‘Brute 1986’ Goes Full Glam Metal Slasher Ahead of FrightFest Halloween Premiere
- Horror News
Oliver Mitchell- 0
- 4 minutes read
Big hair, spandex, practical gore and one very bad decision await in Brute 1986, Marcel Walz’s blood-soaked follow-up to Brute 1976, which has been picked up for North American and UK distribution by Cinephobia Releasing ahead of its world premiere at Tubi FrightFest Halloween on 31 October.
Set a decade after the events of the previous film, the new slasher trades 1970s grindhouse grime for full-blown 1980s excess. Glam metal band Leather Kobra heads to an abandoned Western town to shoot a music video, only to discover that the ultra-violent Birdy family has already made the area their home. What starts as a stylised rock shoot quickly turns into a night of murder and mayhem.
Walz returns to direct, with Joe Knetter writing. The pair have deliberately shifted the sequel’s influences forward by a decade, moving away from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Hills Have Eyes flavour of Brute 1976 and towards the exploitation slashers that dominated the 1980s.
Walz cited films including Halloween III, Friday the 13th Part VI, Sleepaway Camp II, The Burning and A Nightmare on Elm Street 4 as key touchstones for the new film.
“I’m an ’80s baby, actually, a 1986 baby,” Walz said. “I grew up obsessed with ’80s horror classics… and when we decided to make this movie, I knew we had to go all in.” That commitment extends to the soundtrack. Tokio Hotel frontman Bill Kaulitz appears in the film and contributes original music, while glam metal band Crazy Lixx also features on the soundtrack.
The cast includes returning players Dazelle Yvette, Sarah French and Gigi Gustin, with Kaulitz joined by Pancho Moler, Sarah Kaplan, Heather Grace Hancock and The Devil’s Rejects star Lew Temple.
Cinephobia Releasing acquired North American and UK rights in a deal negotiated between company president Raymond Murray and executive producers Tobias Schuermann and Dirk Schuermann. A North American release is expected to be announced shortly.
For Walz, the project continues a busy run of genre work that includes Blood Feast, Blind, Pretty Boy, That’s a Wrap and Garden of Eden, while Knetter brings credits including Twilight of the Dead and The Caretaker.
The first trailer can be found just below, with Brute 1986 set to receive its world premiere at Tubi FrightFest Halloween on 31 October 2026. For more information and tickets, visit: https://frightfest.co.uk/Halloween2026/
Brute 1986 trailer
