|
"Blood Stains" DVD
I often wonder how realtors
in horror movies sleep at night. They'll sell a house that has trolls
in the basement or zombies in the back yard or even a history of
violent killings within its very walls and they'll sell it like
nothing ever happened.
And Triple Star Realty, the folks selling the house in "Blood
Stains" have plenty to answer for. This time around, Triple
Star just sold a house in a neighborhood jammed to the gills with
lunatics, madmen, small children, psychopaths, and now, lawyers
and that most depraved subspecies of man, children's book authors.
Thus, the lawyer and the author will begin sticking their collective
noses into the dark underbelly of their new neighborhood, and what
they find may well kill them.
Granted, it's formulaic. Off the top of my head I can think of three
or four movies almost exactly like this one with just slightly different
characters and circumstances. Murder mystery / suspense buffs could
probably name ten or twenty or more. There's not going to be a whole
lot here that you haven't already seen somewhere else. Which isn't
to say, necessarily, that it's not good. Plenty of solid plot building
goes on in "Blood Stains", and a couple of nifty surprises
will pop up here and there.
And yet, at the end of the day, "Blood Stains" is better
suited for a Lifetime special than it is for the video store shelves.
The constantly philandering husband murdered by a jealous wife who
may or may not have actually done it, and then subdivisions of jealously
and revenge swinging in from all sides...these are all hallmarks
of a growing trend, the chick slasher flick.
Oh, and I'm definitely taking credit for that one. "Chick slasher
flick"...where do I come up with this stuff? But as self-congratulatory
as I'm being about this, it's also pretty apt. It builds its suspense
very slowly, toward an uncertain end. It's laden with triangles
in every direction, troubled pasts crop up and boil off, and love
and jealousy are the primary impetus to the plot. There's not a
whole lot of blood (which is a surprise for a movie called "Blood
Stains") and the body count is pretty low. It's really horror
lite, a kind of distilled version that focuses more on building
toward a conclusion than occasionally spiking the narrative with
killings.
It's an interesting departure, but in all honesty, I find it just
plain dull.
The ending, finally, allows every one of the many, many loose ends
this movie spawned to be tied up and laid to rest in a surprisingly
bloodless fashion. In fact, this movie is so bereft of actual ACTION
that less than three of the last eight minutes even really pass
for suspense.
The special features include English and Spanish subtitles, and
trailers for "See No Evil", "Jekyll and Hyde",
"Dark Harvest 3: Scarecrow"
All in all, yawn. Genuinely, yawn--"Blood Stains" is painfully
slow, and the payoff doesn't even begin to cover the investment
in time and attention paid to reach the end. Worth your time only
if you're into the movies Lifetime continually runs.
Blood
Stains
**
DVD
Directed by Rob Malenfant
Written by Christine Conradt
Starring Barbara Niven, Gary Hudson, Lisa Zane, Daniel J. Travanti
Produced by Stefan Wodoslawsky, Neil Bregman
NR
93 mins
2006
Check
out the Video Store Guy on his own ever-lovin' website. Featuring
never before seen pieces exclusive to Reel Advice! (reel.panel2panel.com)
|
