Blood Machines

The gist of Blood Machines is "men abusive, men bad; women gentle; women good."

I know that seems like a crude way to sum up the film, but that's pretty much how it plays out.

The special effects -- for this to be a Kickstarted film -- really do put a lot of bigger budget Hollywood films to shame. It's mostly to do with the intricate attention to detail and physics, which make the world feel weighty and dangerous. It's just such a shame that what little dialogue we do get and what little character development we do see take place is basically to push a pro-feminist message.

It would have been so much cooler had the film been about actual villains trying to capture the souls of ships, and unbeknownst to the bounty hunters, they had no idea that the ships they were collecting had souls. At least then they could have molded a sympathetic redemption arc around the bounty hunters, having the Captain warm to the audience and to the space druid, Corey.

But instead the first season of three episodes beats audiences over the head with what's essentially a feminist revenge tale against men and their destructive weapons.

The '6' out of '10' ratings is basically for the effects, visual presentation and for Carpenter Brut's undeniably awesome soundtrack.

It's quite unfortunate because I really had high hopes for this one.

Okay, so it's got lots of female nudity. And weird inverted crosses. And pentagonal roses? And the coolest laser guns I've seen since laser guns were put in movies. And sweet space ship designs. And a monstrously impressive sound track. And absolutely no coherent script to explain much of any of this. Something something machine revolt? Feminist power? I don't know.

It's like a 14 year old dropped acid and made his fantasies into a featurette. Except with a better FX budget and musical score.

Well worth a watch, just expect a long form experimental music video instead of an actual story. And what a music video it is.

(I'd also recommend people check out the music video for Turbo Killer elsewhere (you can guess where) to get more-of-the-same, but in a SFW and shorter form)

I like the 80's vibes, music, production art and design is superb, even actors are pretty cool and it all could have gone as smooth as "Beyond the Aquila Rift " , but the script is below average and that is where I'd want to put a 7 but I'll put a 6, if you are into spaceship sci fi and art , you will enjoy it in a certain way, everyone else will just see flashy lights...

I'm sure Seth Ickerman was trying to say something here about patriarchal control over women and machine and how they are alike. If it was any more than that then it was probably lost to bong resin. Visually it's like a Heavy Metal magazine made kinky After Effects sex to a prog rock album cover. I mean that in the best possible way. Narratively it tries a little too hard to mean something but without actually saying anything, like bad anime fan fiction, or just anime period. I'll keep an eye on Ickermans career... hopefully he let's other people do the writing... or at least gets better at it. Direction.. I dont know, give him a decent script.. and I'll make my call then. Eventhough my opinion doesn't really matter.

I'm glad this exists I just wish it was better. .

Appallingly bad dialogue,cookie cutter tropes and some overdirected performances all played dead straight for 50minutes. As a piece of storytelling it's simply terrible,but the effects look cool and well made and Carpenter Brut's music slaps. It'll give it a 5 for those as a pity score cause otherwise this is really dull and pathetic to watch.