As ever, thanks for reading, have a great Thanksgiving and try not to kill any relatives over the holiday, as tempting as it might be when they come over sporting a MAGA hat and talking about how much they love the real turkey, the (not my) President. Just take comfort in the fact that the next thing they'll be eating is their words when Mueller takes his ass down finally, lol. 😉
Until then, keep on (blood) raging against the machine, everyone! Now, on with the show...
I first saw this one back in the day on cable, under the alternate title, Nightmare at Shadow Woods. As it was heavily edited for television, I wasn't too impressed, but then I rented it on VHS under the title its best known as, Blood Rage, and it was a whole different animal altogether.
Back then, it was common practice for distributors of a film that they knew was a clunker to put it out under multiple titles, in the hopes of duping unsuspecting film-goers, and later on, home video renters, into seeing a film they'd seen before, thus making more money in the process.
Oftentimes, the film would also be re-edited, with different scenes added, and sometimes with certain others cut out or heavily edited. It's less common today, what with all the information about a given film at our fingertips via the internet, making it harder to get away with, but it's been known to still happen on occasion.
Blood Rage was originally shot way back in 1983, but didn't get a proper theatrical release until 1987. A big part of that was that, yes, the filmmakers and distributors knew they had a stinker on their hands, and, as a direct result, several edits of the film were made, including yet another one, under the title of Slasher, which is about as nondescript a title as one could hope to come up with at the time.
Credit then, where its due, to Arrow Video, for putting out a whopping three-disc Blu-Ray/DVD set featuring all three different cuts of the film, including one composite version that combines footage from both the theatrical and home video versions, which, like I mentioned, featured different scenes, and cut out some of the gore and nudity and the like, depending on which version you saw.
Now, do you really need to see three different versions of the same film, especially when it's not that great in the first place? Debatable, but kudos to Arrow for knowing their audience.
Despite the often wildly varying quality of films in the horror genre, fans are as serious about these films as, say, the people that adore Criterion releases are about theirs. (Which is not to say that Criterion hasn't put out some worthy horror sets of their own, notably their releases of various David Cronenberg films.)
Don't get me wrong, though. Blood Rage is a lot of fun, and easily the best of the Thanksgiving-themed slashers made in the sub-genre's Golden Age, which is roughly the late 70's-through-the-mid-80's. That said, like many slashers, it has its problems, and oftentimes, a comprehensive Blu-Ray/DVD release like the one I mentioned for the film can serve to actually highlight those issues, not lessen them.
Of course, it was fairly common knowledge, even before this release back in 2015, that the film was a troubled production. The director infamously quit the production at one point, in large part because he didn't get along with star Louise Lasser; one actor didn't show up when they were supposed to, forcing producer Marianne Kanter to assume the role in her wake, and, though the Arrow version cleans up the picture considerably, sometimes that's not always a good thing.
In this case, it shows how grainy the film is at times, and how bad the cinematography was in others. In one bit early on, the lighting changes throughout the scene, getting lighter and darker from shot-to-shot, making it obvious that the filmmakers didn't get the full coverage they needed. And, as many times as this film was re-edited, you'd think they'd have gotten it right at some point, but it remains pretty choppy and iffy throughout all three versions.
That said, for a director making only his second film, after a ten-year-hiatus from film-making (his first was Scalpel, also available on DVD/Blu-Ray), it's not bad. There's some terrific gore scenes in the unedited versions, aka the ones that aren't Nightmare at Shadow Woods, courtesy of FX guru Ed French, who also plays Bill in the film.
And, as per usual with the films like this at the time, some incredibly gratuitous, but not unwelcome sex and nudity, courtesy of Lisa Randall, who's a real looker. This was sadly her first and final film, but she has a nice verve and sass that might have eventually led to her being a contender as a go-to bad girl type. Alas, it was not to be.
Though her character is underwritten, she's a lot more fun than the designated Final Girl, Karen, played by Julie Gordon, who only had a slightly better acting career, appearing in the likes of Super Fuzz and Deadly Illusion.
I love Randall's line, when the guys are more interested in playing video games than hitting on her, she snarkily says to them when they ask how she is: "Just talking [to Karen] about the bad old days, when guys used to be horny all the time." Lol. (At least it gets one of the boys' attention!)
The film's bigger problem is the dubiousness of the three main leads, one of which treats the whole film as a big joke (that would be Louise Lasser, having a bad acting field day, apparently much to the director's chagrin) and two of which are played by the same actor, which, needless to say, isn't great when that actor isn't very good.
The actor in question is Mark Soper, who does a good job of bringing a distinction to the two opposite-minded brothers, but oddly, makes the brother who was falsely accused of the murder that opens the film creepier than the one who actually does the killing, who comes off more like an entitled jerk than a murderous whack-job. Think a proto-Patrick Bateman (as in American Psycho), only nowhere near that good, or as well-acted as Christian Bale.
That said, Soper did have a decent career, cropping up in such solid flicks as Tempest, The World According to Garp, Phenomenon, Swordfish and White Oleander, as well as a regular role on TV's nighttime soap Knots Landing. Horror fans might also know him from the Stephen King-based creature feature, Graveyard Shift II. He also has a distinguished career writing and acting in stage plays, so maybe this film is not the best thing to judge him by.
To be fair, the writing isn't exactly great, either. Bruce Rubin- perhaps wisely writing under a different name, Richard Lamden (though given that his one big credit is the silly horror spoof Zapped!, I'm not sure why he felt compelled to hide this one)- does get off a few good lines, including the infamous "That's not cranberry sauce," but then has evil twin Terry repeat it several times, lessening the effect, when it wasn't exactly THAT great to begin with.
The matter is not helped by Soper's flat delivery of the line the first time. Throughout the film, he seems to be going for deadpan, but lands somewhere more akin to uninterested and bored. To be fair, he fares better with the line the next time around, but they should have lost the first one, which, in retrospect, now plays like Terry is work-shopping the line for later use!
(There should be a blooper reel for all wise-cracking psychos rehearsing their big lines before they nail it, just for our amusement- I can just see Robert Englund, as Freddy Kruger, saying "Welcome to prime time, bitch!" in different inflections before finally getting it just right. 😃)
But if Soper is a bit flat throughout, no matter which character he's playing, Louise Lasser is completely mental, often seeming like she's starring in her own, completely different movie. Her line-readings are so off-kilter and bizarre, it seems like she's making it all up as she's going along, improv-ing her dialogue instead of delivering pre-written lines.
Interestingly, Lasser has far and away the most impressive pedigree of anyone else associated with the film. Her biggest claims to fame were her titular role in the popular soap satire Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman and being married to Woody Allen and appearing in several of his films, including Bananas and one of the only films of his I really enjoyed, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask). She also hosted Saturday Night Live in its first season.
However, cult film fans probably know her best for her more left-of-center work, including roles in the TV-movie horror spoof Isn't it Shocking?, the superhero spoof Mystery Men, Sam Raimi's Crimewave, Frank Henenlotter's Frankenhooker, Todd Solondz' Happiness and Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream, plus a recurring role on HBO's Girls.
Though I'm admittedly unfamiliar with much of her early work, from what I can tell, she's a solid actor when she's engaged with the material. But like a lot of actors that came out of the 70's, after a certain point, she started taking parts for money, and, as such, started coasting a bit on her name. To be sure, her work here wouldn't cut it in a major Hollywood production, but this is a low-budget slasher we're talking about.
As such, I really do think her approach here was intentional, which is to say, she meant it to be over-the-top and funny, not mental, which is how it comes off. I think she found it impossible to take the script seriously, and, as such, decided to do her own thing with it, which isn't necessarily in keeping with the tone of the rest of the film. I can certainly see where that would be a problem to the director, who likely wasn't intending to do a dark comedy or a spoof.
As a direct result, the tone of the film is all over the place. Oddly, though, that's precisely what makes the film somewhat memorable. The film certainly doesn't make much use of the Thanksgiving setting, that's for sure. The only thing keeping it from getting lost in the endless shuffle of the endless stream of slashers from the time is precisely that wacky tone, which doesn't exactly work, but it keeps the film from getting boring.
I mean, you'd think that wouldn't be an issue for a film that only clocks in around eighty minutes- even less in the edited version- but it does come close to being monotonous, thanks to all the back-and-forth within the primary setting, an apartment complex.
Being as how most of the rooms look the same- which is to say, like a trashy Florida hotel room, which is basically what they are (the film was shot in Jacksonville)- you need Lasser's wacky antics to shake things up a bit here and there. I can see where the director would hate it, but it works for what the film is, and actually gives it the extra oomph it needs to go from a run-of-the-mill slasher to one worth revisiting.
Of course, the other crucial element is the gore effects. A slasher film lives and dies by its murders and how graphic they are, and this one, at least in its uncut form, really delivers the gory goods. It may be haphazardly shot at times, but the new transfer goes a long way towards at least making the FX stand out.
The opening kill is suitably gruesome, and somewhat out of nowhere, given that it was committed by a child, who then frames his own brother for the crime, getting him thrown in an institution for ten years, until he escapes in hopes of clearing his name once and for all. That's one hell of an opening- too bad the rest of the film is mostly by-the-numbers.
That said, there's a bravura sequence where Todd's psychiatrist is cut clean in half (!), another effective scene where Terry's mother's fiancée has his hand lopped off (as seen on the poster at the top of the page), then his head split open, as seen later on in the film by a horrified Maddy (Lasser), and an unlucky suitor for a local MILF has his head chopped off and hung from an extension cord, plus a few other good kills where that came from.
The film also has a solid, if VERY 80's, synth-driven score by Richard Einhorn. He should be a fairly familiar name to fans of thrillers and horror movies, with credits that include the slasher classics The Prowler and Don't Go in the House, the Nazi zombies of Shock Waves, Eyes of a Stranger and Sister Sister (both with actress Jennifer Jason Leigh), the underrated Dead of Winter, Dark Tower (not the Stephen King one), Closet Land and A House in the Hills.
Taken as a whole, then, all of this adds up to a worthwhile slasher that might not qualify as a classic, but might just suffice as a Thanksgiving go-to place-holder for horror fans until Eli Roth finally follows through on his intentions to turn his Thanksgiving trailer into a full-length feature.
Maybe buying the three-disc Blu-Ray/DVD combo is a bit much- a 2-disc version is also available- and, for those less determined to see the film in its various other incarnations, it is also available for streaming on various sites, including YouTube.
But if you do dig it, I can't recommend the 3-disc set enough, as it is stuffed to the brim with bonus features that should satiate even the most die-hard fans of the film, although it's a bit on the pricey side. (You can buy it here, but I'd check the likes of eBay for cheaper copies.)
Bonuses include a commentary by the director, outtakes, and interviews with Louise Lasser, Mark Soper, Marianne Kanter, Ed French and Ted Raimi, who has a brief cameo as a condom salesman (!) at the beginning, which marks his film debut. All in all, a handsome set from the always-impressive Arrow Video.
Well, that concludes my Thanksgiving horror series- for now, at least. I might have a few bonus leftovers for you on the other side of the weekend, though, because what's Thanksgiving without a few leftovers? Until then, have a great holiday, and don't forget to make sure that it really is cranberry sauce! 😏
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