Nothing to do with the film, but the light bulb has gone in my office and I don't have a spare, so am writing this in the dark. With that out the way, Here For Blood is a comedy horror film that features lots of wrestling, lots of blood, and lots of gory special effects. Directed by Daniel Turres, and written by James Roberts (in his writing debut), this award winning movie did a lot that was right.
Needing money, Phoebe (Joelle Farrow) has agreed to a babysitting job at the home of rich couple, Barb (Tara Spencer-Nairn) and Gil (Michael Therriault). With an important exam the next day that she needs to revise for, she convinces her wrestler boyfriend Tom (Shawn Roberts - Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, Resident Evil: Retribution) to babysit instead. The little girl Grace (Maya Misaljevic) and Tom get along reasonably well, and it seems it will be a chill night. That is, until the house comes under attack by a group of mask wearing maniacs who are determined to kidnap Grace. Unfortunately for them however, this isn't something that Tom is going to let happen. Over a night of madness, Tom fights off the masked gang, a crazed cult leader, zombies, demons, and even a magically animated talking head!
Comedy can be tough to get right, this is one area that Here For Blood did get right. Tom is a meathead who isn't the smartest person out there. He is also endearing and good, determined to do the right thing whatever the cost. Much of the humour comes from him and how confidently wrong he gets about things, such as the first half of the movie where he is convinced the people attacking the house are 'sex perverts'. With a reliance on funny lines of dialogue and some amusing gross out humour, this comedy worked throughout and never got tiring. Think The Evil Dead crossed with Home Alone and The Purge and you would be somewhat on the way for what this felt like at times. This is everything the similar Night of the B*stard should have been.
There is lots and lots of violence in this film, several decapitations, slit throats, severed fingers, heads crushed to mush and various stab wounds. All of the wounds feature spurting blood which was great to see. My favourite may have been when someone gets their fingers sliced off, blood spurting out of each of the stumps! Another great moment had Tom repeatedly doing an elbow drop on someone's head over and over and over to ridiculousness. The masked men were a great choice, each had a distinct mask of their own, all of which looked fantastic. Shout out to the guy with an upside down face on his mask which was used to fun effect, and the cowardly guy who loses his mask early on, and spends the rest of the movie getting more and more injured, much to the exasperation of the main antagonist, who is mystified how badly the planned night is going. I thought the idea of the bad guys having their own little HQ in a barn near the house was cool, the seven or eight villains all had distinct personalities to them. There are a whole bunch of fight scenes, with lots of wrestling moves being performed. These were always high energy.
I only really had a few complaints with this. Firstly, the way the main antagonist is dealt with was underwhelming and felt a bit rushed. The core reason for why Tom and Grace are under attack when revealed felt wafer thin, and at an hour forty minutes, this did feel a bit overlong, I reckon at ninety minutes this would have worked a lot better, as the final act did begin to feel like it was dragging ever so slightly. On the flip side, Here For Blood was endlessly inventive, some really crazy moments here, the 'everything but the kitchen sink' approach really worked wonders. I would have never guessed from the initial home invasion just how mad and deranged things would get, I was totally there for that. Here For Blood comes to theatres and Screambox on February 9th.
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