Blood Relic

A cast of mostly anonymous teenagers hired to clean a aerospace museum experience bloody mayhem after one of them finds an occult talisman. This film is strongly adequate in most categories. The photography is professional. The direction is reasonably assured. The cast isn't too embarrassing, and generally all of the girls show some flesh. The aerospace museum location adds production value even though most of the mayhem happens in a more generic warehouse. The gore is adequate – though the make-up generally plays out in the aftermath of the attacks rather than in the violence itself. So what's the problem? It's just tired. Young, good-looking people being killed off one-by-one by a masked assailant. Been there, seen that. I needed an extra hook, and there wasn't one. The potential of an interesting "monster" was wasted. The talisman is a wasted device. It seems turns the wearer into a homicidal maniac. The characters are always simply running from the unknown human carrier than battling the demonic entity pulling the strings. It would have been more interesting if the filmmakers had taken the time to develop force behind talisman better, and let the characters try to figure a way to take it on directly. Not terrible, when you consider the low standards of the genre, but there are better films out there.

Blood Relic (2005) is another in a long line of terrible straight-to-video movies. Some are fun but most of them are dreadful and unwatchable. This is one of those that need to be not seen and never heard from. The only reason that I didn't give this movie a straight zero was that low budget movie queen Debbie Rochon was in the picture and she was hot to look at. Other than that I wouldn't give it the time of day. Billy Drago looks like he drank all of his money. He could barely stand up and all he did was mumble his badly written dialog. He tries to come off like Udo Kier. But Udo's cool and he can still deliver a performance. Billy Drago was just too painful to watch. A bad movie all around that doesn't warrant a further look.

Stay away, not recommended.

There isn't really a whole lot one can do in making a horror movie that doesn't at least remind you of another horror movie you've seen. In that respect, Blood Relic is no different.

There's not enough time spent showing how all these folks who know each other actually know each other, or why those who DON'T know the others are there in the first place.

Some films talk too long about integral parts of the movie, but Blood Relic just slaps the main inanimate character in, expects you to believe it, and then tries half heartedly about halfway through to explain where it came from.

A few gratuitous partial nudity shots for no apparent reason, some excess blood from small wounds and not enough from large ones, and a few other shortcomings detracted from the whole movie.

My main complaint is that the characters aren't explained or developed at all. After each character's fatal meeting with the bad guy(s), you're generally left thinking "Awww, and I hardly even knew that one, either." I had no problem with the movie though. As someone who takes every opportunity available to watch what others routinely refer to as 'bad' movies, I'd give it a five (or even better) because it had a little of the horror, blood, screeching, running around senselessly, etc. that I've come to love in my movie fare.

And another feature to this flick... Do you simply LOVE a freaky ending? I like unexpected twists, as long as they're plausible. The ending of Blood Relic is...

Something you'll just have to see for yourself!

In 1983, a U. S. Naval pilot shot down in Grenada discovers a human skull on a pole with a small carved talisman on a cord around it. For no good reason, he removes the (not very cool looking) little thingie and puts it around his neck. After he's been rescued, the cursed necklace causes him to go nuts and kill some mechanics. Then he hides the talisman in a storage compartment at the base. He's shipped off to the funny farm for 22 years, and in all that time it never occurs to him to tell anybody about the talisman even though he knows exactly where it's hidden and his story could easily be proved. By the time he's released, it's 2005 and the former Naval station is being converted into a military history tourist attraction. The gang of sarcastic oversexed college twits working on the renovation decide to sneak in after hours to play with a Cryptique spirit board (an unnecessary plot detour). Somebody in a flight suit and helmet starts sneaking around stabbing them to death. As the Navy man, John Christian is excellent in both his "nice" and "evil" scenes, although he doesn't look a day older in the 2005 portion of the film than he did in the 1983 segment. At one point he explains that the only way to destroy the demonic talisman is for the person wearing it to be killed while under its influence. There's no reason why his character would know that. He just does. The main (male) character is such an idiot that he thinks the killer is a character who has been with him throughout the last few murders. He bashes the guy's skull in before he remembers that they'd been together the whole time. Oops. There are some lapses in internal logic, but as teenkill movies go BLOOD RELIC is probably one of the better exercises in stalk-&-slash made around this time. The pacing is perfect, the characters are a little better defined than usual, and the prevailing mood is decently suspenseful. There were even a couple of mild surprise twists that honestly managed to fool me. Scream queen Debbie Rochon comes off a little better than usual as the most cynical member of the group, and she even keeps her clothes on except for quickly flashing one breast. Most of the other actresses play trashy characters who take their shirts off as often as possible, appearing topless so many times in a single night that it borders on the absurd. There are a few brief, gory makeup effects but they're strictly standard stuff. The false scares that turn out to be practical jokes won't fool anyone, but the actual murder scenes are pretty good. It's too bad there isn't an interesting villain or any visual side to the supernatural aspect. Whoever wears the necklace simply freaks out and starts killing people, and that's about all we ever learn about it. The closing credits ruin the scariness by showing unfunny outakes in which the actors crack up laughing. Oh, well.... I guess you can't have everything, huh?

Everything you desire in an 80's slasher movie is here. And what elevates Blood Relic somewhat, is the unique location used, which certainly beats the cheap storage garage sets many low budget films use today. Also two of my personal favorites, Debbie Rochon, and Billy Drago are involved. Sadly Debbie is not the star, but her scenes are still beneficial to the film. And for my money, Billy Drago can be in the most lousy piece of trash film imaginable, and still deliver an engrossing villainous performance. The kill scenes were solid here, and the ladies shed there clothes often. Ingvordsen has finally got a grasp on what fans of this genre enjoy, after his watchable, yet almost pg level Bog Creatures. In the end this is an above average throwback, with a unique setting, and the required horror goodies.