THREAT
“A raw blast of visceral anger.
“THREAT explodes off the screen eliciting comparisons to early Martin Scorsese, Abel Ferrara and Larry Clark's nihilistic masterpiece KIDS. Pretty heady company and it's to director Matt Pizzolo's credit that when THREAT works, it's more than worthy of being mentioned in the same breath as those films... Undeniably compelling, THREAT grabs you by the throat and holds tight for 90 minutes.” -DVD TALK
The punk-classic film “Threat” tells the story of two friends, straightedge punk Jim and hip-hop radical Fred, struggling to keep the peace as a full-scale riot consumes the streets around them.
Directed and co-written by Matt Pizzolo (still a teenager at the start), produced and co-written by Katie Nisa, and created by a filmmaking team of over 200 non-professionals in their teens and twenties, “Threat” was shot without permits on the streets of Downtown NYC and Brooklyn from 1996-1998 and premiered in renegade screenings at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival.
After relentlessly touring the underground, “Threat” was discovered at The Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival, where it landed a theatrical release and major distribution for the filmmakers’ punk films label.
Controversial upon its release and enduringly relevant, “Threat” has been called “the last truly independent film of the 90s indie explosion.”
“Unapologetically brutal,
surprisingly intelligent.
4.5 out of 5
“this film works on every conceivable level; it holds court not only as a historical document of time and place, but also as a window into the soul of American adolescence. Great art should assail the status quo, and that is what Matt Pizzolo and Katie Nisa’s film has skillfully accomplished.” -FILM THREAT
“Genuinely unsettling,
thrillingly chaotic.
9 out of 10
“a tale of a cross-cultural riot that takes in philosophy, polemic and politics without taking a breath.
S’like you hired private dicks to follow your kids around at night and they hired Abel Ferrara to do surveillance. Put together by an utterly untutored group of kids on 16mm cameras with discarded film stock, it’s a morally complex, beautifully acted, occasionally sickeningly violent portrayal of the underground NYC hip hop and hardcore scenes without a moment of false patronisation or sociological merit. The story skewers you precisely because it’s left so open-ended and realistically without closure.
A genuinely independent feeling film – seemingly creating a new cinematic aesthetic from the noise that is its soundtrack and spur, and if nothing else it contains voices and thoughts (particularly about politics and 9/11) that you’re not likely to hear anywhere else... Hear, see, never set foot in a multiplex ever again.”
-Terrorizer Magazine
“Makes KIDS look like an
after-school special.”
(-Urb Magazine)
“Visionary director Matt Pizzolo takes a harsh look at what it means to be a disaffected youth…
“THREAT is a U.S. independent movie with ambition and attitude. Formed in the late 90s as a production company by Matt Pizzolo and Katie Nisa, Kings Mob Productions has since grown into an army of young people. ‘Some kids work around the clock,’ says Pizzolo, Threat's 22 year-old writer-director, ‘others work when they can or when they can't help it.’” -Style Magazine
“Shot in over 50 locations around New York with a cast and crew of over 200 mostly non-professionals in their teens and early 20s…
“showing that the promised land of opportunity and the American dream are relics of the past. Although it may sound akin to similar independent films (think KIDS), THREAT is unique in that violence is portrayed to a degree that would make even the most iron-stomached viewer wince.“ (-The McGill Daily)
"Makes Kids look like an after-school special." (-Urb) "Unapologetically brutal, surprisingly intelligent." (-Film Threat) "Genuinely unsettling, thrillingly chaotic." (-Terrorizer)
"Makes Kids look like an after-school special." (-Urb) "Unapologetically brutal, surprisingly intelligent." (-Film Threat) "Genuinely unsettling, thrillingly chaotic." (-Terrorizer)
“The Sundance Survivors
“A group of young filmmakers, the Kings Mob, hoped to sell their first self-financed feature film at Robert Redford’s Sundance film festival in Utah. But ‘Threat,’ a gritty meditation on growing up in New York, wasn’t invited…instead they opted to gatecrash the festival.” (-London Daily Telegraph, Saturday Magazine)
“Threat surprised the uninitiated last night…
“during the Sundance Film Festival when it sold out both of its independent screenings during the very competitive nighttime hours out there on Main Street.” (-Park City Television)
