Pariah is, quite possibly, the most violent film I've ever seen. Sure, it doesn't quite have the body count of 'The Killers' or the gross-out of 'Evil Dead', but in terms of pure, teeth rattling mayhem, it doesn't get any more hardcore than this. The film involves a gang of skinheads from San Francisco who spend their days terrorizing the neighborhood, specifically Jews, gays, and blacks. And women. And their own parents, and each other. Out on the prowl one night, they find an interracial couple in a parking lot. They rape the girl repeatedly, as they hold down the guy and make him watch the whole nightmarish scene. The girl commits suicide shortly thereafter, and Steve (Damon Jones) vows revenge, shaving his head and infiltrating the gang, planning on destroying it from the inside out. He needn't have bothered, really, as this kind of crazed Viking behavior can't last that long before imploding on it's own accord, and soon blood and chaos rules the day.
What makes this movie such a mesmerizing experience is seeing just how far Kret is willing to go with his portrayal of the skinheads not only as vicious monsters, but as extremely fucked up, doomed characters as well. All the way, apparently. In one scene, two of the gang girls are discussing why they can't leave the sinking ship and just go back home. One girl explains that she left home because her dad started "Playing around" with her and her sisters. The other girl snorts and says, "Playing around? My dad started fucking me when I was 12!" In another scene, the retarded brother of lead hellcat Sissy, 'Doughboy' (Brandon Slater) gets shot in the stomach by an equally venomous black gang, and moans, "I got a tummyache", before hitting the ground in a geyser of blood. The apex of all this jaw dropping unnecessary roughness comes when the skinheads get their first of many tastes of payback when a raging gay gang (!) arrives at their headquarters to exact lead pipe revenge. Do you see what I'm driving at here, fight fans? This film is as bug-fuck crazy as it's central characters, and that's saying a lot.
The stand-out in this cast of youth gone wild is Debbie Rochon look-a-like Angela Jones (Curdled, Pulp Fiction) as Angela, the strung out junkie chick that hangs around on the periphery of the gang, buzzed and happy throughout the proceedings, too blissed out in her narco haze to grip the reality of what's going on around her. Even when two of the bully boys take turns raping her on a couch to 'teach her a lesson', or whatever it is they're up to, she maintains her beatific grin. Although she, like everyone else, meets a bad end- orchestrates the gang's inevitable demise, even- you get the feeling that she enjoyed the ride. I have never seen an actress play the 'stoned to the tits' part so effectively before, which means either Jones is brilliant, or she actually is fried on dope. Hopefully it's the latter, because she's terrific.
Elsewhere, David Lee Wilson does an excellent turn as (sensibly enough) David Lee, the world's most psychopathic skin, raping and pillaging like a Hun throughout the proceedings. In the true manic spirit of the film, he alternates his gay bashing with blowing guys for beer money, mixes his Nazi rhetoric with Satanism, and shows no remorse, even with a gun shoved down his throat. Director Kret mentioned that he wanted this character to "Scare the shit out of America", and he definitely hits the mark on that. By the way, Wilson is the same actor that raped Elizabeth Shue in "Leaving Las Vegas". With this kind of resume, poor David Lee is never going to get laid again.
Pariah is definitely not for the squeamish. There's something to offend everybody here, and all the berserker violence is pretty grueling, but it's prime gonzola exploitation, and highly recommended for fans of over the top shock cinema. Ironically, skinheads themselves will surely eat it up as well, even though at it's core, it's condemning their brutal lifestyle. But you know, those fuckers never learn. For the rest of us, there's plenty of thrills and even a few morbid laughs as well, buried deep in the mix of punches and kicks. - Sleazegrinder
