Review: ‘Brave Rebel Army’ is a venomous takedown of campus rape culture

We can always use callouts of campus rape culture. From M.F.A. to Black Christmas (2019), the horror subgenre viciously stabs the bloated monstrosity of entitled incels and leaves behind bleeding, lifeless carcasses. Writer/director Michelle D’Alessandro Hatt takes her sharp pen and castrates the genre in her own way with a new short called Brave Rebel Army. Currently making festival rounds, the film fits somewhere in the realm of the diabolical We Summon the Darkness, with a hearty dose of feminine rage for good measure.

The film opens on a frat party, where K (Tamia Bailey) and her friends Lu (Sunmin Oh), Em (Emma Thomson), and Dee (Sam McCall) dance and partake in various forms of debauchery. When Em, Lu, and Dee spy K being led upstairs by a male partygoer, they immediately jump to her rescue and follow them up the stairs. The night ends with a shocking and grotesque reveal (don’t worry, no spoilers!) that inspires the friend group to plot devilish revenge that concludes with a satisfying shot to end all satisfying shots.

Hatt masterfully tackles a crucially relevant social issue with the force of a two-ton anvil. And that’s exactly how you have to approach the topic in today’s world. People don’t listen unless you bash them over the head. With a tight script and smartly written characters, it’s no wonder the film has landed festival placements. Brave Rebel Army begs to be made into a full-length feature, and we’ll (oh so impatiently) wait for that day.