Nostalgia Kinky

Imagine you’re a fucked up kid in the mid-eighties living in the Chicago area. School sucks, your job sucks, your friends and family suck, you’re broke, and the president is goddamn Ronald Reagan. Everything sucks and the only escape you have is the local hardcore music scene. Suddenly, a bit of much-needed good news breaks through the bullshit when one early October day in 1984 you open up a copy of the local student run Daily Illini to stumble across what must have seemed like a life changing announcement. The news that two of the best local hardcore bands of the period had an upcoming show at the West End was reason enough for kids to get excited about, but you’d seen great shows there before. The real mind-blowing news about the show, featuring local legends Naked Raygun and Savage Beliefs, was that it was going to be filmed as part of a local feature-length movie being made it the area. Finally, an evening to break up the dreaded daily monotony that helped drive you to the enraged music in the first place.

Nothing ever works outs though, and the film those kids got a chance to be part of as feral audience members moshing to their favorite bands never appeared. The near-completed film shot in the Chicago area throughout the fall of 1984 vanished without a trace before the kids who showed up the night of that iconic double bill ever got to see it. Such a letdown but, despite the unending nostalgia for the period, much of the mid-eighties was a major bummer, particularly for teenagers and college-age kids forced to watch as Reagan and co. began dismantling their future.

An energetic and fun low-budget bloody punk rock neo-noir, Savage Beliefs (1984) is an extremely entertaining incomplete and unreleased film from the American hardcore scene of the eighties. The eighty film appeared just a few years back when producer/writer/director Charlie Fink uploaded his complete rough cut to YouTube, which is how I recently discovered it. A musical action-slasher hybrid detailing the story of a local messenger and musician who gets mixed up with a crazed drug dealer after having an affair with his girlfriend, Savage Beliefs is a super fun watch, and it’s regrettable that it never got an official release back in the eighties.

According to his bio at Forbes, Charlie Fink is a “consultant, columnist, author, and adjunct, covering AI, XR, and the Metaverse”. He’s also a teacher at Chapman University and the author of a number of books. Fink has had an impressive career, but just how does Savage Beliefs fit in? A few years after its footage for the film was shot, Fink got a Disney where he eventually landed a role as a Vice President in their animation department. Fink, who earned his BA Degree from Sarah Lawrence College and a Master of Fine Arts Degree from the Art Institute of Chicago, has also been heavily involved with the theater as the founder and artistic director of the New Musical Foundation, which produces readings, workshops, and festival productions of new musicals. Disney and Forbes might seem like an odd place for the man behind a lost punk-rock film to land, but life is fucking strange and utterly unpredictable.

Savage Beliefs feels a bit like a student film, and its timing runs concurrent I believe with Fink’s impressive collegiate run. It’s hard to say much about it though as Fink’s own website doesn’t even mention the film and no IMDB listing exists, so we should be grateful for the YouTube upload Shot on gloriously grainy 16mm, Savage Beliefs might have fit in well with a company like Troma had Fink completed it in 1984. Even in its unfinished state, it is superior to much of the schlock that was filling out the bottom-half of double-bills throughout the country. There is much to enjoy in Savage Beliefs, particularly the performances, photography and musical sequences.

Savage Beliefs was amongst the first film future Oscar-winning cinematographer Janusz Kaminski worked on, as 1st assistant cameraman. The future regular Spielberg collaborator was still several years away from his official entry into the world of film with the Traci Lords vehicle Not of The Earth marking Savage Beliefs as perhaps his earliest film. For the most part though, Savage Belief’s talent behind the scenes and onscreen remain as unknown as the film. Pity as this very rough cut shows off a talented cast and crew who all deliver solid work.

Key amongst the behind the scene’s talent is Wes Tabayoyong, a local musician and member of Savage Beliefs and aspiring filmmaker who provided the film’s score, co-edited and produced it. He’s gone onto to have a career, mostly working with other low budget American independent productions.

Cast wise, Savage Beliefs is controlled by a trio of finely tuned performances, courtesy of Chris Morrison as Whit, Ellyn Duncan as Alicia and especially Michael Dickson as crazed dealer Jake. The performances are amongst the best and most surprising elements of Savage Beliefs. Even the band members seen throughout the film are perfectly fine in their limited roles.

Like the film, a soundtrack album to Savage Beliefs never came to fruition in 1984, but thankfully some of the Savage Beliefs tracks are found on the excellent Big Big Sky: A Recorded History of Savage Beliefs from Alona’s Dream records. Released in November 2015, this savage compilation collects the entirety of Savage Belief’s recordings between 1983 and 1984 and is highly recommended.

Savage Beliefs formed in Chicago in 1982 and quickly became one of the midwest’s great hardcore bands, even though their recorded output at the time was limited to an E.P. and a compilation appearance. Partially appearing from the fires of D.C.’s ferocious Government Issue, Savage Beliefs became a real favorite to young Steve Albini, whose legendary Big Black too notes from. Indeed, bassist Dave Riley joined Big Black after Savage Beliefs broke up and Albini appeared behind the mixing board for the Big Big Sky compilation. Both the compilation and unreleased film, show Savage Beliefs as one of the great lost American bands of the eighties. The band’s Facebook page features some great information and links for any interested in learning more about the band.

The other great hardcore band appearing in Savage Beliefs is Naked Raygun, another legendary group whose recorded output and sales far exceeded Savage Beliefs. Formed in 1980, the original Naked Raygun was amongst the eighties most vital punk outfits, releasing a number of influential recordings throughout their acclaimed career. Their appearance in Savage Beliefs makes an already appealing work all that more noteworthy.

Savage Beliefs were regularly opening up for Naked Raygun around the time that Fink’s shot his film. The authenticity of the early hardcore scene shines through in Savage Beliefs, and it is that genuineness that helps make this grainy not quite there film so incredibly infectious.

Savage Beliefs sat on a shelf for more than three decades before Regressive Films restored it for a surprising premiere at Chicago’s Logan Theater, complete with a live Savage Beliefs music set. A few other showings followed. The Punk Vault detailed one:

“Wes from Savage Beliefs took the unfinished film, worked a little magic, and completed it and they did a very special one-off screening of the movie Thursday night at Martyrs’ in Chicago. First there was a teaser clip for a new film by Regressive Films (makers of the Chicago punk documentary, You Weren’t There) and then they showed the full length Savage Beliefs movie. It was a B-movie at its finest and most charming and had this movie come out back when it was made it would be highly likely it would have become a punk cult classic like Suburbia. The film featured some of the band’s great music…there were plenty of quotable lines in the movie and some good comedy as well. The film was about 90 minutes long and it was a fun ride from start to finish. After the film was over, Joe Losurdo did a little Q&A with the filmmaker as well as a Wes from Savage Beliefs, the woman who played the love interest and the guy who played Jake, her drug dealer boyfriend. They shared memories of making the movie and seemed to be happy that people finally got to see it. You could tell they had a lot of fun doing it by the tone of their stories and the smiles on their faces.”

An appearance at the Chicago Internation Movies and Music Festival helped garner the band even more attention than it had ever received, but the brief theatrical reemergence sadly didn’t lead to a home video release. As far as I can tell, the only way to see the film currently is via YouTube. It should be a real prime candidate for a boutique home video label to pick it up for release on disc.

Savage Beliefs is far from a lost masterpiece, but even in its very rough form it’s an incredibly infectious film, and I enjoyed it much more than many other like-minded micro-budgeted films that did manage theatrical releases in the mid-eighties. Highly recommended for fans of American Independent Cinema and the eighties hardcore/punk scene in general.

-Jeremy Richey, January 2024-