Blood Trails

"Blood Trails" is truly a mixed bag and I honestly can't decide whether I should be harsh or mild in my user comment. On one hand, it's an admirably tense nowadays horror flick with brutal gore, lovely filming locations and identifiable main characters, but on the other hand it serves cliché after cliché as well as a banquet of stupid & illogical twists. I liked the realism of the character drawings. Anne and Michael are going through a severe relationship crises and decide to head out to their favorite holiday resort; a cabin surrounded by thick woods where they can practice their common hobby of mountain biking. But there's more. Brief flashbacks indicate that Anne had a one-night-stand with a rude cop, and when he suddenly appears on his mountain bike as well, a cruel & bloody chase through the woods begins. The first half hour of "Blood Trails" is really good, showing Anne struggling with her inner demons and the flashbacks gradually revealing what psycho her one night lover was. The film also features the extremely vile and presumably unique murder-by-bike sequence! Just in case you always wondered how you can slice someone's carotid artery using only a bike, this is your movie! Okay, so far we had amiable characters and impressive bloodshed, but unfortunately the movie then becomes pretty bad & irritating. How the deranged killer managed to exactly trace the couple, I'm still prepared to overlook, but Anne then makes so many stupid decisions that she almost deserves to die. Why didn't she at least try to wait wait for her rescuers atop the mountain, since they were just a couple of minutes away? Doesn't she realize she's the one acting like an escaped crazy woman when she meets the woodchoppers? Why stop and thoroughly study the road map when you can drive far away from the forest? The last twenty minutes are dreadfully boring, and a very shameless attempt to cash in on the success of torture-porn highlights like "Saw" and "Hostel", with the demented killer patiently explaining to Anne why exactly he's so looking forward to kill her. "Blood Trails" was shot and produced in Germany, but promoted for the international market. Director Robert Krause is a German as well, and this film is his long-feature debut after two acclaimed short movies. The make-up effects are quite impressive and definitely not intended for the eyes of squeamish, but a slightly more coherent narrative and more logical twists would still have been better.

Bike messenger Anne (Rebecca Palmer) has a one-night-stand with psychotic cycle cop Chris (Ben Price), after which she leaves for a weekend of mountain biking with her unsuspecting boyfriend Michael (Tom Frederic). Opting to ignore signs prohibiting the use of a dangerous trail, the pair speed through the rugged countryside unaware that they are being stalked by Chris...

Hardcore mountain bikers require some serious skills to avoid coming a cropper on perilous terrain, but the killer in this film takes the sport to a whole new level, not only making his bike fly, but also angling it in mid-air in order to tear out someone's throat with the chain. And he still lands safely back on two wheels. Tekkers!

Such a ludicrous death might have been fun if it was executed in a tongue-in-cheek style, but it is played out in such a straight manner that it proves laughable for all the wrong reasons. Sadly, it's not the only thing about the film that beggars belief, the killer being able to locate and sneak up on his victims with surprising ease and Anne being amongst the most unlikeable and irritating of horror movie victims, repeatedly making dumb decisions that put her, and those she is with, in mortal danger.

Director Robert Krause makes good use of his scenic setting, achieves a touch of genuine suspense towards the end of the film, and delivers some juicy gore, but the negatives far outweigh the positives. My advice: steer well clear of this one.

I bought this movie, new, for $2 from a local movie store.

I never had high hopes for a Lions Gate movie, costing me so little $ and it didn't let me down!

This is a slow paced stocker type movie, almost from the start.

From the get-go, I had a problem with the main character's looks. She was ugly! Normally this wouldn't affect me , but there was implied sex, implied rape, and several shots of her ( naked ) breasts !

This movie drags, not really showing much content. It took them 20 minutes to establish the main character liked mountain biking, and may or may not have raped by the antagonist ( shown in brief flash backs, but never explained ) ... from there, until 12 minutes before the movie ends, it's them running around in the woods, with bicycles.

It also doesn't help the main character is "blind" in a couple scenes, and tends to make very stupid choices.

A few situations pop up, but nothing really interesting.

For me, the most memorable part was the first time I watched " death by bicycle wheel" in a movie.

As far as the ending, it was a major let down. No major confrontation or fight between the main character and the villain.

Over all, it's a $2 movie released by Lions Gate. Nothing special, just a time killer.

You also know it's a not so good movie movie when the director is billed as ( no joke ) ... "" Robert Krause 'Blood Trails' Rebeccaa Palmer Ben Price Tom Frederic "" ... this is right from the box credit cover . There are no commas .

As a side note, I know it's a bit nit-picky, but they are suppose to be in "The Whistler Mountain Range" ( Nevada ), and the main character is looking for "Whistler Mountain" ( Kentucky ), but trying to reference American locations, when the accents are European and the license plates on the vehicle are also European, does not work very well.

This movie is so bad that it is still screening on my DVD while I type this so don't yet know the ending. Mind you, something tells me I could make a very educated guess.

Another reviewer compared it to a student film and boy is he right; in fact I swear I shot this at Brookland Tech in Weybridge on the film course in 1969.

Surely the censor should have refused it a rating at least to spare us actually spending money to watch it.

Just looked up and it's the old serrated knife against the heroine's milky white thigh - yawn. Can you just kill her pretty please Mr Badman - all she does is cycle furiously, scream and jump into rivers covered in blood; emerges cleansed of the blood and then - oh yes, even the continuity girl lost interest, becomes miraculously blood spattered again.

"This is you, this is who you are" - Oh for heaven's sake who wrote this crap? Avoid it like the plague.

I didn't expect much from this movie, but "Blood Trails" turned out as a very pleasant surprise. It's a gritty, unpleasant slasher movie, not timid, but effective by suspense rather than splatter. Even though the final confrontation is inevitable, the actual outcome remains unpredictable until (literally!) the last split-second.

Cinematography and editing are beautiful, often relying on extreme close-ups that reflect the tunnel-vision panic of the leading character. Thereby, the movie creates a dense, believable atmosphere. The bicycle theme is an interesting variation, lending both independence and vulnerability to the heroine. The lead actress is probably the strongest asset of the movie: Rebecca Palmer is absolutely great here.

Highly recommended!