Hemoglobin - Creature dell'inferno

I recently rented 'Hemoglobin' (also known as 'Bleeders') expecting the typical A-Pix film -- horrible acting, bad script and annoying children. So, when I got home and popped it in the VCR I was rather surprised to see an interesting not-so-horrorish film.

Sure, it still had the annoyingly fake children that A-Pix are known for, but in the end 'Hemoglobin' was rather interesting. The storyline was quite good -- a young man with blood problems and his wife visit the island on which he was born. This man searches the island to try to find out who his parents were and why he has his problems and ends up running into quite an interesting story. All while this is happening, townsfolk are disappearing or getting scared to death.

I think this film would probably be of interest to anyone who's a fan of the A-Pix style or people interested in the Suspense/Thriller genre. It's not the greatest film that your ever going to see, but it's something worth catching on late night television or if you have a dollar to spare.

Also, take note of one fact pointed out twice in the movie -- the main actress is pregnant. Can anyone smell a sequel?

An uncredited adaptation of the Lurking Fear, Hemoglobin (as it is titled in the current US DVD release) stars Rutger Hauer as a drunken doctor recently moved to a small New England fishing community. The arrival of John Strauss (played in near-albino fashion by Roy Dupuis) raises some interesting questions.

The basic theme of Lovecraft's story remains unchanged. A family of incest-deformed monsters live beneath the town, feeding on the dead. Of course, Lovecraft provided a description of the horror in the Lurking Fear and yet, to my knowledge, there is no adaptation that has bothered to be true to this fairly simple detail.

The movie is fairly fast paced, though the insertion of a sex scene comes off as forced and staged, interrupting the film's progression for the purpose of a few quick breast shots. The creature effects aren't that great, indeed, they are probably one of the poorer portions of the film. The footage of the underground catacombs though? That is just wonderful.

The film tries to play with atmosphere, and does us the courtesy of not waving badly made up monsters in our face. Indeed, one of the more tense scenes plays out mostly in shadow as the creatures storm the local lighthouse.

This is an average horror flick that really should be better than it is. The initial screenplay adapts Lovecraft's "The Lurking Fear" and was by Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett. The film sports a beautiful location (Grand Manan Island, Canada) that maintains that same creepy boating town vibe as their earlier DEAD & BURIED, but gets bogged thanks to flat direction from Peter Svatek. Dupuis, who also has the O'Bannon penned SCREAMERS on his resume (his mom must be proud), looks a tad out of place, more like a TWILIGHT reject with his pale skin, flowing hair and bad fashion sense. Hauer is decent in the film and actually survives. Oddly enough, half of the cast also popped up in THE SWEET HEREAFTER the same year. The film does earn points for having harm come to several children through out. Svatek must have some kind of fetish because he moved on to TV movies like BABY FOR SALE (2004) and STOLEN BABIES, STOLEN LIVES (2008).

This is a nasty, nasty horror film. It is visually so repulsive that it is at the same time repellent and attractive. There is no plot to speak of and nothing really surprising happens, but the fascination of the grotesque kept me watching long past the point at which I would have turned off many other films of this caliber.

'Bleeders' is known as 'Hemoglobin' in the UK which I will proceed to refer to this films as.

At the beginning of a film a young couple, Kathleen (played by the gorgeous Kristin Lehmann) and John Strauss (Roy Dupuis) arrive by boat on an island. Shortly after docking John has a kind of seizure and is quickly taken across the island to Dr. Marlowe (the legendary Rutger Hauer). It is here that we learn that John is suffering from some sort of blood disorder and has come to this island in hope of tracing his family and finding a possible cure.

At the same time, while excavating a graveyard to move the bodies due to the highly annoying local business woman using poor quality wood in her coffins it starts to become apparent that there are a number of bodies missing from the coffins.

'Hemoglobin' deals with themes rarely tackled by films in any genre. We have genetic mutations caused by incestuous relationships and also hermaphrodites. Despite only having occasional nudity, there is a strong sexual context to the film, though that seems there more to shock than to titillate.

People tend to slate the acting from this film, but I personally see no problem with it. The problem with the film in my opinion is to do with the extreme lack of useful dialogue and the overall execution of the idea. 'Hemoglobin' is a slow movie, therefore it's quite easy to lose interest, but at the same time when an event happens in the film that is of importance it is quick and often dealt with in a short amount of time. So to fully understand some of what is going on in the movie you really need to pay attention.

The ending was also somewhat of a disappointment and also feeled tacked on. There are so many questions left by the ending that one begins to wonder whether it was worth watching to begin with. Unless perhaps a sequel was planned but due to the negative reactions to the film was scrapped I can't actually see how the ending could have happened the way it did. But despite this there are some rather dramatic parts in the ending, you just need to sift through the rubbish.

The monster costumes are also a bad-point. Some of them look like they were made out of plasticine, and while they are fairly original looking it doesn't detract from the stupidity of how they look and move. But at least they didn't go for CGI, and other than the costumes there are some good make-up effects in 'Hemoglobin' that are actually quite praise worthy.

It's a slow moving movie that many people will find too dull to watch. I personally give it 4/10 and I'd say this film is for serious horror fans who are looking for something different.