Blood Relations

BLOOD RELATIONS starts out like an erotically-charged thriller, turns into a mystery, then winds up in full-blown horror territory. Nothing is as it appears to be, as the story takes several quick, off-kilter turns.

Lydie Denier is the increasingly perplexed Marie, who slowly uncovers the family secrets that will cost her dearly. Kevin Hicks is Thomas, Marie's unpredictable fiance. Jan Rubes plays Andreas, the extremely friendly, possibly unbalanced patriarch of this little psychodrama. There are definitely some hidden parts to his personality!

This movie is twisted, bizarre, and in the end, utterly satisfying...

I wasn't expecting much, if anything, from this film but my interests was really peaked by it when checking out this page before I started watching. I was surprised to see so many positive comments for Blood Relations before seeing the film - and even more surprised afterwards as this is a boring mess of a movie and I'm surprised anyone could find anything good to say about it! The story is not exactly original and focuses on a dysfunctional family. We follow a young girl who comes home to her family and ends up getting mixed up in a web of murder etc. The film is quite trippy as a result of the numerous drug induced dream sequences, but it's difficult to really care about anything that goes on and that constantly hinders it. The film's one saving grace comes in the shapely form of Lydie Denier in the central role, who provides the film with some much needed eye candy. I'm guessing this is meant to be a 'serious' horror film rather than a campy one, though it's very cheap and the scares, if intended, do really miss the mark. Overall, this is not a good or memorable film and since it is quite obscure anyway, I wouldn't recommend anyone purposefully seeks it out.

"Blood Relations" is a truly bizarre horror film.Stunningly beautiful Lydie Denier is being brought home by rich Kevin Hicks.She meets surgeon dad Jan Rubes and together with the son they plan to kill dad and get a huge inheritance.But soon we learn dad and son are quite mad...The film is occasionally truly creepy and weird-the performances are very good and believable.There is almost no gore,but the film definitely works as an atmospheric Gothic shocker.Overlooked classic and a must-see for horror fans!

I rented this movie totally by mistake thinking it was Claude Chabrol's "Blood Relatives", but it didn't turn out to be a TOTAL waste of a rental fee. It's kind of an early "erotic thriller", but unlike those films it doesn't let itself get totally overwhelmed by long sex scenes and actually does function somewhat as an inheritance thriller with some horror movie scenes involving graphic brain surgery thrown in for good measure.

French actress Lydie Dernier was living proof that you didn't need to be able to act or even pronounce the English language if you were willing to doff all your duds in any piece of crap movie defecated by the low-budget Hollywood film industry. This is definitely a step up from "Satan's Princess" (and let's not even speak of that movie she was in Robbie Benson). Naturally Lydie takes her clothes off a lot, and this is the only film I know of(aside from that dubbed late-night Ursula Andress cable classic "The Sensuous Nurse")where a woman seduces a son, a father, AND a grandfather (the latter played by the late, great Ray Walston).

Would I have rented this intentionally? Well, no. But I have now wasted five minutes of my (admittedly pathetic)life reviewing it, so I guess I can't say its THAT bad.

"Blood Relations" follows a young woman (Lydie Denier) who accompanies her boyfriend to his rich family's estate in the dead of winter. Her encounters with his estranged father (Jan Rubes), a brain surgeon, become increasingly strange, and the family's dark secrets start to emerge.

While certainly not an accomplished masterwork, "Blood Relations" is an atmospheric psychological horror movie that has the temperament of a hard-edged Lifetime TV movie from the early-1990s. What works about it is that it boasts an atmospheric setting, a number of moody nighttime sequences, and a twisty plot that keeps the viewer in "what is going here?" territory.

The film mostly plays like a sordid V. C. Andrews-adjacent family drama until the final act, where it becomes a full-fledged horror movie. It does rely on a number of repetitive sequences that are portrayed ambiguously (as in they could be dreams, or they may in fact be real), which wears thin. That being said, the grim denouement packs enough of a punch that I found myself mildly applauding the film for going for the jugular. The performances here are middling at best, though Jan Rubes is effective as the dubious and sinister patriarch.

All in all, "Blood Relations" is a minor effort with a TV-movie feel, but it does get progressively darker as it moves toward its conclusion. It is a decent horror flick with enough idiosyncrasies and moodiness that warrant a viewing from genre fans. 6/10.