HorrorFAIL: BLOODSPELL (1988)

Nick has been lost in the Bermuda Triangle for some time.  He finally found his way out and decided to write up another HorrorFAIL!

I’ve said it before, and I will say it again, when it comes to movies that Troma picks up from third parties you’re usually wandering into hit-or-miss territory, and unfortunately the 1988 film Bloodspell (aka The Boy from Hell) lands in the miss category.  The film was directed by Deryn Warren and written by Jerry Daly. Daly went on to write Witchcraft III, which we all know what that means… That’s right, we never heard of it and we don’t know what we’re walking into.

Synopsis:

Daniel Redding (Anthony Jenkins) is the son of Luther (John Reno) and Jane (Susan Buchanan) Redding. The family has some secret: Luther’s father is an evil man hoping to possess either his son or wife in order to prolong his life. In order to protect her son, Jane sends him to St. Bonifast Hostle for Troubled Teens. There Daniel tries to get a long with it’s many residents however he gets possessed by the spirit of his father (after he fails and kills dear old mom). The only person who gets an inkling of what’s going on is Charlie (Aarin Teich), a troubled teenager who is in love with the suicidal Debbie (Alexandra Kennedy). As his fellow troubled teens get picked off one by one by the increasingly violent Daniel/Luther, Charlie is the only one who’s catching on, and of course — as these things tend to go — nobody believes him until the body count gets high enough. In the end Charlie and his guidance councilor Tony (Edward Dloughy) confront Daniel/Luther in the basement of his parents house where Luther intends to impregnate Debbie so that he might possess her offspring. Eventually Luther abandons Daniel to possess Debbie and this whole sordid affair gets sorted out when Daniel prays to God who sends down cleansing lightning to clean up the mess, ending the threat of Luther forever.

Story: F

Let’s talk about the story here: What we’ve got ourselves is your typical bland pick off all the quirky teenagers plot that was all too common from the 1980’s. The fact that it takes place in a home for troubled teenagers makes me wonder if Jerry Daily didn’t swipe the premise from A Nightmare on Elm St. Part 3: Dream Warriors, as the teen-murder-delivery-system is pretty much the same. Luther picks everyone off one by one, none of the councilors and staff believe that there is some supernatural force killing people just really bad accidents.

The premise of Luthor needing to possess the body of one of his offspring so that he might be reborn is a bit of a wrinkle on an old concept. Okay, so he wants to cheat death and keep on going for all eternity. But possessing the body of your offspring? That’s kind of messed up. Welcome to the ultimate Freudian/Oedipus complex double header. The concept is kind of disturbing. So essentially the father impregnates the mother and then possesses the child? Thankfully, this doesn’t happen in utero or during the conception phase… However, I suspect that if this movie was made 20 years later and was given enough of a budget… (Seriously, we’re living in a generation where we have seen Jerry O’Connell’s penis get eaten by piranha in 3-D… Don’t tell me they wouldn’t have done it.)

Showing Your Work: F-

Class, it is very important to remember to show your work, Bloodspell is a perfect example of what happens when you don’t explain what you are doing. I would like to direct your attention to the plot element of Luther Redding. Just what the hell is Luther Redding? Is he a demon? The devil himself? A magician?

Sometimes in a movie it doesn’t really matter what your villain is, however in such a piece as Bloodspell, where you lack simple concepts such as character development (beyond the whole “My name is Debbie and I cut myself because I’m disturbed” kind of way) you might want to at least explain where your movie monster is coming from. If your audience is going to give at least two shits about your movie you should at least toss them a bone about that because if your characters completely blow, then they’re going to expect a little more from your villain because chances are they’re going to be rooting for them instead.

Also the possession thing? What’s the deal with that — I mean how exactly does that work and why has he been doing it for so long? I mean, okay, yes there’s the whole “I want to live on for ever” element, but you’ve got to give us something a little more meaty to bite on to. Like, I don’t know.. Like why maybe? It’s not like Luther is decrepitly old when he decides to murder his wife, possess his son, and rape poor young Debbie so he can repeat the whole cycle. That’s a whole lot of effort and magic just for the sole purpose of wanting to cheat death alone. Where did he learn that trick? Why is he worried about staying young when he looks like he’s only in his early 40’s.

Why not make him a lot older? Like in his 60’s, or maybe 70’s. Sure that makes the fact that he has a teenage son a little less believable (but in all respects, it does happen out there in the world) or failing that like his current host body has an incurable disease or something. At least that would give the viewer something more tangible than “Well he’s just a real evil asshole” that the movie offers up. If there is some sort of urgency to needing to switch bodies (other than plain old vanity) it just makes the lengths this guy goes to achieve his goal seem pretty ridiculous.

Like why does he want to cheat death? Did he make a deal with the devil that he’s trying to cheat out of? That would make some sense to me at least.

Characters: C-

The cast of characters are pretty much cookie-cutter teenagers that are interchangeable with any other horror movie.  Over embellished stereotypes instead of character development. How many times will writers make this same mistake I wonder? Having a black character like hip-hop music isn’t character development, that’s a stereo-type. That said, let’s take a look at who is in this Sjeveltian Elf-Loaf:

Joe (Christopher G. Venuti) – Joe is your typical jock who, naturally, enjoys playing practical jokes. His hobbies include dribbling a football between his hands and smoking in bed. He is torched to death while smoking in bed, so at least he died doing what he loved most.

Georgie (Kimble Jeminson) – Joe’s right hand man, because what other emasculating jock isn’t complete without an annoying sidekick! Naturally he’s an annoying SOB, but at least the writer had a good mine to take him through a personal tour through the inside of a wood-chipper. Unfortunately, we’re looking at Woodchipper Massacre level gore here. I am personally docking this movie marks for squandering the potential of a good wood-chipper.

The rest of the cast include Claudia (Tia Lachelle), Peggy (Heather Green) and Dolores (Jaqueline Coon) all characters who … don’t really do much. So why are they even in this movie other than to fill space in scenes? What’s worse than a character with ZERO character development that gets killed off in the movie? One that doesn’t. Because as you and I know full well, if they aren’t being killed off they are doing something to piss off the viewer, and these three characters have it to a T.

Of course we have Debbie, who other than being the suicidal love interest and potential B-Nut for Luthor, she doesn’t do much but almost die a few times, making you wish that miracles do come true and — sometimes — the annoying characters kill themselves. Unfortunately, miracles don’t happen.

Last but not least, and the only reason why this movie doesn’t get a F rating is the role of Charlie. The actor playing Charlie is your typical pretty boy with muscles with no discernible acting talent, the only difference is that he is playing the role of a somewhat mentally challenged guy who often has freak outs. How can I explain this? Well they say a pictures are worth a thousand words so here we go:

Our main character looks something like this:

But sounds and acts like this:

Don’t get me wrong, I am not making fun of people with down syndrome, I’m just saying that’s what the character acts like. Which is very fucking weird looking considering the fact hat he’s a hunky beef-cake that is running around mostly shirtless during the whole film. It’s kind of like an episode of the Twilight Zone or something.

All I have to say is wait for the scene where Charlie freaks out because Debbie cut her wrists and wont talk about it, he freaks out and just starts attacking some vines. He goes right to town on them. It makes the whole movie.

 

Deux Ex Machine: F-

The solution to defeating Luther is to pray to God to stop him from raping Debbie? I cannot believe that this hypothesis would work out and I am sure that it would be illegal to try and test it out in the real life. But I am willing to hazard a guess that if you were trying to stop your friend from getting raped by praying to God, I don’t really count on much success.

This sort of conclusion to the script is, quite frankly, lazy. Religious context is not a common theme forced into the film, but it’s sloppily insertion at the beginning (the fact that this hostel for troubled teens is religiously based) and the end scene where Daniel prays to God to save the day. That’s it. It’s not like this film is a mouth piece by some god-fearing writer with excessive moral undertones. This film runs like an incredibly watered down horror film that someone lazily plopped in some brief religious context.

I can just imagine how the pitch for this film could have went:

“Okay, Daly, you have us hooked on this whole kid possessed by his father’s evil spirit thing. What did that again? Was it the devil?”

“Uh, sure..”

“Great! So the evil spirit has the young girl cornered and is about to impregnate her.. Then what?”

“Um.. Uh… God fixes it… I guess.”

Gore: F –

There is almost zero gore in this movie. Not that you need gore to make for a good movie, but if you’re turning in a dull piece of work like this, you better entertain me with some special effects because you’re dragging on all your other subject matter.

 

That all said, Bloodspell gets a failing grade. If you want to check it out, the fine folks at Troma have released it in a Troma Triple-B-Header collection (which you can purchase, if you dare, from Amazon.com below) along with the movies Alien Blood and Drawing Blood, if you can get past that tired Lloyd Kaufman/Debbie Rochon generic dub-over-the-DVD-details introduction that they were sticking on all their DVD releases circa 2004-2006 then check it out. The other movies aren’t that much greater (Drawing Blood being an almost literal title and Alien Blood being some weird X-Files/Matrix mash-up/rip-off) and maybe inductees in a later edition of HorrorFAIL.

 

If you have a movie suggestion that is worthy of a HorrorFAIL distinction drop me a line! Nick (at) Dorkswithoutfaces (d0t) com!