Customer Reviews

Bloodshed

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

 

 

Brothers Frankie and Donnie reside with their grandmother in a secluded home where they've lived their entire lives. Supposedly when the bros were kids, an incident occurred that culminated in their parents getting brutally murdered. The rumors in the small town where they reside have always involved the siblings being the perpetrators of said massacre. But c'mon, these guys couldn't hurt a fly, what with Donnie being a bit on the slow side and earning extra cash making homemade jam while Frankie does his part in the robust career of firewood and all. Wait a sec... that firewood biz does involve an axe. Also makes a handy accessory to help out his brother from getting a beatdown after getting busted peeping on a couple's quality time in the woods. And for every one chopped up, there's always one or two more witnesses that justify additional chopping. Even with the horrible acting and weak story, the blood/gore content, disturbing behavior of the brothers and a couple of decent camera angles almost earned this no-budgeter a second star (though not much to brag about if accomplished). The short and completely confusing ending then officially sank this crap to the bottom of the barrel. A drudgery in independent filmmaking, indeed. 1.5/10

Bloodshed: 8 out of 10: When I discuss no-budget horror films with my friends. (Or the voices in my head) We often sound like those Monty Python coal miners trying to out-do the horrors of each others childhood. "Raptor Island hah I sat through San Franpyscho." "San Franpyscho is an Academy Award picture compared to Dark Harvest 3. Now that's cinematic pain." So I began to question myself on why I would purposely rent such films as Heartstopper or Warriors of Terra when there are plenty of fine Hollywood productions starring Nicholas Cage such as National Treasure or The Wicker Man I could be watching instead.

Okay the recent Cage oeuvre may be a very bad example but the question remains why torture myself with what is basically other people's home movies. Bloodshed is the answer to that question.

It is one of those rare no-budget films where the acting isn't grating, the script is competent and the direction is actually good. The film even delivers both genuine tension and characters you actually care about.

In terms of pacing and characters it handily beats out most Hollywood films let alone most Hollywood horror films. (Before you accuse me of exaggerating please remember that every Adam Sandler comedy is considered a Hollywood film. I'm grading on a curve here people.) Bloodshed is bragging rights, a true gem in a field of'.. well incompetent home movies.

Is the film perfect? Well no. It is slow to start (this turns into one of it's charms), the sheriff could have been played better and the ending is pretty awful.

Overall a good film and considering its genre and budget a very very good film indeed.

The ending to this movie really disappointed me. Did she survive or was she just dreaming that part? Was the older brother choking her at the end? Another major problem I have with this one is that it took so much time and effort to develop the other three characters, shouldn't one of them have survived? I always love the "lost in the woods" theme. And what happened that made the mentally challenged brother, all of a sudden, start talking like he was the head of Microsoft. That is a mystery. There were too many questions for me to give this movie more than two stars, though I have seen much worse. The acting was good, as was the idea, but the story was not put together well. The reasoning for killing the two lovebirds at the end made no sense at all, even for serial killers.

Also, it seemed to me that the relationship between the kidnapped waitress and the retarded brother should have been written better. His developing feelings for her could have led him to help her escape and even have a fight to the death with his brother. The movie lead us to believe that he was innocent and niave, being misled by his older brother. All of a sudden he turns normal and then has his throat slashed by who I thought was his crush, in the middle of a fight.

I think the story had its' jugular slashed.