Entertaining documentary on the early 80s Los Angeles hardcore punk scene. The kids are all fucked-up, but they pogo the pain away to Black Flag and The Circle Jerks. Most of the punk youngsters interviewed here are probably accountants and marketing managers now, but in 1981 they were fresh-faced sociopaths with Southern California accents who talk frankly about cracking skulls, doing drugs, and living dangerously. In between that, we get loads of live material such as The Germs’ train wreck of a show with the pimply (and soon to be dead) Darby Crash groaning out his vocals like a heroin-brained zombie, X’s tight rockabilly attack, and Fear pummeling a crowd with both their music and Lee Ving’s insult comedian-like taunts. This is a relic of a time when punk rock still scared people. The music reflected young ticking time bombs. The venues were foreboding concrete litter boxes. The shows come off like gladiatorial war zones. It’s pretty cool.
Still, it’s not quite the definitive take on the scene. It ignores a lot of popular LA bands whose shows didn’t erupt into riots. Some musicians criticize director Penelope Spheeris for her focus on the psychos and the weirdos (but not The Weirdos) and for allegedly plying some interviewees with hard drugs so they’d be more outrageous for the camera. Whatever the case, it’s a worthy “youth gone bad” film in a period that was full of them.
Spheeris’s next film, the dramatic Suburbia, would be another bleak punk rock cult classic. Later, she’d make The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years.