Trail of Blood

I confess that my expectations for Trail of Blood were really low. The first 20 minutes or so were about as trite and formulaic they come: 5-6 kids out on a camping trip, scary-music set ups that turned out to be a friend walking up from behind. The campers were of course your stereotypical self-absorbed millennials. Really? Why was I watching this? But at about minute 30, things turned.... a turn to the bad for the young campers, and to the good for the viewer. Enter ex-Marine (Trevor Torseth), who in his first minute of screen time raised the average quality of the acting by about a third. It's not a spoiler to say that people die here. While much of the last 45 minutes of Trail of Blood are predictable, there are enough twists and unexpected flashes of brutality to raise it a notch or two above the typical Survive the Madman in the Woods flicks that are a dime a dozen. Trail of Blood is an example of what can be made on a small budget with decent direction, a solid performance in a key role and a good script,

A few friends hit the forest with some tents and find themselves sharing the woods with a couple of serial killers. They end up being picked off one by one with two FBI agents hot on the blood trail.

This wasn't too bad at all. Tons of tense scenes all through this one. The killer looked like too much like Marc Singer though, so when you got the Beastmaster trying to be a menacing psycho it doesn't really work. The gore was pretty good as lots of blood gets spilled in this one.

The ending took a different turn which probably ruins it for a lot of people.

This is a really good movie. I am surprised that it is not better known or more appreciated. Though it may start out like just another "slasher in the woods" movie, that is not what it is at all. The writing is very good, and the story doesn't lead exactly where you think it is going. The acting is also very good, especially Tim Barraco and Trevor Torseth as the main protagonists. The characters are well fleshed out and believable. This is a very subtle movie. There are several threads in addition to the main story that all come together at the end. It is the kind of movie you may have to watch more than once to fully appreciate. The ending in unexpected and powerful. They don't make movies like this much anymore. It seems to me to be a throwback to the 70's, when movies like LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, I DRINK YOUR BLOOD, and THE HILLS HAVE EYES showed that movies could be both violent and intelligent. If you liked those movies, I highly recommend TRAIL OF BLOOD.

It has a decent overall story but the choices by the main character are so bad. It's full of cliches you can see a mile away. It's frustrating to watch these bumbling characters make the worst decisions. Some tense scenes here and there. If the movie was tightened up in a few places with better writing it could've been so much better. Overall just disappointing as you can there is a good film in there somewhere. It just has some serious eye rolling moments with character choices and the stereotypical in the woods shenanigans. I believe the story is good, but it needs to be remade with some better writing . Overall it's okay, just left disappointed.