Dudes by Penelope Spheeris (1987)
Bored with their lives in New York City, three punk rockers decide to start over in California. But after a run-in with some rednecks leaves one of them dead, the remaining two punks swear to avenge their friend’s death — even if they have to pursue his killers across the country. Based on that description, would you guess that Dudes is a revenge thriller? A roadtrip movie? A buddy comedy? A western? A psychedelic journey? A romance? The answer, of course, is all of the above. A lack of clearly defined genre means that Dudes is packed with tonal shifts and rabbit trails as our hapless punk rock heroes traverse the American West, meet a bullfighting Elvis impersonator, and go on a vision quest whilst backed by a soundtrack that includes The Vandals, W.A.S.P., Megadeth, Faster Pussycat, and Steve Vai. It also means that Dudes possesses the sort of scrappy, low-budget charm that might be box office suicide but will almost certainly appeal to a small sliver of ’80s cult film fans.
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