 and it might be the worst trash I have ever watched) and while The Retaliators might seem a bit slow in the beginning, that third act is 100% pure fun. I laughed. I cringed. I yelled at my TV. I laughed some more. This is the first film written by The Geare Brothers and they’ve come up with an interesting storyline with a completely bat shit crazy ending.

I can’t wait to see what Better Noise Films brings out in the future!

Film Review by Kim Anderson (@kimshootsthings)

The official soundtrack is out September 16th featuring music from Motley Crue, Papa Roach, Asking Alexandria, Bad Wolves, The HU, Ice Nine Kills, Hyro The Hero and From Ashes To New.