Blood (2022) – review

Director: Brad Anderson

Release date: 2022

Contains spoilers

This one vexed me, with high production values and a great main performance this should have been brilliant but there was just something slightly unsatisfying about it. I think it was in the characterisation generally (beyond the primary character) but I guess I’ll sort my feelings out as I type.

Starting with a dead tree that looks almost blasted within a clearing that looks like an eye – we will discover later that this is a pond that has dried up, bar a layer of mud (that remains consistently muddy, apparently), with the tree having been there when there was still water (we see a photo of it) and the tree has no foliage and burn damage around a tree hollow.

Michelle Monaghan) as Jess

Jess (Michelle Monaghan) and her kids, Tyler (Skylar Morgan Jones) and Owen (Finlay Wojtak-Hissong), are moving in to her parents’ old farm. She is recently split from Patrick (Skeet Ulrich) – who has a new kid with ex-nanny Shelly (Danika Frederick) and has left him with the house. He is suing for custody of the kids and she, a doctor, has recently come out of rehab for the use of (what sounds like sedative) drugs. She does still have a job at the hospital and the relations between them doesn’t sound great.

Owen and Pip

Owen seems to have a devil may care attitude (we see him, despite Tyler’s protestations, jump from a barn into hay) and this worries Jess as she fears that she’ll lose custody. They have a dog, Pip, and he seems to be wary of something in the woods. One day Tyler and Owen go fishing but find that the pond has dried up. Pip runs into the pond, towards the tree and Owen, chasing him, gets stuck in mud and has to be rescued by Tyler. At night Pip barks at something out there and then runs off into the night.

drinking blood

Owen is convinced Jess doesn’t care (because dad got him the dog), though that doesn’t seem to be the case, but when the dog comes back under his own steam, its eyes sort of glowing, she is unable to prevent him attacking Owen (trying to drag him off and savaging his neck). She has to kill the dog to save the boy, who then ends up in hospital. He seems to come round, eats something and then fits soon after. Subsequently Jess is witness to him, having come round from his second collapse and removed his own incubator, taking the plasma from a drip and drinking it. She quickly associates him remaining healthy with blood drinking and manages to steal some plasma before taking him home.

Skylar Morgan Jones as Tyler

Unfortunately, he wants more than she has, and the hospital has realised that some went missing and has beefed security. He fits from animal blood, prefers it warm and she ends up kidnapping a cancer patient (June B. Wilde) (who had tried to kill herself but had discovered a new fight for life before being taken) to feed her son. Tyler, not being stupid, also gets drawn into this and Jess is suspected as being back on meds as she fatigues herself by giving her own blood also. More and more it isn’t enough though…

feeding

So it is a “how far will a mother go for her child” plus a “child vampire” film. As he loses control, he becomes feral and one of the issues I had is that, beyond Jess, all the characters seemed two dimensional. Even Helen, the cancer patient, who should be our character to root for was two dimensionally written and so her 'road to Damascus' not wanting to die was a bit meh. Another issue was around what it was that caused this? We never discover – though Tyler associates it with the tree hollow we never know if that is true (and certainly something was there in the woods near the house for Pip to sense). Owen is simply 'little kid going feral at times', and I would have liked to see him calculatingly evil.

looking a bit zombie

Michelle Monaghan carries this, her character has depth and we understand her turmoil but the rest of the film falls a little flat. Its not that it is bad, and the production values are decent as I mentioned, it is just that it could have been a whole lot more and there could have been a genuinely creepy kid and some genuinely interesting lore. Instead we just get mention of anaemia, Owen’s eyes developing tapetum lucidum and him looking (frankly) a bit zombie when he becomes hungry and going feral. 5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK