Customer Reviews

Blood Trails

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

 

 

Shot in a harsh mini-DV format with an oversaturation of colors, "Blood Trails" is, aesthetically, a visually arresting pic. Its raw lens is focused mainly on a bike messenger named Anne, whose relationship with her boyfriend, Michael, is on the rocks. In a weak moment, she agrees to a one-night stand with a steady-eyed bicycle cop (Chris), and immediately regrets it, as Chris gets a little ... weird. Rueful and ashamed, she tries, the next day, to patch things up with Michael via a nice, quiet bike ride in the woods.

The daytrip turns out to be neither nice nor quiet. Chris has followed them into the mountainside forests and demands complete possession of Anne, which starts with him dispatching of Michael in a ludicrous and altogether laughable fashion. The "horror" that follows Anne for the rest of this tepid film is, we are meant to realize, the repercusions of her single, adulterous mistake.

The problem is that Anne, like most Slasher Pic Sirens, continues to make mistakes in her attempts to find safety and freedom. In fact, of the many, many, many horror/killer films I've seen, Anne has got to be, hands-down, the absolute stupidest heroine I have ever had the misfortune to watch. I wondered, as the film progressed, how any clear-thinking director could expect an audience to find Anne sympathetic, her actions understandable, or her position terrifying.

Not that our villain is any more relatable. In addition to possessing a humbling silence common for most malicious men, Chris is also, apparantly, an expert tracker with something like superhuman strength and agility. Neither he nor Anne seem very real until the final scene. This last burst of full-flowered action is a welcome change of pace, but it is also short and truncated. One gets the impression that almost the entire movie was made on the basis of this inspired conclusion.

Almost. It was also (rather obviously) built upon an allegory of self-discovery and sexuality, and this is why -- I believe -- the film fails so fully. Instead of trying to tell an engaging story of escape and fear, our director and writer (Robert Krause) has lifted a maudlin metaphor out of the cheesiest of self-help books for women and has tried to give it animus and color. Anne, you see, is running from herself. Chris, you see, is her unlikely mentor, here to teach her all about the grisly corners of the human soul. This is why her actions are all so inane -- they are no more or less ridiculous than the rationalizations we use for the most common of human decisions (staying with the abusive spouse, smoking that cigarette, drinking and driving). In this case, Anne is running not from Chris, but from what she likes about Chris. Her fear is not that Chris will kill her, but that he WON'T. Don't you get it? It's all one. Big. Symbol.

It's also one big trainwreck of a film, deeper meanings notwithstanding. Metaphors and allegories are NO substitute for a good story, I don't care how profound or true the underlying message is. Krause has got the pacing down. He knows how to knit together a scene with crisp and crass chromatics. He even frames his moments rather well. But if a runner is going nowhere, pacing doesn't matter. If there is nothing interesting to see, color makes no difference. And if your Big Message is transmitted by symbols that are hollow and mundane, no amount of clever framing will make them seem anything other than dull.

When it comes to being repulsed by a horror film the most obvious line of demarcation has to do with blood and gore. There is a whole genre of horror films out there today whose primary intent is not just to make you cover your eyes or turn away, but to puke up your cuts ("Saw III", "Wolf Creek", and "Hostel" are just a few notable examples of this particular genre). But clearly there are people who do not want to see Hannibal Lecter sauteing slices of someone's brain let along organs and entrails up close and personal. However, in reading reviews of horror movies and thinking my own personal calculus for evaluating such films I have a working hypothesis that there is a second cinematic element for which viewers have a personal threshold, namely the stupidity of the characters. This is not restricted to the stereotypical damsel in distress, because the remake of "House of Wax" was dominated by the males of the species doing things that made them deserve to die. That being said, it is the female protagonist who keeps trying to prove she is too stupid to live in a horror film where director Robert Krause ("Checkpoint") is trying to come up with something different. The result is a mixed bag.

Rebecca Palmer is Anne, a bike messenger who an unfortunate and quite weird one night stand with Chris (Ben Price), a cycling policeman. The bad night ends before it goes too far, but Anne is feeling guilty when she and her boyfriend Michael (Tom Frederic) go biking in the mountains together. Her confession about what happened coincides with Chris' sudden appearance and before Michael can get too mad or fully understand what happened he is dead and Anne is fleeing through the woods with Chris in pursuit. They are not alone in the woods, which allows Krause to mix up the scenes with Anne on the bicycle with Chris adding to his kill count. The locale is part of the appeal here, although I do not know if we are talking the Black Forest or Bavarian Alps or whatever ("Blood Trails" was filmed in Germany, which probably explains why some of the supporting cast never says anything). Consequently there is a lot more green than you usually see in a slasher film. Like "Wolf Creek" and "Broken" this is a survival horror film, with Chris as the cat, Anne as the mouse, and everybody else as road kill.

The film is shot on Mini-DV so the hand-held camera is always in motion and Krause favors close-ups of Anne looking around one side of the tree and then the other, over and over again, trying to spot Chris in the forest (think the look of the original "Friday the 13th" but with better images). The weakness of "Blood Trails" is that there are several times when Anne could be safe or able to defend herself and she makes a stupid choice. One such error, namely the first one, might be forgivable, but after that all bets are off (ask yourself this simple question: you are in a vehicle and a psycho killer is coming after you. Do you drive away from them or towards them?). Add that to all of the looking around trees and I was becoming less and less impressed with this 2006 film. Then we get to the end game and things change dramatically and for the worst (which in a horror film is better).

You would think you know what is going to happen if and when Chris catches Anne, but I found "Blood Trails" took a slightly different path at that point, saving what is the scariest part of the film for the last. Those inclined to cover their eyes at this point will be as likely to do so because of the psychology involved as the blood involved. I found myself thinking that Chris was really a sick bastard, which is suppose to be true of the slasher in a slasher film, but you do not always feel that and this time I did. Perhaps the natural beauty of the setting of the rest of the film made this ending seem more intense. I was distracted by the penultimate deaths in the film, which happen off screen because I do not think they could come up with a realistic way for them to happen, but then we get to the end of this movie and I can tell you that I rounded up here just because of the last shot. I thought that I was seeing one thing, which would be pretty unique for a horror film, but it turns out Krause was going for a flip of something else. Most horror films do not save the best for last, but there was enough in the final act here to reverse my thinking about "Blood Trails." Anne is too stupid to live, but this film is not too stupid to see.

BLOOD TRAILS is a very calm and precise horror film. It is not a crazy chase slasher type picture, although it does have those traditional moments and they take place on mountain bikes providing a new sort of thrill.

It is a gorgeous looking movie that introduces you to a good looking killer in the opening scene and then spends the rest of the movie nudging our heroine Anne into his arms. It is a romance told through the slasher formula. And this particular courtship is breathtaking and shocking to watch.

Against wide shots of the mountain location(Austria I believe), the personal story of a girl cheating on her boyfriend and regretting how dark the experience got--not the act itself, unfolds in intimate, frantic spurts. She runs, she hides, she asks for help. The killer eliminates all help. This dance eventually forces Anne to confront why she's running, and it is here when the movie goes far beyond the typical horror film. Fans of THE AUDITION will enjoy this intense climax.

First of all, I have to say that the only reason this got two stars is because I thought the premise was very interesting (althought not well executed) and the cinematogrophy (that is defintely spelled wrong) was fantastic. Other than that, was boring....almost fast forwarded to the end, but was worried that maybe I would miss something profound.....no such luck. Was very disappointed...

Not the best horror flick, but it's cool to watch, especially if you like to go bike riding, makes you think, something crazy could happen! LOL

Great horror movie. I paid only $2 for this and it was well worth it. I'm a biker myself and I've done trail riding so I found the mountain biking scenes were awesome! You can really feel the thrill of riding down the mountain. It's a good thriller movie. But if you're a biker get It for those, there is biking throughout the movie you won't be dissappointed.

**SPOILERS** What I liked about this film was mainly the scenery. It was shot in I believe Germany. Blood Trails is a different type of horror film about a girl being chased by bike (yes, bicycle) through the mountains after having a one night stand with a psycho cop. She is a bicycle messenger and he happens to be a...Bicycle cop. Yes, I know. However there are a few good kill scenes and the gore was decent. The acting is ok but sadly the people are idiots that could have avoided death quite easily had they used common sense. The scene where her boyfriend is killed should provoke a laugh. All in all though if you are looking for a no brainer horror flick this fits the bill. I was torn between 2 and 3 stars but it was a bit entertaining so...

The creators of this movie are honestly insulting our intelligence. After half way through this movie I couldn't take anymore. I place this movie in the same waste basket as the new version of the Hitcher and Wolf Creek. It has the same elements. The usual car that doesn't start, the chances for the victims to escape that aren't taken for some odd reason, the retarded people that walk right up to the criminals so they can kill them. To top it all off, it has the girl run out of gas after she starts the truck. As though they want us to believe that the workers in the woods didn't notice that fact that they wouldn't have had enough gas to made it back themselves! Enough. I will not be insulted. At least give an effort to think of the things people just aren't going to do, and situations that aren't going to happen.

Very bad acting, unreal scenario already seen again and again.
Save your money and time and try something else.

THIS IS ONE OF THE BEST DIRECT-TO-DVD MOVIES THAT I'VE SEEN IN QUITE SOME TIME! WELL WORTHY OF THEATRICAL EXHIBITION AND A LOT BETTER THAN MOST OF THE MOVIES RELEASED THEATRICALLY!
IF YOU LIKE MOVIES ABOUT OBSESSED SERIAL KILLERS..THEN CHECK THIS ONE OUT!
I THOROUGHLY ENJOYED IT AND FANS OF THE SLASHER GENRE SHOULD ENJOY IT AS WELL!!