Made in 1986 by X’s Exene Cervenka and director Modi Frank, Bad Day is a 20-minute silent punk-western with a cameo by young Kevin Costner as a town drunk.
The black-and-white modern melodrama features title cards instead of spoken dialogue, and a guitar-driven soundtrack by Grammy-winning singer/songwriter Dave Alvin and D.J. Bonebrake. The rare film has finally been made available online on a pay-what-you-can basis — with partial proceeds going toward helping victims on the Gulf Coast.
A punk tribute to classic film, Bad Day features Cervenka’s X bandmate John Doe as preacher of the renegade town of Box Butte, along with Michael Blake, the Oscar-winning co-author of 1990 Costner blockbuster Dances With Wolves. The film also foreshadows the dark fate of its star, Peter Haskell, who portrays doomed antihero Johnny R. Walker. (In a real life horror-story, Haskell was murdered by a fellow casualty of the punk scene in 2008.) The alternately melancholic and uplifting score by Alvin and Bonebrake is punctuated by sound effects, silent-era style.
Visit the film’s official website, stop by Exene Cervenka’s online home, and download Bad Day in the format of your choice.
Click through below for a gallery of images from the film.
Modi Frank and Exene Cervenka
Photo credit: Moshe Brakha
Michael Blake, John Doe, Kevin Costner, and Doug Knott in Bad Day
Exene Cervenka, Modi Frank, and cast on the set of Bad Day
Photo credit: Moshe Brakha
John Doe as Rev. Joshua in Bad Day
Chris Desjardins as Mr. Elliot Cooper in Bad Day
Dave Alvin and Kevin Costner in Bad Day
Peter Haskell as Johnny R. Walker and Gigi Blair as Black Rose on the set of Bad Day
Photo credit: Moshe Brakha
Peter Haskell as Johnny R. Walker in Bad Day
Peter Haskell as Johnny R. Walker in Bad Day