Review: Ravers

Director: Bernhard Pucher

Screenplay: Luke Foster

Year: 2020

When I stumbled upon “Raver” and watched its promotional poster, the first thing to come to mind was “yet another zombie movie”. Luckily I was slightly wrong, as the creature in this movie are rave mutants, the product of mixing tainted energy drinks and illegal drugs. But are they really all that different?

Becky, a germophobic reporter, goes to an illegal rave party with her cousin. The party takes place in an energy drinks factory that was shut down after a violent event between its employees. During the party, tainted energy drinks that were still lying around are given away, and it turns everyone that drinks it into violent party monsters.

During the first scene of the movie, the director  Bernhard Pucher (“Betsy & Leonard”) makes clear what his movie is about. In this scene, the accident that caused the energy drinks to get tainted is shown and the effect that they can have on people. One of the employees, a huge bodybuilder, takes the drink and follows up by wreaking havoc in the factory. Much has been said about the dangers of mixing drugs and energy drinks, but we could have never imagined it would be this danger level.

With a premise such as the proposed one, it is expected that it would be over-the-top campy, and this opening scene confirms this is the case. Once the bodybuilder begins his wave of violence, we have a small sample of the gore, as well as the creativity and special effects used to achieve them, which await for the rest of the movie. In this scene, the good work on the practical effects can be appreciated, and how bad does the CGI look, which repeats through the rest of its runtime. 

‘Ravers” sets out to be a fun movie and achieves it through the gore and some funny moments, but the script fails at it. The plot is not that distant from what we usually get in zombie movies, and the comedy doesn’t work as well as it should. Also, the exposition scenes only serve to open plot hole after plot hole in a script that is weak in how coherent it can make its story, besides what it goes to the absurd on purpose, and most of the meaningful events in the plot doesn’t make much sense. 

“Ravers” is a fun movie mainly for what it achieves through violence and gore and its practical effects, but its script has way too incoherent. The story is practically a zombie movie plot, just that they are exchanged for rave mutants over a great rave soundtrack (which is arguably more fun). Although it is classified as a horror-comedy, the comedy is mildly entertaining and achieves much more through the horror aspect.