Blood Massacre

Don Dohler was known mostly from his SF/horror movies with bloodthirsty aliens like 'Nightbeast' or 'Alien Factor' 'Blood Massacre' is completely different movie and tells the story of four video store robbers who accidentally killed the owner's daughter. They are hiding in rural house terrorizing local family. What they don't know, all of the family members are sick cannibals who wants their blood and guts for a dinner... 'Blood Massacre' is one of the Don Dohler's last good movies made with good gory taste. The movie itself isn't very gory. We have decapitation, blades in the stomach, stick in the guts and some more, but honestly it's not so much for Don Dohler's earlier standards. The plot is just very similar to 'Texas Chain Saw Massacre' but with four thugs instead of teenagers. What I want to say - this movie isn't so disturbing as it should be. Anyway, 'Blood Massacre' is still very fun and easy to watch little flick. The acting is horrible, but who cares? We have some nice gore scenes(although there should be much more blood and gore), pretty nice rock music and finally very nice and surprising twist on the end. If you find this movie, give it a chance. 6 out of 10

After committing a series of crimes, a group of deranged criminals hiding out from the police take over a remote house in the countryside from a family living inside, but as they spend time in their presence realize that there's something off about the family and must try to get away from them alive.

For the most part, this one was quite a charming low-budget effort. One of the better features here is the films' rather enjoyable setup that serves as a solid twist to the home invasion genre. With the early part of the film featuring the concurrent build-ups of the gang going on their rampage either through the encounter at the bar or the video-store hold-up as well as getting to see the family's life on the farm, there's a fun sense of who the characters are and the quirkiness to each group that's highly enjoyable. Once the criminals are forced on the run and encountering the daughter which brings them all together at the fateful farmhouse, everything comes together in fine form with the way they overtake the house and start to impose their way on the family all works nicely to the films' benefit. When this one turns around and flips everything around into the psycho family letting their secret loose on the criminals, there's a demented sense of fun to the way everything turns on its head. The full reveal of everything about them, from the way they all act and behave to the rather brutal sense of encounters shown here where the psychotic family is shown to attack and kill off the intruding psychopaths one-by-one in a frenzied final half that's non-stop carnage, this twist provides a lot to like. While it's painfully obvious that there's something off from the start about them, that doesn't stop the chases and means through which they all battle each other to a wild and unexpected finish that provides the goods in terms of shocking reveals and low-budget gore. However, there are still some issues to be had here. The main factor is the films' inherent cheapness which is painfully obvious from the very beginning with the general look of the film giving away its low-budget origins. Granted, some of that is through no fault of the film itself considering the production process it went through but that's still an issue to overcome for some considering the amount of crazy kills on display, the single-location setup, and the production that makes it incredibly difficult to make out night-time shots because of the darkness obscuring everything. The other factor here is that the over-the-top finale, with several strange twists and unexpected reveals that don't connect to what's going on in the rest of the film, which all hold this one down.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.

First of all, what an amazing title. B-movie titles never really get subtle, but Don Dohler is playing in a whole different ballpark here. A blood massacre, that's the best kind there is!

Don Dohler is mainly known for making the same movie over and over again: an alien lands on Earth (usually a forest, as it is free to shoot there), gets into all kinds of PG-rated havoc, rednecks fire guns, the end. That synopsis fits "Alien Factor", "Nightbeast", "Galaxy Invader" and uhm... "Alien Factor 2". "Blood Massacre" however, is something completely different you don't exactly associate with Dohler. It's an ultra-violent horror movie where most of the cast members die horrible, gory deaths.

The plot is almost non-existent. A group of violent criminals (led by Dohler regular George Stover)goes from town to town robbing and occasionally murdering people. With the police (well, one inspector) hot on their trail they lay low in a farmhouse, but it's a horror movie so naturally the nice, friendly family inside turns out to be cannibals.

As limited a filmmaker as Don Dohler was, I've got to say this is one of his best movies. The suspense is actually build up pretty well, with the old farmhouse gradually revealing its secrets. It helps that Robin London (who, sure enough, only has one credit) gives a genuinely creepy performance as the family's insane daughter. Her bizarre sex scene with Stover is the highlight or the low point of this movie, I haven't decided yet. The minute you see her smirk at the main characters, you know they're in a heap of trouble.

The final act is obviously a battle between both groups, like "The Hills Have Eyes" with a budget of three dollars. Sadly, it's almost impossible to follow. For most of it the screen is almost completely dark, so you really have to squint to figure out which character you're looking at and whether or not they're being killed. The editing is also very confusing, most of the time you don't know when or where the action is supposedly happening. I do really like the random ending though, which borrows more than a few things from "Evil Dead".

Don Dohler wasn't very happy with this movie, which was released four years after shooting had wrapped up. He had to reshoot a lot of stuff at the distributors' request, which made him quit film-making altogether for nearly a decade. With that said, I really have a sweet spot for this movie in all it's micro-budget glory. It's a charming mom&pop-style slasher, just don't expect anything more than that.

Blood Massacre (1991)

** (out of 4)

Four punks rob a video store (hey kids, remember them?) and kill the owner's daughter. They decide to hide out in a farm house but they don't realize these farmers are actually blood thirsty cannibals.

Director Don Dohler made some interesting science fiction films in his career. He's certainly a rather interesting director but this film here is completely different than his earlier ones. What is most interesting about this film is the various production issues, which you can read about on various sites. There were basically two different movies shot, one sold illegally and then the director released what he had on his own.

As far as the film itself goes, there are elements of both THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT as well as THE Texas CHAIN SAW MACCARE. The director was obviously trying to cash in on the success of the slasher boom but by 1991 the boom was already dead so this was being released to a rather empty market. The film does have a few memorable moments that keep it from being a total waste but at the same time there's just nothing here original enough or fresh enough to hold the viewers interest.

I will say that I enjoyed the setting of the picture and the low- budget nature actually worked well with the story itself. Another plus is that there was a good finale with some nice gore but there's no question that the film needed more of it. The criminals were all rather annoying but the cannibal family were slightly interesting. As you can see, the film has some good but some bad as well and in the end it's a decent watch but that's about it.

I'm guessing the only thing that got this movie anywhere was it's title. The title is pretty clever. What could be better than the words 'chainsaw' and 'massacre' being in the same title? The words 'blood' and 'massacre' of course. The box art was pretty awesome too, showing a head with some ribs on a platter. How could any horror fan avoid wanting to watch a film called "Blood Massacre" with body parts on a silver platter?

The case and title makes it feel like your picking up either a slasher film or brutal cannibal film. It's niether that. You got this gang of crooks that come across this family in the woods and they end up being cannibals. Sure, cannibalism is beautiful in horror films, but in this film, it wasn't very graphic like the box suggested.

Overall, the film is worth buying for the Slasher Film collector only, merely because of its rarity and its awesome boxart and title. But for entertainment purposes, don't expect much.