Bloodlock – review

Director: William Victor Schotten

Release date: 2008

Contains spoilers

Given two of the trailers that appear as DVD extras on this (the solid but flawed Vampeggedon and the great fun God of Vampires) I had the expectation that it would be a fairly solid – if not brilliant – indie vampire movie. I was, as you shall see, bitterly disappointed.

A simple storyline is no problem, so long as it is solid – this wobbled like a blancmange. Worse, it seemed to bite off more than it could chew effects wise. We’ll come back to this, of course.

the door

The film starts with a man sat in a house. Down in the cellar is a door with a cross, a symbol (later we hear it is an Amish symbol to trap evil spirits) and an elaborate lock. Something is being kept in. The man has a heart attack, and it was an unconvincing one at that. Sorry, but it really was. So, house now empty, strange door in the cellar, something trapped within…

obsessed with the door

Cue couple Christine (Ashley Gallo) and Barry (Domanic Koulianos) moving in. Also moving in is Christine’s half sister Lisa (Karen Fox) – same father, different mothers. It becomes readily apparent that cop Barry is having an affair with sister Lisa. Also, it is hinted that Christine has inherited money (there is mention of her being rich and, presumably as Lisa isn’t rich it was inherited from her mother), this seems to be the motivation for Barry wanting to drive Christine mad and then fake her suicide. The fact that she is obsessed with the door seems an opportunity too good to miss.

visions of infidelity

There is an old couple over the road (who don’t realise that there are three people who have moved into the house) by the name of Edwina (Debra Gordon) and Foster (Dirk Hermance). They want what is trapped in Christine’s house and have killed the neighbours to be near the house. Indeed they were going to raid the cellar on the day the others moved in. Christine has dreams of the creature within (obviously a vampire, played by Nick Foot), who then shows her visions of her cheating sister. She catches Barry leaving Lisa’s room, sees lipstick on his back but lives in abject denial.

Karen Fox as the hussy Lisa

The first morning and Barry decides to go to work. Lisa arranges for Christine to go to the store and get a locksmith so he can sneak back and have some rumpy. Having just donned her naughty cowgirl outfit she finds herself hogtied by Foster as he and Edwina try to break into the door. Meanwhile Christine goes to a locksmith and flirts with the hunky Luke (Gregg Biamonte), who confesses his father made the lock and there was no key and then tries to warn her not to open the door. Question, if you are going to seal the creature in why make a lock, why not just do without a door and wall the bugger in with the same occult protections?

Barry's papier mache head

Eventually both Lisa and Christine are tied up, the Amish symbol has been burnt off with acid, a counterspell has been cast and the lock is being drilled. Barry gets home and pulls his gun. After assessing the situation he decides to shoot Edwina and Foster, release Lisa and then he is about to shoot Christine with Edwina’s gun and claim home invasion gone weird when the vampire gets out. He bites a chunk out of Lisa’s leg and then rips Barry’s head off with a poor effects display.

veins drawn by felt tip?

Yes, it is Barry’s papier mache head and why? The joy of using vampires in your movie is that you can – if you so wish – go with minimal effects. So why make a false looking head? And whilst I am on the subject why bother with a vein effect that looked like the actor had been drawn on with felt tip pen? Silly and unnecessary. Lisa escapes with the help of Luke and overnight, it seems, turns from timid mouse to vampire slayer, from dungarees to hipster jeans and forgets Barry (and his betrayal of her) and starts rumpy sessions with Luke.

the head, again

The film then drones on, with the mayor (Larry Froehlich) and a detective (William Victor Schotten, with the world’s most false looking moustache) being turned for reasons best ignored as nothing was done with them and these vampires couldn’t pass for human. Stake, burn, behead seems to be the order of the day, bar the master – he is the first vampire who cannot die and… can I go on?

hunting Christine

Not really because this was poor. The effects looked bad, the story was ungainly, characters that should have been 3 dimensional were as thin as card and the acting was poor – especially Dirk Hermance who seems to have studied in the Conrad Brooks’ school of acting and that is no good thing. The film’s twist/coda was awfully pedestrian and that is me being polite.

Sorry, but this was poor. 2 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.