Blood Hook

Giant Musky Bait = Murder Weapon = Cheesy Fun.

This is the cheesiest of all 80's slasher attempts. It's even cheesier than Slash Dance or Killer Workout.

I put off watching the flick for years. I guess there was a reason for that. When I finally popped the tape into my ancient vcr, I giggled under my breath, but couldn't bring myself to a full laugh.

The synth score is really catchy and adds an uneasiness throughout the film, even tho you know there's absolutely nothing eerie about it.

Only die hard cheese fans will find something enjoyable about someone casting a large musky bait onto someone until they die. Very sappy.

Is it worth a watch? Hell yeah. Grab a beer, kick back, and prepare to see something like you've never before seen.

I recently watched Blood Hook (1986) on Tubi. The storyline unfolds during a fishing derby with numerous participants, but unfortunately, a serial killer with a giant fishing lure and pole is on the hunt for fishermen.

The film, directed by Jim Mallon (known for 78 episodes of Mystery Science Theater), features Mark Jacobs (Goodfellas), Lisa Jane Todd (Playback), Bill Lowrie (Prisoner), and Paul Heckman.

Embracing a classic '80s atmosphere in settings, circumstances, conversations, and acting, the movie stands out for its unique premise. The kills are unconventional, with a giant fishing lure soaring across the screen and landing on unsuspecting victims. While the film could have been better with additional gore and more impactful kills, they may have been the best they could do with low budget of $200k.

In conclusion, Blood Hook is a below-average addition to the horror genre that only for diehard fans of the '80s-era contributions to the genre. I would give it a score of 3.5-4/10 but recommend watching it once.

It is kind of funny that someone who would later be one of the forces behind a television show that made fun of bad movies would have one on his resume. Not that it is all bad, for a Troma movie it does have its moments. This one is not as goofy as a lot of Troma movies get, in fact it is one of the more straight horror movies I have seen from them. The only thing odd is that people are being killed with a fish hook and reeled in like fish. And no the people are not being killed by a giant fish (though that would have been rather good). This one instead is a basic slasher with the mode of death being the only real unique touch to it. Unlike newer Troma movies this one is a real movie too. They had a movie advertised on my copy of this called "Tales from the Crapper" and it basically looked like a tape of Girls Gone Wild. So this one looks great by comparison. Like a lot of slashers you don't know who the killer is and they try to fool you, but in this case once you know the killer the movie goes on a bit too long after. It runs about 10 minutes more than it should. Though this is not a cinematic classic it is not all bad especially considering it is a Troma picture.

This is one of the better B-horror movies out there. Being a person who watches these kinds of movies every couple days, this one actually stands out from the rest of the ones I've seen and long since forgotten. I can see why Troma picked it up.

There are some actual funny parts in this movie that are seriously meant to be funny. Usually movies don't pull that off very well. But the jokes in here are actually good ones. I liked the one about Elvis Costello being someone that parents listen to, I really don't like his music so that was cool to me.

The characters are good, too. I like the guy with the fishhook earring who tries so hard to be cool with everybody but no one really gives him a chance. When he's talking to the German guy and using all this slang that I have never even heard, it's really funny. Usually that kind of stuff isn't funny, but I laughed out loud for some reason.

It's funny, too, how they incorporate the Devil's Interval or whatever it's called, into the events. That group of notes really did exist back in the day, and people weren't supposed to use them because it supposedly was evil. I was wondering when a horror movie would pick up on that. And it's funny that the guy who figured it out in the movie was some rock and roll music theory composer college student.

The very athletic lady with the baby was a strange character. Her line "I like that" was kind of unique and everything about her made the movie seem more real when the rest of it seemed kind of cheezy. It's a good cheezy, though.

Besides, how many people own a giant fishing lure that is hooky enough to snag someone so they can't get away and then strong enough to pull someone right off of their boat into the water and able to be reeled in? That's some tackle!

The dummies of the dead people under the dock were actually super gross and looked real to me. Dead things under docks in water always freak me out anyway. And these were well-done, I thought.

So yeah, watch this one if you're a b-horror movie fan. Don't let the box cover deter you away. It's not a lame movie about girls in bikinis water skiing. In fact there are no scenes that even have the slightest resemblance to the cover. It's a good movie.

Blood Hook (1986)

** (out of 4)

A small town in Wisconsin is having their annual fishing contest, which draws people from all over the country. A group of young adults plan on having some fun but before long they notice several people are going missing. It turns out that a mysterious person is using a fishing hook to kill people.

BLOOD HOOK is a film that got released by Troma and it turned into a pretty big hit on VHS. The film is a send up of the slasher genre, although it doesn't go too far over-the-top in regards to laughs. It's easy to see why the film would gain a cult following but I must say that I had a few too many issues with it that prevented me from enjoying it more.

I will say that I really enjoyed Jim Mallon's direction and I thought he did a very good job at building up the atmosphere of this small town. I also liked the look of this small town, the wooded area and the lake itself becomes its own character and a good one. I'd also argue that there are a few creative moments in regards to some of the death scenes and I liked the "fishing" nature of the murders.

With that being said, this thing clocks in at a whopping 111-minutes, which is a good forty-minutes too long. I really don't understand why this thing lasted so long and especially since there are so many scenes that just run on and on and on. There are so many characters here and many of them are given a lot of screentime for no real purpose. I really thought the film and its style would have worked a lot better with a 70 or 80-minute running time.

I also thought the majority of the characters were mildly interesting but just not enough to warrant the time. The death scenes are good for what they are but there weren't enough in that long running time. BLOOD HOOK had enough interesting moments to make it worth sitting through to this rabid horror fan but I think most people will be completely bored by it.