The Unrepentant Cinephile

by Jason Coffman

  Blood Rites marks a big jump in technical quality from Booraem’s Wake the Witch, shedding that film’s prosumer DV look and mostly utilitarian lighting for a much sharper image and some film noir-inspired lighting set-ups. The special effects are also considerably better than Wake the Witch, which used subtle makeup for its monsters. Blood Rites calls for gunshot and knife wounds, and for the most part these are effectively pulled off by FX designer Rose Staley, who also worked on Wake the Witch. The film has a suitably claustrophobic feel, and some good performances (most notably Jeanne Kern’s super creepy Sister Anani) keep things lively. The film’s structure is a little awkward– it’s easy to periodically forget there’s a parallel story going on with the Detectives, and there are hints that a larger police-oriented subplot may have been excised– but Blood Rites is still a solid little thriller, and I’m anxious to see where Booraem and her collaborators go from here.

  Blood Runs Cold (2011)

  Originally published on Film Monthly 15 July 2013

  The slasher subgenre has such rigidly defined parameters and conventions that even tweaking something as basic as the setting for the action (like Cold Prey‘s endless snowfields) or the sexuality of the main characters (such as the all-male cast of Hellbent) can make a slasher film feel almost revolutionary. Still, when broken down to their component parts, the basics of the slasher don’t change much from film to film: there’s the slasher and the slashes, and a protracted final chase before the slasher is finally defeated, at least until the sequel. Various countries have put their stamp on the slasher, some genuinely interesting and some unremarkable. Bloody Disgusting and The Collective seem determined to bring every competent slasher film in the world to the U.S. home video market, and the latest example is Sweden’s Blood Runs Cold.

  Winona (Hanna Oldenburg) is an artist whose manager James (Ralf Beck) has rented her a remote house near her hometown. If her plan was to retire from the public eye, however, it doesn’t work: she soon runs into her old boyfriend Richard (Patrick Saxe) and his hard-partying friends Carl (Andreas Rylander) and Liz (Elin Hugoson). Winona invites Richard back to the house, and Carl and Liz tag along. Meanwhile, someone in the snowy forest is watching and waiting for a chance to strike. Again, this doesn’t take too long, and virtually before anyone knows what’s happened Winona finds herself in a struggle for survival against a seemingly unstoppable monster that looks human, but might be something else entirely.

  Blood Runs Cold is a standard “kids in the woods” slasher movie, mostly distinguished by its snowy locale (although Cold Prey did get here first, and used the location much more effectively) and its very brief running time. The cast is whittled down at an alarming rate once the action starts, and the practical effects are mostly handled very well, with gouts of dark blood contrasting nicely with the cold grays and blues that dominate the film’s palette. The cast all speak English, despite the film’s setting and the fact that none of them are native English speakers. This leads to some odd pronunciation, but none of the actors’ accents are too thick to understand. It’s just a slightly distracting choice.

  Debut feature director Sonny Laguna keeps the pace brisk, and the film clocks in under 80 minutes. This has the benefit of preventing the film from wearing out its welcome, but also makes the film feel especially workmanlike. The killer pops up, gets some blood on the screen before the opening credits, then waits a while to knock off most of the rest of the cast while dutifully allowing our heroine to escape and beat the hell out of him. There’s absolutely nothing a horror fan hasn’t seen before, especially slasher die-hards. Still, Winona is a likable enough lead character and the mysterious killer is interesting, and the dedication to practical gore effects is refreshing when so many low-budget horror films are turning to cheap CG splatter. If you’re not already a slasher fan, Blood Runs Cold isn’t going to change your mind, but if you’re already on board with slashers, there are certainly worse ways to spend your time.

  Bloodlust Zombies (2011)

  Originally published on Film Monthly 4 July 2011

  The seemingly endless stream of low-budget direct-to-disc zombie movies marches ever onward. Bloodlust Zombies hopes to distinguish itself by featuring porn actress Alexis Texas in a lead role that only requires her to be naked for a few minutes. To be fair, Bloodlust Zombies also aims to be a sort of “Office Space with zombies,” but unfortunately that ambition far outpaces the ability of the filmmakers. Still, at least there’s the intention to do something different, which is always appreciated– too many of these films are content just being another lo-fi bloodbath.

  Zlantoff Industries is celebrating a major contract brought about by a serum that turns normal people into rampaging murderers. Bobby Lee (Robert Heath) and his young mistress Andrea (Alexis Texas) celebrate in the traditional manner while accidentally broadcasting their tryst to the entire building, which causes a series of spills and mishaps in the research lab. Soon, a cat injected with the serum is spreading the virus and all the employees working late are locked down thanks to the building’s state of the art security system. Bobby Lee heads to the basement to turn on the manual override but mysteriously disappears, leaving department head Judy (Janice Marie) to calm the employees and find out what happened to Bobby Lee.

  Meanwhile, Andrea is wandering the halls menaced by infected coworkers while officemates Darren (Adam Danoff), an irredeemable lech, and Sandra (Sarah Dewey) try to figure out the best way out of the building while a temp with a broken leg decides to take action and fight her way out. As the body count rises and the murderous “zombies” grow in number, it’s only a matter of time before a government “cleanup” team arrives to rescue the survivors, but who will survive and will they get overtime for this?

  Bloodlust Zombies has no illusions about its nature: it’s barely 75 minutes long and that includes opening and closing credits. In that time there’s a sex scene for Alexis Texas near the beginning so no one gets bored too early, and the slight story is briskly paced. However, this is still a super low-budget “zombie” movie, so many of the familiar pitfalls inherent in the genre are present and accounted for, the primary one being a lack of interesting characters. The acting ranges from the solid to the utterly incompetent (Miss Texas acquits herself just fine, for the most part), but the writing is the real problem. While clearly aiming for a sort of Severance-type office satire, all writer/director Dan Lantz seems to be able to come up with are a series of characters hurling profanities at each other while hanging out in “office clothes.”

  There are a few funny bits in Bloodlust Zombies, and at least it knows well enough to stay out of its own way. As mindless entertainment, you could do a lot worse. But if you’re looking for anything other than some cheap gore effects and naked ladies, you’ll probably want to look elsewhere.

  Bloodrayne: The Third Reich (2011)

  Originally published on Film Monthly 4 July 2011

  Well, three movies in and Uwe Boll finally manages to get to the part of the Bloodrayne story that video gamers played the marginally popular first game for in the first place. 2002′s Bloodrayne game featured a busty female vampire fighting Nazis. The first two films in what has become an epic trilogy dealt with this busty female vampire in Medieval Europe and then in the Old West. Nearly a decade after game was released, Bloodrayne fans finally get the story they’ve probably been most interested in seeing all along. The wait was definitely not worth it.

  Rayne (Natassia Malthe) is a bisexual half-human half-vampire Nazi killing machine aiding Resistance forces on the Eastern front between vampire hunts. As the film opens, she accidentally turns Nazi officer Commandant Ekart Brand (Michael Paré) into a vampire during a (mostly) competently staged train siege. The Resistance frees a train of prisoners headed to a concentration camp but leaves Brand behind to become the worst kind of enemy: a Nazi vampire! Soon he’s being studied by mad scientist Dr. Mangler (Clint Howard– yes, Clint Howard) and plans are underway to turn Hitler himself into an immortal blo
odsucker.

  Most of this information is up for the viewer to dig out of mountains of ludicrous dialogue delivered at blistering speeds. The Third Reich clocks in at a slim 79 minutes, including 7 full minutes of end credits and two utterly gratuitous sex scenes. Clint Howard chews up and spits out every scene in his typical manner, while Paré just looks sort of bored and Malthe spends the entire film baring more cleavage than one would think appropriate for clothes worn on the battlefield. Her voiceover is flat and completely void of affect, which sort of suits the film just fine– she sounds like she’s trying to spit out a barely-remembered short story, which the film resembles more than a little.

  The effects are decent, and some of the CG blood is fairly indistinguishable from the practical effects. This and the star power of Clint Howard and Michael Paré are probably where the majority of the film’s budget went, and on that level The Third Reich does deliver some mildly entertaining fight scenes of Rayne slicing and dicing Nazi vampires. However, as the film barrels along from one fight to the next, nothing makes much of an impression and the whole affair is utterly forgettable. Uwe Boll may get saddled in the press with Ed Wood comparisons, but that doesn’t hold up– while Wood was clearly in it for the love of the films, as ridiculous and insane as they were, Boll. obviously seems to have more clearly mercenary objectives. Bloodrayne: The Third Reich ticks off the boxes in a list of what fans would want to see and then abruptly ends, leaving the door wide open for a sequel or maybe a SyFy original series. Well played, Mr. Boll.

  Bloodrunners (2017)

  Originally published on Film Monthly 7 March 2017

  The independent horror landscape is glutted with far too many similar productions. Slasher and zombie movies, done as cheaply as possible, are the most common. Ambition is sorely lacking in most of these films, which at best seem like earnest labors of love hampered by resources and inexperience and at worst seem like cynical attempts to cash in on an assumption that horror fans are willing to overlook poor quality in exchange for base thrills. In that respect, films like Bloodrunners are a pleasant respite from the legions of no-budget horrors constantly popping up on VOD. There’s certainly no lack of ambition in writer/director Dan Lantz’s tale of Prohibition-era vampires, and that’s something to be thankful for. The final product, however, leaves something to be desired.

  Chesterfield (Ice-T) is the bandleader at a new restaurant and jazz club in a small town, and business is booming. This is thanks to the fact that the club is also selling liquor. Crooked cop Jack Malone (Michael McFadden) has been casing the joint to find a way in to squeeze the owners for money to look the other way, and he’s discovered that Chesterfield actually owns the club although the “manager” is another gentlemen by the name of Renfield (Peter Patrikios). Jack and his partner hassle busboy Willie (Chris Boylan) and come to an agreement with Chesterfield, but the relative ease with which they reach an understanding has Jack wondering if there’s not something bigger than just some bootlegging. Before he knows it, Malone is in way over his head and a war between the cops and a powerful supernatural evil seems imminent.

  Again, Bloodrunners cannot be faulted for a lack of ambition. It’s a full-on period piece, complete with period-appropriate vehicles and some nice (if only intermittently convincing) production and costume design. The movie has a slick digital look that sometimes feels at odds with its period trappings. The biggest problem with the film is that its characters and story are never quite compelling enough to draw attention away from its technical issues. There are a number of shots where the camera is jostled, at least one shot where the focus is being fiddled with mid-take, another with an odd visual glitch, and a few inexplicable choices of shooting angles that block speaking characters’ faces. It may be that these issues are more noticeable because of the film’s clean look and solid sound mix–it looks like a much more expensive production that it probably was, but these smaller technical problems add up to betray that production value.

  All that said, there are plenty of things to admire about Bloodrunners. There’s some bloody action (with the requisite cheap CG effects, thankfully used sparingly), but much of the film concerns relationships between side characters. The cast is solid and everyone does a good job of fleshing out their characters even though they almost all feel like off-the-shelf parts. Despite Ice-T being the biggest name in the cast the standout performance here is Kerry McGann as Rosie, proprietor of the local brothel. She’s tough and funny, making Rosie memorable in defiance of the undeniably cliche nature of her character as a “hooker with a heart of gold.” Some of the interpersonal drama could have been jettisoned to slim down the film’s running time, but the pace never feels like it’s dragging too much. In the end, Bloodrunners is mostly notable for what it tries to do rather than what it actually accomplishes, but there are definitely much worse ways to spend 90 minutes. Take that as you will.

  The Bloodstained Butterfly (1971)

  Originally published on Film Monthly 24 August 2016

  Arrow Video continues their work in giving great new editions to classic Italian thrillers with their latest release, a Blu-ray/DVD combo of Duccio Tessari’s The Bloodstained Butterfly. Tessari’s Death Occurred Last Night recently received the Blu-ray treatment from Raro Video, but unfortunately many of his films have yet to see official home video releases in the States. One of his best, 1973′s No Way Out (aka Big Guns) starring Alain Delon, has seen a handful of repertory screenings around the country in the last few years but is otherwise unavailable. Arrow’s new release of The Bloodstained Butterfly is great news both for fans of Giallo cinema and Tessari in particular, and will hopefully stoke more interest in the director’s work.

  Françoise Pigaut (Carole André), a 17-year-old schoolgirl, is murdered in a public park. The killer flees, but a handful of people see him running away and the body is discovered immediately by a child playing in the park. The police begin their investigation and quickly realize the evidence points to one suspect. Alessandro Marchi (Giancarlo Sbragia), a wealthy man whose daughter Sarah (Wendy D’Olive) was Françoise’s best friend. Despite a strong testimony from Sarah’s boyfriend Giorgio (Helmut Berger), Marchi seems doomed to spend the rest of his life in jail. But when another murder occurs with an identical modus operandi and weapon, the police suddenly realize what looked like a crime of passion may have been carefully orchestrated by an ingenious serial killer.

  While it shares much with Giallo films, The Bloodstained Butterfly is more of a police procedural than most of its contemporaries. Instead of an amateur detective forced into an investigation by circumstance, the first half of this film focuses mostly on the police investigation of the initial murder. That’s not to say it’s too far removed from the luridly stylish Giallo, of course: the film opens with a sort of overture introducing all the major characters with a title card for each one while its florid score plays, and the plot takes a number of hard twists and turns before the ultimate reveal. It’s much more of a straightforward mystery and courtroom drama than some of its peers and less of a horror film, which makes it stand out from the crowd.

  Arrow’s Blu-ray/DVD set of the film is, as per usual, fantastic. The film itself has been restored in 4K from the original camera negative and looks spectacular, and there is a wealth of special features. In addition to a feature-length commentary with film writers Alan Jones and Kim Newman, the disc includes a nearly hour-long interview with actress Ida Galli (aka Evelyn Stewart) covering her entire career. There is also an 8-minute interview with Lorella De Luca (actress and wife of Duccio Tessari) and an interview with star Helmut Berger running over 17 minutes (in addition to a brief optional introduction to the film by Berger). Any fan of Giallo cinema will be delighted by “Murder in B Flat Minor,” a visual essay by author Troy Howarth running nearly half an hour discussing the genre and this film in particular. The disc is rounded out with a promotional stills gallery and the film’s theatrical trailer in English and Italian. The packaging is beautifully done, with a r
eversible sleeve and limited edition 36-page booklet illustrated by Tonci Zonjic, containing writing by James Blackford, Howard Hughes and Leonard Jacobs included in the first pressing of the set. The Bloodstained Butterfly may not be as well known as some of its more garish peers, but hopefully this new edition will help it gain the recognition it deserves.

  Bloody Moon (1981)

  Originally published on Daily Grindhouse 3 July 2014

  Severin Films has been quite generous to fans of early 80s “Video Nasties” lately. In addition to finally giving a Stateside release to the amazing “Video Nasties: The Definitive Guide” DVD set, they teamed up with Intervision to release two notorious Nazisploitation films on DVD (Gestapo’s Last Orgy and Deported Women of the SS Special Section). Now, they’ve put the cherry on top with a new Blu-ray release of Jesús Franco’s Bloody Moon, a great upgrade from their previous DVD release. This is particularly exciting for anyone looking for a good introduction to Franco’s films, as Bloody Moon is one of his most accessible and entertaining, while still keeping that trademark Franco weirdness

  Disfigured Miguel (Alexander Waechter) murders a young woman in a crime of passion and is sent away from his family for years. Miguel’s therapist recommends Manuela (Nadja Gerganoff), Miguel’s sister, that Miguel be returned to a low-stress environment and should not be reminded of the horrible incident again. So Manuela and Miguel naturally return to their home, a manor somehow connected to a Spanish language school owned by the siblings’ aunt, who hates Manuela and has disinherited her. Miguel hangs out around the school and peeps on the beautiful young women who have come to… learn Spanish?