You might be familiar with director Sam Peckinpah’s 1971 film “Straw Dogs“ in which a nebbish character played by Dustin Hoffman faces off with thugs in rural England who want to invade his house and violate his wife.
1986’s “Bullies“ is like “Straw Dogs“ idiot younger brother.
It’s the same setup, though the family arrangement is a little different. A teenage boy, his mother, and the man she is married (whom our protagonist refuses to call dad) inherit a grocery in a small rural town. The area is dominated by a family of inbred yokels who happened to make a lot of money selling their land to a corporation.
That family of antagonists is all men except for—surprise!—a totally hot teenage girl that our hero falls for (played by Olivia d’Abo of the 1980s version of “The Wonder Years.”)
Soon the new family is getting into physical altercations with the family of thugs. Fortunately, they have some help from a local Native American character played by Dehl Berti. The plot moves along, ultimately arriving at a final battle.
The film plays on a lot of the classic schisms in American culture: city man versus country man (which I think is to some degree related to North versus South), metropolitan versus rural, etc.
In a way, the film reminded me a bit of “Red Dawn,” which had come out a few years earlier. Both films feature teenagers taking on life or death battles.
On the negative side, I couldn’t help but feel “Bullies” took itself too seriously. On the positive side, it did feature one of the best “impaled by deer antlers” death scenes I’ve seen since the original “Silent Night, Deadly Night.”
Basically, it’s dumb 80s fun. You could do worse.
