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• Region: Region 2 (Read more about DVD formats.)
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• ASIN: B000A1KU5O
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #398,965 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not as compelling as I remembered..., January 22, 2006

By 

Kasey G (Toronto, ON) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Blood Relatives [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - Great Britain ] (DVD)

...but then again, a quarter-century does change your perception. I first saw this on TV in the summer of 1981, and I guess it would be intriguing to a 12-year-old, but having purchased an ex-rental copy on a nostalgic whim, I must say this is a rather shoddy production, made even more suprising by the fact that Donald Sutherland usually signs on for more prestigious and well-received projects.

The production values here are what you'd expect of a university film student's first attempt.

Aside from Sutherland, the rest of the cast deliver their lines as though they were extras randomly plucked from the streets of Montreal, where this was filmed.

**SPOILERS AHEAD** The plot concerns the murder of 17-year-old Muriel Stark, who is brutally knifed to death in a dirty alleyway when her and her 15-year-old cousin Patricia are on their way home from a party. Patricia suffers some knife wounds but ultimately escapes and runs to the police station.

Things get murky for detective Sutherland when Patricia identifies a police decoy in the lineup as the attacker. Then, at Muriel's funeral, Patricia's brother Andrew (who inexplicably is the only family member to speak with an English accent), dramatically throws himself on the casket sobbing, after which Patricia tells Sutherland Andrew committed the murder.

Patricia's mother overacts ridiculously; there is a boring red-herring subplot about a pedophile suspect, and tons more bad acting before things get a tad more interesting in the final half-hour.

We learn that Muriel kept a diary and when Sutherland finds it a trash can down the block from Patricia's house the flashbacks kick in indicating the serious incestuous relationship that was blossoming between Muriel and her cousin Andrew.

When Sutherland recognizes that dialogue from the diary are the exact words Patricia claimed the killer uttered to Muriel right before her death, the jig is up and he confronts the girl, who ultimately goes into hysterics revealing herself to be Muriel's actual killer.

The only good thing I can say to recommend this mess is that it is definitely a product of its time, with the dated hairstyles and fashions being good for a laugh, and it is a mercifully short film, clocking in at 95 minutes.