Blood Demon Rising

Delicious horror/occult gore! Loved this indie fright film. Harkens back to some of the 70's horror gems like "Rosemary's Baby", the "Exorcist", and "Hell House". Performances are solid and, I suspect, the cast and crew had a blast making this film. Don't watch alone!

I'm starting to think there is something wrong with me. I keep subjecting myself to almost unwatchable trash and expect it to get better. I knew this one was going to be a mess, just from the cover art and opening credits, but I still decided to keep going. I was hoping to find some light at the end of the tunnel and unfortunately, I did... in the form of a train. I'm giving Blood Demon Rising 1 star for production value, acting, writing, and direction (actually I should give those items a negative 1 for making me laugh while my wife is trying to sleep and I woke her up, but I'll just leave it). The only other reason I gave this a second star was for the gratuitous amounts of nudity. Watch the opening credits, if you get that gut feeling to turn this off, I suggest you do it... it won't get any better, especially when you see a lady chop a baby with a sword like she's Conan the Barbarian.

I had never heard of the actor Stephen Lestat but he has a blast playing the terrifying demon in Blood Demon Rising. It's a borderline X-rated horror that revels in depictions of torture and gore. It also has ambitious production design, sharp cinematography and resourceful special effects. There's a lot of camp value here too. It would be interesting to hear what director Tchinski's influences are. Acting, dialogue and editing aren't as polished as a Hollywood product, but I'm a big believer that unvarnished horror is generally more effective than the slick stuff. If it's scary imagery you're looking for, step right into this asylum.

This film's cinematography and lighting are very good, and the shots are well-designed, for the most part (two glaring exceptions are an important scene with a "line-crossing" error, where two characters talking to each other from across the room are both looking off to the left, and another scene where a character is supposedly crawling up another character's leg from the floor, yet clearly the crawled-upon character is high up on a box). The set design, costumes (except for the awful matching "Spaceship Terror Film Crew 2010" sweatshirts on the two college guys, which I'm hoping was at the insistence of the director of both films, Harry Tchinski), and makeup are also all well done. Wendy Tchinski, the other half of HarWen Entertainment, did the set design and costumes, and was one of the non-SFX makeup artists.

Some of the actors were good. Gabrielle Urban probably turns in the scariest performance as Evil Little Girl. Norman Newkirk as James is a little reminiscent of Jack Palance, though more overtly evil, with more moustache-twirling, but if his performance is a little cartoonish, it's also consistent, creepy, and fun to watch. Finally, Stephen Lestat as the Grimises Demon (BTW, what a horrible name choice -- I can see why this got retitled -- I immediately thought of Grimace from the McDonald's commercials) was an unusual choice, but I think it was smart to go with a more schlubby guy rather than the usual handsome devil/demon. Also I liked the characterization, how he's quite polite and amiable, if you're cooperating with his will, and not the embodiment of all evil. The idea of a vampire demon was also a relatively unique choice. Simone Leorin is unremarkable but fine as Father Samuel, and I suppose his natural Italian accent helps sell him as a Catholic priest with the power to fight evil, though it occasionally gets in the way of his dialogue ("But what is its porpoise?"). The rest of the actors are about par for a low-budget indie film produced in a city like Tacoma, Washington that's not known for its film industry, and are generally mediocre to bad.

Harry Tchinski's writing is definitely not great, but the overall concept was good, and treated the subject of a "haunted attraction" concealing real-life horror with a lot more imagination than "Dark Ride" (2006). The thought of discovering you're complicit when you discover the horrific sights you've been enjoying are actually real people suffering is one that resonates for me, as a huge fan of haunted attractions. Also, as much as you hear about virgins being sacrificed, you very rarely hear anything about what consequences there are if your victim isn't actually a virgin, or how difficult it'd be to find adult virgins to sacrifice in today's day and age.

Probably the worst aspect of the movie was the sound design and foley, which the director credits himself for, the sound recording, and the sound mixing. The foley is laughably bad, and sometimes sounds like prerecorded sound effects being triggered (even the same footstep sound over and over) rather than actual foley. There's a huge noise floor under most of the dialogue and effects, which jarringly gets turned up before each of those sounds comes in and then gets turned back down after each one. Not sure if they recorded the sound on analog equipment, or just at way-too-low levels, or what. Sounds randomly sound weirdly tinny, are panned wrong, are out-of-sync with picture, etc. The dialogue is mostly easy to make out, though.

The only part of the sound that isn't bad is Eric Bridenmaker's music, which is very enjoyable, appropriate, and much better than the average film score. (Very synthy, but I like that.)

Vying for "worst" with the sound are the CGI effects, which again, the director decided to do himself, rather than finding some talented friend, as he was smart enough to do in cases like the cinematography and music. As with much of the foley, most of these effects are so bad that *anything* they could have put in instead (or even *nothing*) would have been better. The worst shot was a fully CG one of a restaurant and surroundings. It took me a long time to try to figure out what the shot was even supposed to represent (a model in the haunted attraction...??), and it was a real facepalm moment when I realized it was replacing what should have been a straightforward outdoor location shot. The best effect was done with puppeteering -- wish they had done more of the effects practically, as all the practical stuff in the movie (e.g. the special effects makeup) looked great. It's interesting that as of this writing (I'm about to submit an update), IMDb shows the film as still in post-production since June 2012 -- dunno if that's just an oversight on somebody's part, or if they had originally intended to have a proper effects company do the CG (and maybe have people who know how to do sound do that?) but ran out of money, and only finally finished off the film as a DIY last year.

If you're a fan of haunted attractions and enjoy low-budget indie horror and can forgive it its faults while enjoying the good stuff (which, depending on your tastes, may also include the female nudity liberally sprinkled throughout, and also one semi-shocking scene towards the end that I've never seen done in a horror movie before), this is an entertaining film which you'll probably enjoy, as I did. I would definitely be open to checking out more from Harry Tchinski in the future (though I'll feel dirty checking out his only other film to date, "Spaceship Terror", due to the glaring product placement in this film), but I hope he tries to stick to the directing and (visual) editing and delegates to people who are more talented at other aspects of production in the future.

This movie suffers from a lot of the sorts of things low-budget movies suffer from: limited talent, obvious CG, and no budget for special effects. Now you have the bad news.

The good news is that from this stew of things that shouldn't work emerges a flick that does. There's a sense of fun that pervades and it animates what would otherwise be a dull ride. Some of the acting is pretty good and there are a couple of genuinely spooky scenes. If you're up for a good-bad movie, this one is worth ogling.