Director- Kieth Critchlow & Walter F. Parkes





This documentary starts off as an expose of Neo-Nazi cells in California (although I don’t think the term Neo-Nazi existed yet) but almost immediately it dives into the damaged and wounded psyche of the primary character, Allen Vincent, the leader of the San Francisco branch of the American Nazi Party and a self-described “schizophrenic…victim of loneliness”. That’s not to say that the point of the movie isn’t the danger of this violently bigoted viewpoint, just that it plays lead to a very dramatic rhythm section.

While many of the reviews I’ve read about The California Reich understand the surface message in this film, that Nazi’s are not nice people, and these American Nazi’s are both crazy and ridiculously stupid, I think the more important message parallels that just under the surface.

The filmmakers let every single person in the film jabber and froth at the mouth more than with enough on screen nonsense to make them look dumber than a box of rocks, from the circular logic and insanely nonsensical arguments to the oft mentioned housewife describing the technique for frosting a swastika flag cake. But as each of the men who occupy the front ranks of this movement talk about themselves they tell us something more than the words. There is an obvious and constant refrain of fanaticism to be sure, and each character has his own personal brand of crazy, but what quickly becomes clear is that all of these people are damaged goods, afraid and hurting and undoubtedly the product of their environments. It’s sad to see such a shining example of nurture overcoming nature, but the scariest part is their perpetuation of that rotten cycle of ignorance and familial tyranny in their own scared and confused children.

email Seth