Theme Song: The official theme song of Bullies, “Out of The Fire,” was written by veteran Canadian film producer Peter Simpson (Prom Night) and Paul Zaza (The Vindicator).
It’s an okay song, but the real scorcher is this fucking A.M. gold song that plays on the dance floor, which has a heavy fucking vibe. I can’t find any credits or get to the bottom of it in any way.
Interesting Dated References: A father and his sons totally running amok in a small American city to the point of grabbing random women off the street and making out with them with no regard for whether or not they have cold sores or just ate onions.
Best Line: Olivia d’Abo’s constant shrieking.
Social Context: Bullies shares vague similarities to the real-life Ken McElroy story, but I would say any commonalities are coincidental. The concept of familial yokels terrorizing a small town was pretty well-worn territory by the ‘80s.
Summary: Teenager Matt Morris’ non-assertive stepdad has moved him and his mom to a podunk town to take over the business of recently-deceased Frank and Martha Furlong.
In the pre-credits sequence, we see Frank and Martha die as their car is run off the road by the yokel Cullen family. Upon arrival in town, the Morris clan quickly runs afoul of the Cullens, and a bunch of harassment happens, which all seems designed to emasculate aforementioned stepdad, Clay.
Things start off pretty mild, but quickly escalate as the Cullens force Matt to watch as they rape his mother and then take his stepdad hostage. It’s up to Matt to kill everyone and free Clay since the sheriff is in the Cullen family’s back pocket.
This third act, in which Matt suddenly goes from ineffective teenage boy to bounty hunter/special ops expert, is so overlong and yet totally slapdash, any charm Bullies had is quickly erased.
Then Matt and Clay hug and call each other father and son, which lets you know this movie is totally full of shit because, and I can’t say this enough, NOBODY HAS EVER TOLD THEIR MOM’S SECOND/THIRD/FOURTH HUSBAND THEY LOVE HIM. It’s the most unbelievable shit in the world and I seriously don’t understand why they put this trope in ‘80s movies. My best guess is elevated divorce rates made for a lot of sad men who secretly wished their stepchildren would love them, and that somehow seeped into films of the era?
Worth Mentioning:
– To complicate things, the lone female Cullen, Betsy (Olivia d’Abo), spends the entire movie trying to seduce Matt because she is tired of her trashy family and wants to leave the town.This culminates in a scene in which Betsy swims braless in a tank top in front of Matt, resulting in one of the Cullen brothers calling Matt a “pervert” while kicking him in and around his genitals.
– Dehl Berti plays Will Cotton, a native american townie who helps Matt unsuccessfully navigate the Cullen clan. Please note, I spent half the movie thinking Will was also a Cullen because the names Cotton and Cullen sound extremely similar on the shitty mono soundtrack for this home video release.
– Directed by Canadian auteur Paul Lynch (Humongous, Prom Night, The Hard Part Begins).
Poster and Box Art: The theatrical release poster features an incredibly-lit photo of Crombie and d’Abo. Seriously, look at this shit:
The lighting, the smoke, those faces. This shit was done in-studio, man! Not on some computer later on. It’s fucking magic and the world sucks now. For unknown reasons, Bullies was released as Fatal Revenge in foreign markets and the poster had little to do with the movie:
The MCA Home Video release went a different direction and I’ve got to say although it’s a nicely hand-done illustration, it’s a miss:
There’s something about Crombie’s large, softly-rendered face in this one, which has made me avoid it for years. The theatrical-release poster was so well done there was no topping it.
Availability: There’s a full-frame version streaming on Amazon Prime, which is in decent shape. I was expecting it to be a terrible VHS rip, but it seems to have a nicer source.