Synopsis: In an alternate-universe 1995, a mysterious wasting illness has killed all the adults. In their wake, the teens of Potter’s Bluff rise up as two rival gangs: the rich kids, known as the Westside Titans, and the poor ones – the less ostentatiously named Eastsiders. As always happens in post-apocalyptic settings, a battle for resources ensues.
Riot Girls focuses primarily upon two Eastsiders: Scratch and Nat, and their struggle to not only survive the Titans’ violent tyranny, but also to try to find some happiness for themselves.
My Thoughts:
Riot Girls’ director Jovanka Vuckovic is so cool. You might recognize her name from her 6 and a half years as editor of Rue Morgue magazine, or maybe as the director of The Box, one of the entries in 2017’s XX, a fabulous, all female-directed horror anthology that was (and maybe still is) available on several streaming platforms.
“One of the reasons why I quit magazines and started making films was because I was asking all of my male filmmaker friends to depict women as people in horror films. And I got tired of asking them. I decided I was just going to do it myself. So my career goal is to redefine women in the genre space.”
Jovanka Vuckovic, in interview with Kristy Puchko for SyFy Wire
Under Vuckovic’s directorial hand, this story (screenplay written by Katherine Collins) really comes to life. And that representation she was looking for is here in spades. There’s diversity galore, but it doesn’t feel forced. It feels real. And Nat and Scratch are punky, and queer, and adorable. I just want to hug them. They’re fun, and spontaneous, and they fight, and sometimes they’re not really all that nice to one another. They’re imperfect. They’re not token characters – they’re just people.
Two Girls, Two Gangs, No Rules
I don’t normally go for teen movies, but I actually got pretty into this one. It’s violent, and it totally avoids all of the trappings that usually make me run screaming away from teen films – creepy-statutory romances, overly-attached-way-too-quickly romances, boy-browbeats-girl-into-loving-him romance, you know… gross teen romance stuff.
Nope, here we just have two girls who know each other really well, who love each other in a completely normal, not overly public-demonstrative (in fact, I don’t even know that they realize that they feel anything other than platonic love until well into the movie). And they’re relationship grows and changes in a way that feels totally normal. I think we can all agree that movies don’t generally do the best job of portraying love normally – it’s usually more like instantaneous sex-magic.
The whole movie has a fun punk rock, DIY, comic book sort of style to it that I really dig. I think that visually it’s pretty much perfect, the story is good (although I wish a little more had been done – there was no new post-apocalyptic ground broken here), and the character building is wonderful.
My Edition:
DVD
No special features
Rating:
I hope some day we get a release with some features – maybe just a commentary or interviews? Something? Maybe on Blu Ray?
Riot Girls
Directed by: Jovanka Vuckovic
Released September 13, 2019
Cranked Up Films
Post-Apocalypse
Not Rated
81 Minutes
I’ve never heard of this movie before reading your review. Which is crazy because it totally looks like something I’d watch.
Thank you for sharing.