Bloodspit – review

Director: Duke Hendrix

Release date: 2008

Contains spoilers

I guess it is safe to say that when you watch a troma release you know, for the most part, what you are going to get. As such I didn’t sit to view this with anything resembling high expectations. Imagine, to my surprise, how I felt when – during the prologue – I actually noted a lot that was worthwhile in this. Yes it was cheap, the makeup was ridiculous and the accents – well the accents were awful.

Yet it was done with such a knowing air that it became genuinely amusing. I felt a little trickle of good humoured laughter well within me.

Imagine then, further, my bitter disappointment when the film, post the prologue, utterly crashed and burned into an unintelligible mess with an over-fondness of gross out gore and sexual commentary that was meant to be funny and just fell flat – I mean keeled over and broke its metaphoric nose in the process.

Oh well, such is life and here we go…

The prologue sees a certain Doctor Ludvic (Leon Fish) walking through the dark with torch. He eventually finds a room with a naked woman, obviously dead with blood pouring from her neck. Ludvic sees our vampire Count Blaughspich (Duke Hendrix) – known to the doctor as bloodspit – and there is some banter before a stake is produced and the vampire vanishes. He won’t get far, suggests Ludvic, he’s not as young as he was.

Ludvic catches up with the Count and there is more banter – concerning mainly cutting werewolves’ heads off and seeing them grow back in five minutes and Ludvic’s mother – then the Count uses some mojo. He tells the paralysed Ludvic that the only way to kill him would be to take the crest from his coffin, which would prevent him returning to the mirror world. He stakes the doctor.

Prologue over and things fall apart. Ludvic is now in a wheelchair and with a Mr Hansome (Sven Jonssen). Somehow they have got hold of the crest from the coffin. Ludvic uses it to show Hansome the mirror world – a place of actors superimposed over black and white nudey girl film – which just happens to be the place vampires originate from and explains why they can’t see their own reflection. Actually there was a kernel of good idea there absolutely lost within the morass.

They are called to the Burgermiester (spelt as per the credits and performed by Jed Hendrix) whose daughter (Veronica) is ill. Inappropriate jokes aside, as well as bizarre sexual references to bees, Ludvic notices bite marks. She vanishes and turns into a crap bat. Ludvic needs to finish the Count to save her – not that she ever resurfaces in the film.

The Count has his own problems. Firstly he is ill due to his inability to enter the mirror world and also he is clearly surrounded by brain dead buffoons including Angus (Tom Simmons), the maid Lily (Spanky Doll) who is obsessed with the size of her posterior, Dorian (Leon Fish) and Rufus (Errol) the masturbating werewolf.

To make matters worst his dominatrix incestuous older sister, Countess Blaughspich (Zenda Markhova), has awakened after two hundred years and appears to be, pretty much, trouble. During one of the scenes with her we discover that male vampires ejaculate blood – not good…

His younger sister, Bloodvena (Daniella Darkrose) has also awakened and is clearly more on his side. And… I don’t know. Doctor goes to castle, crap happens between the inhabitants whilst that goes on… blah, blah, blah. The story was a mess, the humour not funny and, to be honest, it was so boring in places I really started to nod off.

I did notice a new creature – the zompire. A hybrid of vampires and zombies they can be summoned by the Sisters of Sorrow, and were pretty much darned pointless. There was a mad scientist, the professor (Phil Frea), who was obsessed with implanting brains in genitalia and breasts. Vampires can die if stepped on in bat form and the act of bobbitting is disturbing even when the organ looks entirely fake.

So, to recap, the mad makeup and bad accents I could have handled and were so self-knowing they made me chortle until they lost the plot completely. There was at least one kernel of a good idea, lore wise, but generally this was awful. 1 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.