Blood Fest

Solid horror film with enough blood to keep you entertained for the 90 min.

Your truly is an old-school horror fanatic, and the concept of meta-horror ranks extremely high on my personal list of most irritating cinematic trends ever. Sometimes, very exceptionally, it's used in a creative fashion ("Man Bites Dog", "The Cabin in the Woods", "Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon") but far more frequently it just comes across as pretentious and pseudo-intelligent. "Blood Fest" is the most embarrassing meta-horror film I've seen thus far, though. A slasher about surviving a pre-organized massacre by following the clichéd rules of classic slashers. Seriously? How many times has that been done before? Wes Craven centered his whole "Scream" franchise around this exact same gimmick, and even those films are massively overrated. But hey, writer/director Owen Egerton clearly thought his own script was brilliant, because he even depicts the "arrogant horror mastermind" himself. "Blood Fest" does contain some good gore and a handful of atmospheric moments (notably the clown gathering and the creepy dolls in the movie theater), so maybe there's hope that Egerton has it in him to make a half-decent "real" horror movie one day. You may now proceed to vote this comment as "non-useful" because I'm old, whiny and without sense of humor.

Blood Fest is a horror-comedy which can be filed under the meta movie bracket. It unashamedly wears its influences on its sleeves and it is an unpretentious celebration of the horror genre. The man behind it is writer/director/actor Owen Egerton who plays the circus ringleader here. The story is very simple. A horror-obsessed teenager goes along to a new horror-themed festival called Blood Fest with his two pals. When there, it becomes quickly apparent that the horror is real and the attendees become the prey of the killers who run the place.

The set-up of the movie is basically a neat way to allow for the inclusion of a variety of horror tropes and situations. To this end we have chainsaw killers, killer clowns, a hillbilly psycho, sexy vampires, marauding zombies and torture sadism; with nods to all manner of movies including The Wizard of Gore (1970), The Evil Dead (1981), Ring (1998), Saw (2004), etc. It is quite a lot of silly fun and pretty amusing quite a bit of the time too with some funny lines, i.e. 'your mother was killed by horror'. What it ultimately is, though, is a gore-fest with knowing nods to the genre and as such will make for somewhat entertaining viewing for horror fans.

I'm a horror fan and have spent years watching many, many films.

The storyline may be somewhat predictable. It's a horror film. People are likely to die. There may be love interests or friendships.

Special effects. Hmmnn. Not so special at times. Often anatomically incorrected but the title is Blood Fest and jugular artery style squirting should accompany any cut -Wherever that may be.

Is it watchable? Can you relate to the characters? Interesting storyline? Gore? YES!

This is a comedy horror. I don't know what films other reviewers are comparing it with.

Enjoy it for what it is.

Predictable and filled with cliches, but still somewhat entertaining overall. This has some nice effects (it is violent as the title does suggest, though there are other movies out there with a bigger amount/volume of blood flowing) and the characters while almost cardboard cutouts are being played with some gusto that makes you almost that fact.

This is not a great movie or a classic or whatever but it is here to entertain you and also tries on some morals (especially towards the end). Having said all that, it is just beyond making sense, so don't try to even think about character motivation and whatnot. Watch it without any single thought and you may be entertained, otherwise it might come close to a waste of time