Movies - Threat

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Threat (2006) is an independent film about a straightege punk and a hip hop radical whose friendship is doomed by the intolerance of their respective street tribes. It is an ensemble film of kids living in New York City in the aftermath of 9-11, each of them suffering from a sense of doom brought on by dealing with HIV, racism, sexism, class struggle, and general nihilism. The intellectual issues are played out amid an aesthetic of raw ultraviolence that has earned director Matt Pizzolo both accolades and condemnations. Unlike past urban dramas, the film does not outright condemn its characters' violent outbursts. Although it does show harsh consequences for acts of violence, numerous critics have pointed out that it is unclear whether or not the film intends to glorify violence and/or class war.

The film was produced by Kings Mob, a team of neophyte filmmakers in their late teen and early 20s. Director Matt Pizzolo was the eldest member of the crew: 21 years old when he wrote the script and 22 when shooting commenced. Pizzolo met filmmaking partner Katie Nisa at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. Both were enrolled in the school's Dramatic Writing Program. Pizzolo dropped out of the program, living out of a backpack in Manhattan's Lower East Side while writing the first draft of Threat. Still at NYU, Nisa recruited film student Benjamin Brancato to join the project as cinematographer and NYU business school student Carlos Puga to play the lead role. Nisa also cast Keith Middleton when she saw him walking on St. Mark's Place. Unknown to Nisa, Middleton was on his way to perform in the popular dance show Stomp.

Pizzolo and Nisa shot the film in a DiY style that would make most independent film sets look like epic Hollywood productions by comparison. Pizzolo interned at NYC film co-op Film/Video Arts, where he cleaned up after film classes in exchange for free access to rickety cameras and lights while not in use. Nisa waitressed at East Village diner 7A to pay for production supplies that "couldn't be borrowed or stolen." Initially, sound recording was to be handled by one of Nisa's film student friends. When he couldn't make it to the first day of production, he instead gave Nisa a 15 minute lesson on how to run the nagra. She went on to be the film's sole sound recordist for the first months of production.

At the start of production, the crew consisted solely of Pizzolo, Nisa, and Brancato, but over the course of production it grew to include over 200 young people from 5 different countries.

Although shot without permits on the slimmest of shoestring budgets by a team of non-professional first-time filmmakers, critics have compared Threat to such iconic films as The Warriors, Do the Right Thing, American History X, Slacker, Clerks, Romper Stomper, and A Clockwork Orange.

Produced largely in the NY Hardcore scene, Threat features guest appearances by members of Most Precious Blood from the Trustkill Records label. Trustkill also contributed music to the film's score from Most Precious Blood, Bleeding Through, Eighteen Visions, and Terror. Most of the film's score, however, was composed by Alec Empire and his band Atari Teenage Riot. The score was constructed by jungle-music producer queque.

In keeping with the punk and DiY ideologies of the movie and their production company, Pizzolo and Nisa eschewed distribution offers from Hollywood studios. Instead, Pizzolo formed the independent film & soundtrack label Halo8 Destructions and signed with NYC-based RED Distribution for a multi-picture distribution deal.

In addition to the Threat soundtrack, Halo8 produced and released the album Threat: Music That Inspired The Movie. In the tradition of "versus" soundtracks from the movies Spawn and Judgment Night, the album consists of mashups of hardcore punk and metalcore with breakcore. Contributing artists include metalcore acts Killswitch Engage and Bleeding Through; hardcore bands Minor Threat, Gorilla Biscuits, Judge, Youth Of Today, Agnostic Front, Glassjaw, and Inside Out; and breakcore artists Otto Von Schirach, Enduser, Schizoid, Hecate, Edgey, and Alec Empire.

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