Customer Reviews

Blood Relations

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

BLOOD RELATIONS starts out like an erotically-charged thriller, turns into a mystery, and winds up a full-blown, manic horror fiesta! Nothing is as it seems. The story will appear to be heading in a certain direction, only to take a quick, off-kilter turn. Lydie Denier is the increasingly perplexed Marie. She slowly uncovers the family secrets that will cost her so dearly. Kevin Hicks is Marie's unpredictable fianceé, Thomas. Jan Rubes plays the overly-friendly, possibly unbalanced patriarch of this little psycho-drama. He definitely has hidden parts to his personality! BR is twisted, absurd, and in the end, utterly satisfying...

Don't listen to them, if you like b-movies with a bite to it, I highly recommend this movie.
Lydie Denier is amazing, beautiful and a very convincing actress. It's not really graphic until the end part. There are mild sexual scenes but not to the point of an R rating.

When a young man brings his fiancee home to the family mansion to meet the relatives, sinister happenings start to occur all around. In a plot that should be too wacky to work but somehow does, it seems everybody has deep secrets and wicked motivations, with the young couple evidently scheming to knock the man's extremely wealthy father off in order to collect a large inheritance; with the father possibly guilty in the 'accidental' death of his own wife a couple of years back and possibly having sinister plans for his son's fiancee; and with the very aged, bed-ridden grandfather seemingly having some skeletons in his closet as well. Throw into this the family doctor's apparant involvement with at least one nasty plot and his girlfriend's role in all of this, and it's hard to believe this isn't the outline for a farcical comedy. But it's not, and somehow it manages to pull it off. There's no question that there's a camp factor in here, but Blood Relations is another reminder that, occasionally, some campiness isn't all that bad. Although most of the characters are pretty villainous, they're interesting, and there's some doubt as to just how guilty some of the parties really are or how far they plan to take their ideas; nonetheless there are few traditional 'innocents' in here.

There are some definate problems with the movie that I'll address quickly; one is the sound job - during the early parts much of the movie is unintentionally hard to hear without having the volume so loud that the rest of the movie is thunderous; thankfully this is limited primarilily to two or three early scenes. And occasionally the gaps in logic go too far, and require a sizable suspension of disbelief.

Beyond those shortcomings, the movie is loaded to the max with classic horror/mystery elements. With eerie and effective lighting, a great harpsichordish musical score, ominously creaking doors, a mansion in the wilderness, hidden passages and secret corridors, and the mystery of just what unholy frights are hidden away in the basement, not to mention a considerable sexy edge (bolstered by the beautiful and frequently naked Lydie Denier in the lead female role), this is the kind of movie that will make afficionados of this type of horror (like myself) overlook a couple of gaffes. Highly recommended.

BLOOD RELATIONS plays like as twisted episode of TWILIGHT ZONE or NIGHT GALLERY, with Jan Rubes doing a pretty good Vincent Price imitation in his role as the rather demented doctor who has dire plans for his wayward son's new fiancee...just as he and she have similar plans for him..or do they? Lydie Denier is a pretty good femme fatale and Kevin Hicks, looking a little like a young blonde Mel Gibson, is a studly partner. The movie's writer Steven Saylor also joins in the murderous merriment as a crooked lawyer. It's all been done before and there aren't really any surprises, but it's demented humor saves it from being a total washout.