Bloodmyth

Bloodmyth (2006)

After watching a few hundred low budget independent movies I’ve come to the conclusion that they all fit into 4 categories. You have movies that exceed all expectations and are obviously made by some very talented filmmakers who are able to overcome lack of budget. Then you have movies that are entertaining, but are still obviously low budget. Next up are the average/mediocre movies that are worth watching once, but aren’t very memorable. Finally you have the movies that are so awful that they create some animosity or anger for the time that you have lost watching them. So lets see where Bloodmyth fits, shall we?

Bloodmyth is your typical survivalist/slasher movie. Here you have a group of city folks that head out on a wilderness survival trip to prove themselves. While on the trip the group runs into a psychotic killer that starts to pick them off one at a time. The rest of the movie is an ever-decreasing group of survivors trying to escape the madman. Other than an interesting twist to the killer’s motivations there isn’t much else to the movie’s plot.

As you can probably tell there isn’t much to the plot that we as horror fans haven’t seen time and again. And unfortunately the plot is the best thing about the movie. While it is very familiar the story does have an interesting twist with the killer’s identity and motivation as I’ve already said. And while Bloodmyth shows the killer pretty early on, not knowing why the killings are happening did keep me interested until the end. So I do want to give the filmmakers credit for a decently written script.

Now that I’ve given the movie it’s props for the story I do have to point out some pretty glaring flaws. First up the acting isn’t very good. There are a couple of serviceable actors in the cast, but much of the dialogue is delivered awkwardly. My favorite character is the killer played by John Rackham, who is the best actor, as well as writer and director of the movie. Now to be fair I’m not sure if it was a quick shoot and they just didn’t have the time for many retakes or if perhaps this was the best they could do. Either way there are way too many lines being tripped over for me to not notice. This is especially noticeable in the first 30 minutes of the movie where the characters are introduced. Once the killer shows up things do get better, or maybe I was just distracted with the “action”.

Why did I put the word action in parenthesis? Bloodmyth actually hit right on one of my biggest pet peeves with independent horror movies. If you are going to make a slasher movie then you need to deliver some kills and gore. It doesn’t matter if your makeup effects are silly or not, you at least have to try. Know I don’t know if I’m somehow insulting the filmmakers when I consider Bloodmyth to be a slasher movie. But if it quacks like a duck then it’s a duck, no matter what you think. With that in mind I was terribly disappointed with the complete lack of gore. Hell most of the kills happen off screen. Actually thinking about it all the kills actually happen off screen. Even when we do get to see a woman bleed to death there is barely a red stain on her shirt! He cuts her throat and you can’t even rig up a basic blood tube for a few squirts of the red stuff? I was very disappointed.

I could go on and get nitpicky about the other things that I thought weren’t up to par (sound, grainy night shots, etc.) but that would be piling on and I don’t really want to do that. To refer back to the beginning of the review I’d have to say that Bloodmyth is at best a mediocre movie. The story is interesting enough and I do sort of like the killer’s motivations (which are really creepy and funny at the same time). But after watching the movie once and letting that cat out of the bag I can’t imagine every sitting down for this one again. If only they had made some attempts at gore they might have been onto something. This is a rental at best. If you are interested in this movie check out the Seminal Films website for more information at http://www.seminalfilms.com/

2 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer