Blood Creek

 So off to my local video store last night did my little feet take me.....then carried me home with eleven DVDs stashed under my arm! But my goodness at what cost! $28.00!!! And as I write this it is Thursday afternoon here in NZ so it is movie night at the flicks, and that is $15.30, so that is $43.30 I've spent on movies in just under two days. It is an expensive past time to say the least.

 Grumbles aside I must remember the quote 'If your hobbies aren't costing you money, it's time to get new ones', well I spend a small fortune each year on movies so I don't think I need to discard it as a hobby just yet!! 

 I read a review on Blood Creek on Emily's blog The Quest to Watch Every Movie Ever Made. She is a self confessed horror fan but also watches a wide variety of other genres too. I like her blog and that title is brilliant! On looking back I wish I'd shown more imagination in my choice of blog title. At the time I intended to only write of my trips to theatre viewed movies, but things have developed in their own way and have made my blog title somewhat redundant. Anyway after reading Emily's review I plucked this off the shelf and watched it first up last night.

 It is under the horror genre but it really isn't a horror to my mind. It isn't scary for a start. There are some gore moments but they are no worse or more graphic than the two movies I watched after this mess of a movie. In short before WW2 the Nazis look into the occult believing it can help them in their quest for world domination. They know of some ancient Nordic runestones in Virginia and dispatch a professor to check one out on a German family's farm and offer them a substantial amount of money to put him up.
 He is shown the runestone and things get strange as he brings a young girl's dead pet bird back to life and then starts to feed on her blood. We then switch to the future and things get messy as the film races ahead too fast and some massive holes appear in plausibility. The problem here is we are led to believe that a guy's brother had disappeared two years previously in the swamps nearby and not since alive since. In virtually the next scene lo and behold he turns up long haired and scruffy and his brother basically just goes, 'oh cool your back'.
 Like I say, plausibilty here there is little! Next thing the lost brother says grab the guns cos we're going out to kill someone and the brother just goes OK. I mean there was no explanation as to why, where he had been for two years, what had happened, etc. It was just pure nonsense. Next thing they are the German family's farm shooting at them and we still have no idea why...I mean we sort of know the synopsis from the cover of the DVD but walking onto a strangers farm and blazing away with no explanations to why was ludicrous.
 Then they accidently let the professor out of his make shift prison and things denegrate into a bit of a vampire gore fest, chase and shoot, zombie, vampirey, occultism type load of stuff. All poorly done and just a real mess. Sure it is b-grade but even b-grade can make a better effort than this I'm afraid. Budget isn't everything. As a horror it misses the mark because there are no scares or creepiness. It delves into a few zombie and vampire moments but they are never horror like in feel.  The main protagonist arrived in 1936 wearing a cool leather coat but as a later day vampire running around a farm in it 70 years later looked utterly stupid. He never looks scary or menacing and the people who are killed and brought back to life unconvincing or menacing as zombies. The CGI is bad, but worst of all is the script. It is the true horror here!
 It is bad because it is a brilliant premise that offered so much but deliverd on none of it. The occult side of the story is gone into very little and explained in a rush with references to a few books brought with the professor. It is a real shame because the idea of a figure who had used ancient rune stones to gain powers through the occult in which he intended to menace the world for his Nazi beliefs was chilling in its premise. It just didn't go there enough and it was a frustrating watch as the film just slipped away into mediocrity.
 Some ideas were good like the vampire being unable to drink his own blood to stay alive as it would be poisonous. The idea that the family had found a symbol that contained the vampire on the farm and out of their house was good to.  But then it turned around as we found out the family was catching locals to feed the vampire. Why do that? Why not leave it in its makeshift prison and let it starve??  Also we are led to believe the vampire cannot fight a person who wears the bones of his ancestors. We then see one brother put on some of the Vampires ancestors bones that are convieniently in the barn and yet is still fighting it! I mean what the....? I thought we were just told he couldn't fight....oh never mind. So many holes will have you shaking your fist at the screen at the dumbness of it all.
 This movie really pissed me off. It had a brilliant premise that centred around occultism but it hardly went into it and denegrated into straight out rubbish. It is rushed with no explanation within the script as it moves along and is frustrating for it. You feel yourself getting more annoyed at the unrealism of what is happening and you are constantly asking why and looking for answers that take too long in coming. There are several contradictions too that leave you throwing your hands up in air in exasperation and yelling 'that is not what was just said'
 A really good idea that is thrown away in a very, very mediocre movie. You finish watching it wanting to kick the cat  in frustration. It is like eating a big fancy looking meal that ultimately leaves you feeling empty in the realisation that it wasn't what it looked like and should have been much, much better. All I can say in conclusion is........grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!
Click here for more disapointment:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_Creek
And here for even more mediocrity:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0450336/

 Just a short historical note here. Heinrich Himmler who was chief of the SS and Gestapo among his many nefarious activities actually did dabble in mysticism and the likes. He employed various scholars to look into 'Aryanism' and the likes. I wouldn't go as far as saying they went into the occult but it is historical fact that mystism was taken quite seriously by Himmler and some of his closest cronies. Most of the Nazi elite thought he was something of a crackpot and dismissed his 'findings' out of hand.
 So while this movie is total fiction there are some allusions to reality.