Punk Vacation (1990 Video) User Reviews

No punks!

[BandSAboutMovies · 4/10 · 17 December 2020]

A peaceful California town goes bonkers when a punk gang kills the owner of a diner who was just defending his daughter. Now, she and the entire town want revenge, but they've taken her hostage, leading to a battle of redneck vs. punks.

If you're like me and you love movie punks who are the furthest thing from actual punk rockers, then good news. Punk Vacation is ready to give you the goods.

Director Stanley Lewis - not his real name - was a graduate from the American Film Institute who didn't want his career tainted by this film. Come on, man. There are plenty of art films that have disappeared since 1990 and I'm not writing about any of those movies.

Like I said, the main issue is that the punks are anything but. They're in their thirties and more of a biker gang from a 1960's message movie than a bunch of guys who hang out at crust bars. Are they the heroes? Or are the horrible people in the town who we should cheer for? Or should we be all for the cop who is pretty bad at his job? I can't tell.

None of the punks on this art are in the movie, in case you're wondering. That doesn't mean this is a bad movie. It just feels like the kind of movie that's better for having John Rambo or Thunder or Indio or Billy Jack come to town than an all over place gang who sit on rocks and discuss the merits of stewardess school versus computer repair.

Also: No real vacation.

Very strange stuff

[Wizard-8 · 1 July 2017]

A movie like "Punk Vacation" is in some ways difficult to rate, and in some ways even more difficult to describe. Made with what was obviously an extremely low budget, the movie is quite often shoddy in nature. Linking footage is missing, plot points are quite often vague to completely incomprehensible, the characters are more often than not thinly written, and production values are next to non existent. Normally all of this would make a movie really bad and easy to dismiss. But it's directed in a very weird manner that gets you curious enough to stay with it until the end credits. There's more often than not a surreal feeling at times, a bizarre feeling like the filmmakers were making things up as they went along. It seems at times to be made by individuals who only had a vague understanding of normal human behaviour and how a story should be plotted out. While I don't think I can give the movie a general recommendation, I think there is a small minority who might find the movie strange and incompetent enough to be worth their while. If what I have told about the movie intrigues you, it might be up your alley.

goofy, low budget horror flick

[ksf-2 · 6/10 · 29 November 2016]

So much weirdness! Strange camera angles, slow motion, color filters. Bad edits and the world's longest pauses in between lines. P.V. opens with a dude on a moto losing his forty cents in the soda machine. The owner of the diner shoos him away with a shotgun. So the angry dude returns with his gang... and it goes south from there. The gang, dressed in their 80s rock star hair and makeup, starts trouble then runs off to hide in the hills. One of their group, Billy, is still in the hospital, so they decide to stick around and help him escape. and a chick with a gun goes rock climbing to find the gang, in a dress! If they had cult classics back then, this should have been one. It's so lame, its funny. although no-where as creative as Rocky Horror. The ONE and only film directed by Stanley Lewis. This was also the one and only role for a whole lot of the cast. and this one is classified as a Video on IMDb... not sure what the difference is. It's pretty funny, as low-budget horror films go. Vincent Price was still around when this was made... i kept waiting for him to appear!

The single greatest movie of all time

[logan-is-in-computer-cla · 10/10 · 3 September 2009]

This movie changed my life. It has a compelling story line with excellent acting. The director's vision takes the viewer on an endless adventure that will make you laugh, cry, and jump out of your seat.The movie takes fight club and Big and mixes them up into the best kind of movie soup you have ever slurped. I challenge anyone on the face of the earth and beyond to find a more heartbreakingly good story than this.Chris Gaw made this movie what it is with his soul patch and corny jokes keeping everyone going.If you love punks.....and love them more when they are on vacation, you will love Punk Vacation.Please go out and purchase this movie.

Skunky lowjinks with pseudopunk fashion savvy.

[EyeAskance · 17 March 2004]

A quaint, sleepy California farming community is the weekend destination for a savage gang of ridiculously over-the-top big city "punkers". An elderly fellow ends up dead the very moment these hoodwinks come rolling into town, and his distraught daughter vows bloody vengeance. Before long, every goat-ropin' hee-haw hayseeder in town is facing-off against the no-good poseur-punk delinquents.

A laggard little squirt of "direct-to-video" trash, made more-or-less endurable by a small serving of unpremeditated chuckles. That said, it still stands as one of the more honorable releases from the knuckleheads at notorious Rae-Don Video.

The wardrobe supervisor for this flick apparently drew inspiration from the "punked-out" guest-villains of 80s-era cop shows, and their comically overaccessorized punk pastiche of heavy chains, tattered fishnet, and glitter-spritzed hair moussed-up into something vaguely redolent of a mohawk(Vivienne Westwood meets Sid and Marty Krofft?). These misrepresentational Vaudevillian caricatures are always spuriously amusing, but it's not enough to save PUNK VACATION from face-down ignominy.

3.5/10...tolerable, though not nearly as much fun as I wanted it to be.

Punks versus rednecks in this entertaining exploitation opus

[Woodyanders · 8/10 · 10 February 2015]

The tranquility of a small California hamlet gets ripped asunder after diner owner Mr. Kemper gets brutally murdered by a gang of vicious punks. Kemper's feisty eldest daughter Lisa (a solid and appealing performance by Sandra Bogan) vows to get revenge on the punks for killing her dad, but things go awry after Lisa winds up being abducted by the gang. This leads to an all-out war between the punks and the redneck town residents.

Director Stanley Lewis, working from a compact script by Lance Smith and Harvey Richelson, relates the enjoyable story at a reasonably snappy pace, treats the nifty premise like a modern Western, further spruces things up with a funny sense of amiably quirky humor, and pulls out the stirring stops for the lively and exciting second half. Moreover, the colorful array of punks are drawn with a bit more depth and humanity than one might expect, with especially stand-out work from Roxanne Rogers as fiercely loyal and formidable moll ringleader Ramrod, Billy Piera as whiny peacenik Feggy, and Wayne Chema as fearsome skinhead Venny. In addition, the hick townies are a hilarious collection of bumbling dolts; Louis Waldon in particular elicits a lot of the film's biggest laughs with his gut-busting broad portrayal of gruff and irate commie-bashing buffoon Sheriff Virgil. Stephen Fiachi contributes a likable turn as earnest deputy Steve Reed while Don Martin registers well as the easygoing Deputy Sheriff Don. Daryn Okada's sharp cinematography gives this picture an impressively polished look, with excellent artful use of a crane and some snazzy scene transitions. The funky-throbbing score by Ed Grenga and Ross Vannelli hits the rousing spot. An immensely fun flick.

pretty awful punksploitation

[all_movies_suck · 20 November 2003]

Well... I like bad movies. So this isn't exactly the worst bad movie I've ever seen. It's sort of entertaining, at least, to laugh at a bit. But as for the "punk" part of "Punk Vacation"... uh, don't look here for punk rock stuff. This ain't no "Suburbia," not even "Class of 1984." At least those movies had actual punk bands perform in them, but "Punk Vacation" has a sort of mock-punk soundtrack and a bunch of pseudo-punkish people with bad makeup and studded wristbands. At least at one point the punks try to start a revolution by shooting all the cops in the small desert town they're "vacationing" in. Too bad they're stopped thanks to the "Predator"-style booby traps laid by the wily, sexy deputy. Good for a laugh as to what clueless Hollywood types think "punk" is all about.

Inept biker movie

[lor_ · 14 May 2023]

My review was written in May 1990 after watching the movie on Raedon video cassette.

Despite a couple of twists on the gender and tone of the genre, "Punk Vacation" degenerates into a routine action pic. Bearing a 1987 copyright, it's a current direct-to-video release.

A group of punk-styled youths passes through a small town on their motorcycles and the townsfolk form a posse to fight the. This basic plot line from "The Wild One" through dozens of '60s biker pics has the novelty of a coed gang led by a woman, tough but lovely (under her declasse makeup) Roxanne Rogers.

Film's mood, especially its diary, is tongue-in-cheek. But director Stanley Lewis lets things slip into cornball fights in the woods in the final reels. Finale is different, with a shootout between Rogers and heroine Sandra Bogan instead of the usual macho display.

Cast is subpar and low-budget lensing includes some woefully inadequate faking, such as a rocking care in the studio for a driving scene. Louis Waldon, who starred in several Andy Warhol films, plays the sheriff.