Review: Punishment Park (1971)
Directed by Peter Watkins; screenplay by Peter Watkins; starring Carmen Argenziano, Harold Beaulieu and Jim Bohan.
This was both devastating emotionally and viscerally brutal in the same way something like Texas Chainsaw is.
That found footage mode, alongside the dryness of the desert and the boiling tensions with the hunters just really gets under your skin.
The editing is also a key to the whole thing, contrasting the tribunals with Punishment Park, the hunters justifying the unjustifiable with the hunted just trying to survive the night, a set of defendants being asked if they want to try Punishment Park with those completing the park. Just so powerful.
Goddamn, this is so powerful but incredibly hard to watch at times.
Watched on 12 April 2021