With all the 2018 lists behind us, I plan to get back to my normal format soon, but there were still a few 2018 movie stragglers that I didn't address in the previous few articles that I wanted to do quick reviews of, beginning with this one, which I watched over the weekend.
After the next week or so, I'll go back to reviewing older cult and horror movies, so if that's more your jam, hang in there. Nothing has changed much, schedule-wise, so my reviews will remain on Tuesdays and Thursdays, with the occasional weekend article, as I have time. If anything changes there again, I'll let you know.
And if you're new here, or only come for the horror and cult stuff, be sure and check out some of the other articles I've written, which aren't just limited to those two genres. I try to cover a little bit of everything, including the occasional music review (click on the respective links for my fave music of 2018: Part One/Part Two/Part Three) or general article about a personality (or personalities) I like, such as, say Vampiria.
As always, thanks for reading, and be sure and comment on social media or even here! 😉
If you're reading this and you're like: Wait? Didn't he review this one already? Well, you're not entirely wrong- I did indeed review a movie with practically the same plot (to say nothing of a similar title) as this one earlier this year. As such, I won't go into the same spiel I did about how much I like amusement parks/dark rides/scare houses, etc. If you're so inclined, you can read about all that in my review of the movie Hell Fest.
Anyway, the plot for this one is as follows: a group of "teens" (all of which are pushing thirty IRL- though, to be fair, the two main leads look a lot younger than they are) attend a horror-themed amusement park that turns deadly when psychos turn on the guests and start killing them for real, instead of just scaring them.
There are two main differences between this film and Hell Fest: here, the horror is more played for laughs than scares, so it's actually more of a horror-comedy; and, you might have noticed I said psychos, as in more than one of them. Unlike Hell Fest, which sports only one whack-job doing the killing, this one features a host of them, which leads me to what was easily my favorite scene in the movie.
For a long time, I've always wanted to see a scene in which the killer (or killers, as the case may be) goes nuts in a crowd or a room filled with a bunch of people. Freddy Vs. Jason came close, but didn't really deliver the goods as much as I would have liked, save for what may be the best line of dialogue in the entire series ("Dude! That goalie was pissed about something!").
Kevin Williamson came closer to what I'm talking about, in Scream 3, then in his underrated TV series, The Following, but he pulled his punches in the former by forgoing killing anyone significant. He did better in the latter, killing quite a few people in one fell swoop, but once again, that was a TV show.
Early on in Blood Fest, however, the filmmakers completely nail what I was talking about, when (mild spoiler) the host of the event, Anthony Walsh (Owen Egerton, essentially playing himself gone crazy, as he's the one who actually wrote and directed the movie IRL) announces that Blood Fest is the real deal, and that everyone there will be fighting for their lives for real. Cue a host of masked psychos, who proceed to go about the business of killing everyone in sight!
So, yeah, as you might imagine, that was pretty awesome and a great way to kick off the proceedings, with a whole lot of bloodshed in a short amount of time. Of course, it would be near impossible to keep up that level of mayhem, and Egerton doesn't even come close to fulfilling the promise of that early scene, but that's not to say he doesn't deliver the goods in other ways.
For one thing, the film is really a good-natured homage to horror movies in general, with lots of in-jokes for hardcore horror fans. It's basically Hell Fest crossed with The Cabin in the Woods, just a bit more on the nose. For instance, where TCITW was broader and more general in its approach, Blood Fest is more the kind of film that will outright name-check Freddy, Michael, Jason and Leatherface within the film itself, Scream-style.
As such, seeing as this kind of thing has been done before, your mileage may vary, according to how many of these sorts of horror-comedies you've seen over the years. Let's face it: horror-comedies are one of the trickier sub-genres to master. Too much meta-humor and you risk annoying horror fans more than entertaining them. I still hear people grousing on social media about how the Scream movies all but ruined the horror genre- or at least, the slasher sub-genre- for instance.
On the other hand, if you go too broad with it, you risk alienating the audiences who "don't get it," which is probably why TCITW bombed at the box office. On the plus side, it eventually found its intended audience on home video, and now online streaming, basically becoming a new cult classic in the process. Sometimes it takes a hot minute for the rest of the world to catch up to niche movies, you know? It happens.
I suspect Blood Fest will do just fine on those formats, to say nothing of pay-cable, which is where I saw it- specifically on The Movie Channel, which had a free preview this past weekend. Expect it to have a good long run there, as it's perfect late-night movie fodder for those of us channel-surfing in the wee hours of the morning.
As far as the similarities to Hell Fest go, I'm sure it's just a coincidence, as both the films were likely shot at roughly the same time and released the same year, 2018. It wouldn't be the first time Hollywood had the same idea at the same time and competing films were put into production as a result. There have been dueling volcano-themed movies, White House attack flicks (we could use one of those right about now, lol), and, most recently, several horror films- at least three, by my count- about Escape Rooms gone horribly awry.
So, yeah, there's no doubt in my mind that both the creators of Hell Fest and Blood Fest were either attending or reading about the recent uptick in horror theme parks when they both had their eureka moment and were like: what if someone (or in the case of this film, a group of someones) got a little too into their job and hauled off and started killing people?
After all, it's the perfect cover. You're literally there to scare people, and it's typical to both hear people screaming bloody murder and see someone ostensibly getting "attacked" by someone working there, only to find out it was all staged, or the attacker had a fake knife or what have you. But what if it wasn't?
So, yeah, I don't fault Blood Fest for treading the same ground as Hell Fest- it happens. I also don't fault it, despite my tweaking earlier, for having older actors playing younger people, as Hollywood has been doing that since practically the beginning of film.
Indeed, I'll give credit where it's due for actually making the main characters mostly likable, though some of them do push it a bit, which seems more like a writing issue than an actor one in this case- but maybe not. Looking at you, leading man Robbie Kay- you threaded the needle pretty fine there, my friend, but ultimately won me over in the end.
Ditto token hottie Barbara Dunkelman, who I gather is a Rooster Teeth regular (that being the production company behind this film, an Austin-based former internet-centric producer of shorts and web-series and the like- read more here).
At first, her character was pretty annoying, but as the film went on, she grew on me, and I realized it might have actually been her co-star, Nicholas Rutherford, who played an intentionally annoying douche-bag, that was the real problem.
Naturally, he didn't last long, because Egerton rightfully realized a little of him went a long way. He's one of those characters you can't wait to see get it, in other words. Also, his name was Lenjamin, which isn't a real name, so yeah, he totally had it coming.
Anyway, Dunkelman's character, Ashley, actually ended up being one of my favorite characters in the film, which just goes to show you sometimes have to be patient with these things. (Perfect example: the heroine of the Happy Death Day series.)
However, my actual favorites were undeniably Krill (Jacob Batalon), essentially playing a variation of his Spider-Man: Homecoming character, but with much more screen time, and thus, more hilarity; and tomboy hottie Sam (Seychelle Gabriel, late of TV's Falling Skies), who has a great, multi-layered role that requires a lot of her. Thankfully, Gabriel is up to the challenge, delivering both laughs and scares in equal measure. Also, yeah, she's VERY easy on the eyes, even covered in slime and the like, which doesn't hurt. 😍
Leading man Robbie Kay, despite my qualms about him early on, when he was basically Randy, from the Scream movies, if he was the leading man- turns out a little of that goes a long way, too- actually does grow on you as the film progresses and he has to step it up a bit or get himself killed in the process of making relentless in-jokes.
His character does have a solid back-story that involves the adverse effect horror films had on him because of an event that happened to him as a kid. Typically, it's the horror films that get blamed for causing IRL violence- here, it's the exact opposite. It's actually Kay's life-line after tragedy strikes him as a kid, the one thing that helps him get through a tough time. By facing down his fears in movies, he's able to do the same in his life, which is a neat little twist.
Another twist is to be found in the actual mastermind of the whole theme park massacre idea, which actually isn't the work of host Anthony Walsh, but rather, the park financier, who has his own reasons for doing what he does, and just goes to show what can happen if someone who hates these sorts of movies gets a little carried away with putting a stop to them.
The twist is pretty obvious, which makes it a good thing that writer/director Egerton doesn't drag it out more than he does. Egerton has a knack for knowing just when to say when, to pull back when a lot of writers or directors might milk things for all they're worth, which is a good quality to have in a horror director. He knows you've seen those movies, too, so he doesn't belabor the point too much, for the most part.
That said, I suppose the film's worst debit is that, well, if you're watching this, you've likely seen these movies, too, which makes the whole thing a bit redundant. While the film does stop short of being outright parody, a la the Scary Movie series, it does make a lot of jokes that you can see coming a mile away, if you're even slightly familiar with horror in a general sense.
As such, Blood Fest does have an air of familiarity about it that makes it tough to recommend as anything but a pleasant enough diversion for horror fans who like a little comedy in the mix. Of course, you could say the same thing about Hell Fest, so there's that. Basically, this is the funnier, sillier version of that film, in a nutshell, so if that sounds fun to you, it probably will be.
There's also a completely random Zachary Levi cameo, for you Chuck fans out there. Hell, even if you aren't- or have no idea who that is (he's also playing Shazam in an upcoming film, and was Flynn Rider in Disney's Tangled, which, for some reason, gets a lot of love here, too)- he doesn't last long, so there's that. I'm not sure why he's involved, as it's not like he's some huge horror icon or what have you- maybe he's a friend of Egerton's. Or maybe Bruce Campbell was busy. Who knows?
All in all, it's a perfectly watchable film, just nothing spectacular. You could do a lot worse, I suppose. Actually, as a hardcore horror fan that apparently will watch almost anything, I can say you could do WAY worse, trust me. This is simply a fun film that achieves what it sets out to: to entertain. I can live with that.
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