Here for Blood

Sitting down to watch the 2022 comedy horror movie "Here for Blood" here in 2024 without ever having heard about it, I have to admit that I wasn't sure what I was in for. But with it being a horror comedy that I hadn't already seen, and my love of the horror genre, of course I had to give the movie a fair chance.

The storyline, written by James Roberts, is a pretty straightforward one. However, I have to say that it wasn't a particularly impressive storyline, and it was rather devoid of comedy, making it a weak horror comedy. I am sure that newcomers to the horror genre might enjoy "Here for Blood", but as a life-long horror fan, I have to say that writer James Roberts just didn't dazzle me with this script.

The movie starts out as a rather generic home-invasion movie, but takes a rather unexpected turn about halfway through, for better or worse.

I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble in the movie, which was good, as I do like watching unfamiliar faces and talents on the screen. And the acting performances in "Here for Blood" were adequate. Nothing outstanding or overly memorable, mind you, but definitely adequate for a movie of this caliber.

The effects in the movie were good, and I did like the gore effects and the glowing eyes, those looked really great. And there was actually enough gore and visceral mayhem to keep an old gorehound like myself content, and that was definitely something that spoke well in favor of the movie and helped keeping it afloat.

While "Here for Blood" was watchable, it wasn't exactly a movie that tickled me the right places.

My rating of "Here for Blood" lands on a five out of ten stars.

I thought this film was quite well done for not being a big blockbuster. You know how professional wrestling sets up a physical conflict between bruisers and play acts the whole thing? That's kind of what we end up with here, as the lead character is supposed to be a wrestler, and some of the cult members attacking him are big muscular guys with outfits and masks. Same basic idea, but with knives and other instruments tossed in occasionally. And it's clearly planned this way, because if you think about the plot as is, it really makes no sense for the cultists to be extravagantly dressed athletes. Just go with it. Add in normal people in peril, a girlfriend with that fun Canadian twang where she says her owwws as ewwws (like when she talks "aboot" something), lots of gore, a wise beyond her years kid, some cheesy jokes, a screaming decapitated head and some occult mumbo jumbo, and now you're talking. Something about the every guy fighting off supernatural attackers while cracking lame jokes appeals to me, and it seems a lot more natural when it's a big guy who can take the hits instead of the typical scrawny (and, for some reason I don't understand, usually sexist) kid you're used to seeing in these movies. While this is not the best at any one thing, it has a fair amount of everything. Well, OK, fair warning, I guess not nudity, if that's a dealbreaker for you. But probably everything else you'd want out of a horror comedy is here.

Here for Blood is a ton of fun. Shawn Roberts absolutely kills it with the awesome one liners while defending a house against a home invasion.

Tom (Roberts) is conned into babysitting by his girlfriend and thus starts the home invasion by a group of mask wearing killers.

The fun starts when Tom encounters the first man in a mask and kicks the loving junk out of him.

What makes this stand out from some other home invasion films is its absurdly funny humor, extremely creepy antagonists and awesomely over the top practical effects.

You find out that this home invasion is to possibly capture the little girl and anyone else is just dead meat. About a third of the way through you will probably guess the reasoning as to why they are doing it but it gets does have some twists and turns... especially when you figure out who is behind it.

Here for Blood is a lot of fun and Shawn Roberts really adds a lot with his cockiness and hilarious one liners through out the film. It also doesn't slow down at all. It's definitely worth watching if you like horror comedies.

A pro wrestler who fills in for his girlfriend at a babysitting job defends his charge from an evil cult.

It turns out I've seen Shawn Roberts in some stuff, but the name didn't mean anything to me. He was one of the guys who got killed off a bit early in Land of the Dead, which is a pretty awesome job on a resume but not all that memorable. However, he was great here, and I'll probably remember his name now.

This is a splatter comedy full of cheesy lines and gore sfx. I'm not really sure I liked anyone but Roberts and the kid he was babysitting, played by Maya Misaljevic. The scenes between them were great. When other characters intruded, the movie often got a bit dumb.

The bad guys are played with extra camp. Roberts' reactions to them were funny, but I didn't find the bad guys themselves all that funny. I think part of the problem was the writing and directing. The bigger, musclebound guys had some presence and made for appropriate challenges for Roberts, though.

That led to some pretty decent fight choreography, and the fights could get pretty brutal. If you don't like gore, you might want to skip this movie, though it's played for laughs. There are constant geysers of blood, which got a bit silly, but I guess that's unavoidable in a 90s horror homage.

I didn't really feel that all the characters were able to satisfactorily justify their existence. However, Roberts was able to keep things pretty fun, and having lots of characters around meant that the body count could keep piling up. If that's all you really need to enjoy a movie, I'd say this is a good watch.

If you like movies like Dead Alive, Botched, and Evil Dead, it's worth a look.

This movie is called 'Here For Blood' for a reason! If you aren't here for blood, then don't go see this movie because there is plenty of it! If you love blood, gore, makeup effects and a campy 80s horror feel, you will enjoy it. I was pleasantly surprised with the great acting and cinematography for such a low budget movie filmed in little London. It has nods to a lot of great horror classics and some laugh out loud moments. I recommend this movie to any true horror fan...Those who don't like it probably aren't actual horror fans and just don't get it. Grab some popcorn and a few friends and just enjoy!