The old adage, “The more things change, the more they stay the same” kept coming to mind while watching The Bloodletting. I began to think of all the terrible 80’s slasher films that dominated the home video market for years. They all had the same formula which involved a man who had escaped from an insane asylum and is hell bent on killing some young adults. Though The Bloodletting doesn’t share this same premise, it does share the same themes and follies that made those late 80’s horror flicks so bad. Here we are in 2005 and, truly, not much has changed.
It’s quite easy to say that the home video market spells fortune to a relatively small group of producers and filmmakers. All you really need is a few thousand bucks, some sexy young “actors” and a violence/gore/nudity quotient to fill and you are essentially guaranteed a cash return. The reason is that there are a ton of small distribution companies out there willing to sell your crappy film regardless of its level of crappiness.
Suffice to say that appears to have been the scenario for the filmmakers behind The Bloodletting. In every way imaginable, this film manages to nail (repeatedly) almost every horror cliché in the book, albeit in a sloppy and uncreative way from a filmmaking standpoint.
A group of college students decide to spend their night partying at a bar. One of the guys, who is also the director, Shaun Piccinino, brings along his British classmate Theo in an attempt to get him a date with one of his friends. After a horrible sequence of pseudo-dancing mixed with awkward dialogue the group decides to take off, and begin the drunken trek home. On their way, they come across a homeless man who for some inexplicable reason is able to see the future. He begins a prophetic rant telling the group they are in danger and what not.
They all return home in their respective couples, essentially every member of this group of friends are paired up as boyfriend and girlfriend, how quaint. Then one of the girls, a redhead whose name couldn’t be less important, decides to take out the trash and discovers the dead body of the homeless man, his face pale as if his blood had been drained! Fasten your seatbelts, folks. The girl is driven to hysteria, clearly, as she screams and goes boarder line comatose. Then a detective shows up, one detective, without a squad car and begins to snap pictures of the crime scene. The girl goes missing and the rest of the movie revolves around the remainder of the group trying to track her down only to find that she isn’t all that she seems….get it?…she is a vampire…
One could say that The Bloodletting is pretty clear from the get go on just what kind of movie this is. With that said, can you really bash a movie for being bad when it never sets out to be anything great in the first place? Yes, yes I can. For starters, this movie has to date some of the most gut wrenching dialogue ever recorded. It is so bad it made me literally cringe in pain. Coupled with the terrible script, we’ve got matching talent who are just as horrible. There isn’t one competent performance in this entire movie.
The Bloodletting doesn’t seem to succeed on any marks. The effects are minimal, and the ones that are there are simply too bad to have any impact. Granted, there are extensive fight sequences but they are so horribly shot that you lose interest before the first punch is thrown. This is compounded by the fact that the characters are all so one dimensional and boring that no one could really care if any of them dies in the first place.
Like most straight to video flicks of this caliber that are shot on video, there isn’t much in the way of bonus features or even a commentary. This is a barebones disk, no bonus features, full screen, 2.0 soundtrack. Enjoy!
Somehow The Bloodletting won best horror film at the New York independent film & video festival. Not to mention one of the actresses in the film won best actress. I don’t know what kind of mixture of fellatio and bribery went in to getting those awards but that alone could have made for a better film than this forgettable straight to video crapfest.
– Mark Masoumi
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
