It’d be easy to write off VFW as a pastiche of the 70s grindhouse and 80s action-horror movies. From the ever-present synth track evoking John Carpenter and featuring a The Expendables-level cast of old character actors, you’d be forgiven for thinking this was just another attempt to reclaim some kind of 80s nostalgia that’s all the rage right now. It’s Escape From New York meets Assault on Precinct 13, with a dash of Mad Max, you could say. And I wouldn’t disagree, but in the hands of a filmmaker like Joe Begos, it becomes something more than the films it pulls inspiration from.

It also continues to prove that Joe Begos is one of the best indie horror directors working today.

After a crawl explains that there’s a new drug on the market called Hylophedrine (Street name: Hype) that has turned cities into warzones, we meet a group of Hypers led by Boz (Travis Hammer). He has commandeered an abandoned multiplex, where addicts who look just a step away from a mindless zombie congregate for their next fix. Boz has a large pile of Hype that he plans to sell in the morning so he can blow the city.

Hype is the kind of drug that’s so addictive, a tweaker is willing to throw herself off a balcony and splatter on the ground like a bloody water balloon. Unfortunately for Boz, the tweaker’s sister, Lizard (Sierra McCormick), finds out what happened and has had enough of Boz’s cruel rule. She steals Boz’s huge supply of Hype and takes off running.

Across the street is a little hole-in-the-wall bar. A VFW run by Fred (Stephen Lang), a surly man who just wants to host a place for his friends. There’s Abe (70s action star Fred Williamson), the recently-discovered-the-benefits-of-weed Doug (The Warriors’ David Patrick Kelly), used car salesman Lou (Karate Kid’s Martin Kove) and Zabriskie (Cheers’ George Wendt). But it’s William Sadler (Die Hard 2) as Walter Reed that completely steals the show. His mix of boozy charm and deadpan delivery is perfection and had me laughing at some of the audacious situations he gets himself into.

Rounding out the cast is Shawn (Tom Williamson), a fresh-from-the-war soldier who popped into the VFW for a drink and got a night he didn’t bargain for as Lizard bursts into the bar, chased by Roadie (Graham Skipper). A lot of things happen in quick succession. Doug gets an axe to the chest, Graham’s head explodes in a juicy cloud of viscera from a shotgun blast and then the violence really erupts. Axes to faces, cue poles smashed over backs. Heads stomped into red jam. Arms hacked to pieces. You name it, it probably happens in gloriously violent fashion.

All the VFW crew wanted was to close up shop and go to a strip club and now they find themselves in a fight for their lives as a brain dead army of animalistic Hypers descends on the VFW.

This could have been a run-of-the-mill throwback film and to be honest without Joe Begos and his incredible team working with him, it wouldn’t work as well as it does. Working from a script by Max Brallier and Matthew McArdle (a first for Joe’s directorial gigs), he imbues the movie with the same kind of punk-rock ethos that worked so well with Bliss. He understands working within budget constraints and knows his team, including editor Josh Ethier, will be able to cobble together effects and action to make it look more expensive than it probably is.

In some ways, I could almost see VFW taking place in the same world as Bliss; drenched in red and blue neon and film grain adding a dusty look to the action. It helps that he has retained a lot of his Bliss crew, including Mike Testin’s fantastic cinematography and Dora Madison, who gave such a raw performance in Bliss, going full Doomsday camp.

Begos’s signature deft touch with blood and practical effects comes in handy as the outnumbered and outgunned VFW crew are forced to create makeshift weapons. A toolbox gets dumped and they start making weapons with everything they can. Homemade bombs made from golf balls, chair legs turned maces, kegs and spikes becoming booby traps. It all turns into a bloody mess and it’s filmed and edited to such perfection. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen William Sadler cackling madly while swinging a circular hacksaw.

But it’s the VFW crew that really sells the emotion of the film. I was a bit apprehensive, going in, that this would be reduced to a military versus punks political minefield. And while it does have a couple funny jabs about the impatience of millennials, it’s actually more of a somber look at this group of men who fought for wars they might not have agreed with. By focusing on the bounds and vows of friendship built over trust and being in The Shit together, the film side steps any uneasy politicking.

My grandfather fought in World War 2 and until the day he died had an indention in the top of his head from where where shrapnel exploded. He was barely saved by his helmet. And he would talk about the VFW constantly. He never liked to talk about the war. I know he saw more shit than I could probably ever comprehend. But I know he’d always feel at home in the VFW, where he could be around people who were forced to go through the same experiences he did.

So when Fred says, “I remember the mud. Crawling in the mud. Lot of men died in the mud,” before talking about Abe’s experience in the Korean War, “Different war, same shit. Same mud. ‘Cept his was frozen,” I understood the camaraderie of this little dump of a bar. A place where the motto is, “Don’t matter where you fought. You make it back, you got a home. Right here.” It’s a theme that stretches through generations to the millennials who’ve found themselves stuck in the VFW with the old fogeys. Shawn may have just got back from fighting in the desert while Lizard is in The Shit right now with the Hypers, but it doesn’t matter.

And I gotta think that if they survive the night, their local VFW Post 2494 will be home for the rest of their lives.