Blood Shot

Some of my guiltiest pleasures come in the form of horror comedies from the 1980's. Waxwork, Dead Heat, House, are just three of the many titles that I would step on and over young children just to get in front of the screen to which they were projecting. Generally, the films are not very good. But they had a playfulness to them and I will give the benefit of the doubt to the producers that they knew exactly what they intending and to what audience it was intended.

The new millennium has tried to produce some of the magic of the horror/comedy peers of yesteryear, but have been largely unsuccessful. With exceptions handed out to a small few (including the best example of late: Tucker & Dale vs. Evil) the studios try too hard to mix the different genres without just letting it flow and develop into what it might become.

The latest horror/comedy to cross our desk was Blood Shot – a film that has brought 80's horror actors Brad Dourif, Lance Henriksen and Christopher Lambert together (even if none of the three share a scene). Blood Spot is a typical buddy cop film that is not your typical buddy cop film. Brennan Elliott plays Rip, a rogue cop who fights both terrorists and vampires. Bailey Smith plays a vampire – a vampire that works for the CIA (Vampire Division) under the direction of Sam (Henricksen). Rip and the Vampire are constantly at odds with each other with Rip trying everything from garlic to holy water to bring down the undead bloodsucker. But both are crusaders for good. And both find themselves having to team together to fight an evil Middle Eastern terrorist (Dourif) who is planning a nuclear attack on U.S. soil. That's the story. Long and short.

Blood Shot is based on the short film of the same name by writer/director Dietrich Johnston. Johnston gets a bigger budget (estimated at $3.5 million) for this full length feature and does the best with opportunity spinning an enjoyable tale that has a handful of good one-liners and a whole lot of fun as the story plays out.

The film never takes itself too seriously and comes very close at times to resembling a deleted scene from The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! But it manages to consistently pull itself back in from the brink of absurdity to get back to what it does best – entertain.

The story in itself is not ground breaking and painting white actors brown to look like Middle Eastern terrorists will either be offensive or hilarious depending on one's sense of humor. But the action and the relationship between the two reluctant partners is enough to keep this film afloat and amass enough appreciation to present a recommendation.

More interestingly still is where the premise can go from here. The idea of a vigilante vampire has been done before with Blade, but Blood Shot doesn't attempt for spectacular stunts and action sequences. It instead spends time on character and that makes the idea of continuing the series an interesting premise we would like to see exploited.

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A Middle East terrorist (Brad Dourif) is plotting an attack with a nuclear bomb in the US that has to be detonated in the center of Los Angeles. However the only ones that could stop him are a Terminator-like vampire and a rogue cop that form an unlikely duo.

BLOOD SHOT has quite a odd reputation. It has 3,3 and yet 3 recent reviews with 10s written by folks who probably were involved in the production. With such a stellar cast (Dourif, Jeff Chase, Christopher Lambert as the US President and Lance Henriksen as his secretary) someone would expect an entertaining horror. Instead it was just a sloppy mess with bad special effects, explosions clearly made with poor CGI and plot holes like those of Swiss cheese. Not even good for an evening at home movie as at times it was very slow.

BLOOD SHOT is another pitifully-budgeted vampire horror flick that mixes in some thriller and action elements to no good measure. The story has various Russian and Middle Eastern gangs teaming up to get hold of a bomb while the FBI sends in a special agent, who randomly happens to be a vampire, to sort things out. There's an annoying human cop who gets in the way too. This strives for an '80s feel but never really works thanks to the paucity of the budget and amateurish nature of the direction. The hulking Michael Bailey Smith is good value as the vampire, and there are welcome cameos from genre mainstays Lance Henriksen, Brad Dourif and Christopher Lambert (the latter bizarrely playing the president!), but overall this is fairly pitiful.

I just watched Blood Shot for the second time now and found it to be completely entertaining! AGAIN!!! I seriously don't understand the poor reviews. No, it may not be worthy of an Oscar nomination, but really, few movies are. However Blood Shot has everything! Humor, action, suspense, romance, horror!! It's got it all. Good strong lead characters, compelling plot development with a great surprise at the end. My only complaint would be that it hasn't been followed up with a sequel. Overall, I would definitely recommend this movie to anyone wanting a fun flick that doesn't take itself to seriously!!!

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐9.

Hysterical, lots of memorable one liners! This movie is fantastic, I do not get the bad reviews. Well unless it was by people that do not understand clever humor, hysterical one liners and a fantastically silly plot. If you are looking for a uplifting, super fun Sunday afternoon then check this movie out, it is just simply a great time.

The one liners really make the movie and Brad Dourif and Christopher Lambert are great as always. I really do not know what else to say, this movie is great, if you like purposely silly, fun movies then you will love this one. Give it a shot, you will have a great time.

Wow they like a long review for movies here, most people just want a quick summary of how the movie was without someone giving away the plot too much and ruining the movie. That is why I never listen to movie critic reviews, they not only give a pretentious review but they give away too much in the movie and ruin it.