The Blood Shed

The amusing end credits theme song says it all, "just another backwoods, redneck, hillbilly family: this time from New jersey". Or something like that... While its true, there is no new territory covered here, it certainly has a whole helluva lotta fun re-treading what we've seen before. Alan Rowe Kelly weaves together a really amusing and "through the looking glass" view of our "heroes" the Boullion family. The gag is almost like the one used in the 1990's Brady bunch movies, where the family is just a complete anachronism, but isn't aware of it. The comedy and blood flow freely, the cast are all top notch in their respective comedy endeavors and you will never once find yourself bored. Its really great to see an Indi so embraced by critics and audiences alike, and we can only hope that it opens the door for more.

I met the director of this film Alan Rowe Kelly at a convention recently. When I approached the booth I saw images being projected on a screen that were absolutely mind-boggling! Alan Rowe Kelly noticed my surprise and said to me "You can't take your eyes off it, can you?" The film being shown was "The Blood Shed" and the scene was a weird scene involving close-ups of people eating! Alan Rowe Kelly began to tell me about how the scene was made, how he had to gain 50 pounds to play the role of the grotesquely obese "Beeftina Boulion", and how a scene involving Beeftina guzzling broth was filmed using actual chicken broth (apparently it was supposed to be substituted with Iced Tea but someone on the set failed to make the switch). Being a fan of the unusual, bizarre, gory and things that generally shock most audiences, I of course purchased a copy of the film immediately. As I walked away from the booth, Alan Rowe Kelly told me "Now remember, this is a film you need to watch after a few cocktails...or maybe after you smoke a little something!". I knew I had found a director and a film after my own heart. This film is a weird and unusual ride. There are plenty of scenes that are obvious tributes to the works of Tobe Hooper and John Waters and any horror fan will appreciate the tributes in the film to horror classics like "Happy Birthday To Me" "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "American Gothic". No taboo or exploitable subject matter is left untouched in "The Blood Shed". Things from bodily dismemberment, cannibalism, incest, homosexuality, and torture are graphically depicted in this film. True it is obviously made on a shoe-string budget but it's definitely worth viewing!

A sweet little tale about your average inbred, hillbilly, cannibal family residing in the northern part of New Jersey.

And how they deal with the day-to-day annoyances of encroaching suburbia.

A wee bit like early john Waters films. But not entirely. It doesn't have the bent sense of humor that Waters has. So it comes across as a pale duplicate.

Too bad.

I saw some promise in this film, but alas.

In the end, it comes up short.

I absolutely LOVED this movie. I've watched it about 3x so far and I'm not done yet.

The acting was great. Campy, but not fake or over the top. You could tell everyone must've had a blast making this film.

I am a big fan of Alan Rowe Kelly, and I knew I would not be disappointed in this movie.

Susan Adriensen as SnoCakes had great chemistry with ARK's Beefteena. I laughed so hard whenever they were on screen together.

Joshua Nelson, Mike Lane and Terry M. West filled out the rest of the cast and played their characters superbly. You found yourself actually rooting and cheering on the Bullion clan.

I cannot wait for more adventures of the Bullions!

If John Waters had written and directed "House of 1000 Corpses" after being struck about the head repeatedly with a heavy object, the result would probably be something like "The Blood Shed." It's mildly entertaining for the first half hour, but then it slides into a sort of featureless glop of constant screaming and people doing things to each others genitalia with electric carving knives, cutlery and pliers. Susan Adriensen (Sno Cakes) is incredibly annoying and Terry West (Elvis Bullion) is almost as bad in whatever it is he's doing in front of the camera.

Maybe the best thing about "The Blood Shed" is that it won't take most viewers very long to forget about it.