Bloodstained Terror (2007)

Directors: Cody Cather and Doug Gehl
Stars: Dudley Bowlin, Jane Wines, Daren Palacio, Lianna Hubbard, Jake Cather, Brandon Bond, Ryan Mahoney, Austin Logue, Matt Anderson and Doug Gehl

This film was an official selection at the 3rd Phoenix Fear Film Fest in Tempe in 2010. Here's an index to my reviews of 2010 films.

Unashamedly loud and cheap from moment one, Bloodstained Terror obviously knows exactly what its limitations are but it really doesn't care. It's nothing but a bunch of amateur gorehounds emulating the double bill with trailers concept done by Grindhouse, but condensed to a running time of under six and a half minutes, credits not included, and apparently without even a hint of a budget. I have to admire the sheer balls it takes to attempt something like this and submit to a film festival, but realistically they ended up with roughly what you might expect they ended up with: a fun little home video with terrible acting, bad aging effects and next to no plot, but also copious amounts of gore, backyard wrestling and offensive fun. These are probably exactly the sort of guys you want to hang out with at weekends but, to be brutally honest, if I made a film at the weekend I doubt I'd want to watch it at a film festival either.

The 'double feature' is Blood Wine and Reelestate Terror or, to be more accurate, Cody Cather's Blood Wine and Brandon Bond in Reelestate Terror, as there's more humour here than you might initially expect and these complete unknowns play up the cheesy antics of the stars pretty well. Blink and you'll miss a character named Bigot Tree. Blood Wine has an arguing couple walk in on a pair of cannibals mid-munch who promptly eat them too. Reelestate Terror has an agent show a house full of serial killers with inevitable effect, but he saves the day with his wrestling moves. In between the two is a trailer for a picture apparently called Jesus Christ Presents: You Suck at Life. Yeah, I said there's a lot of humour here. I didn't say that it's particularly deep. What would you expect from a picture with a credit thanking Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantino and Lucio Fulci? Well that's exactly what you get here. You can't diss these guys for false advertising.

To be brutally honest, it's not a bad way to spend seven minutes if you're into this sort of thing. The wrestling is surprisingly capable and the gore is agreeably plentiful. I can't believe anyone could be bored when that seven minutes includes two separate stories and a trailer, jam packed full of grindhouse blatancy. It's not unfair to point out that there are ninety minute features out there with plots just as flimsy as these. On the other hand it can't be ignored that the production quality is so low that it approaches non-existent. It's obvious that the realtor's costume is a suit jacket on top of whatever metal shirt Brandon Bond showed up in. The lighting and sound are abysmal and I'd suggest the money all went on gore effects if I didn't believe that Cody Cather, Doug Gehl and their colleagues at The Terror Studios just pooled whatever cool props they had sitting in their closets already. As deep underground as it gets, on its own terms it's genius.