Blood Creek

I hadn't heard anything about this movie prior to today, but checking IMDb to see what the local cheap theater had to offer came up with this. Having no desire to see anything else that was playing, my wife and I decided to drop a couple bucks on it and we were not disappointed.

In general, I am not a fan of WW2, Holocaust, or Nazi related films simply due to the obvious nature of nearly every plot line related to them. Even Inglorious Basterds irritated me because of this. Thankfully, Blood Creek takes itself not very seriously and throws in lots of other random plot devices (Viking runes, zombies, the occult, the war in Iraq, etc.) that make little to no sense but serve the film well.

If you like crappy modern B style horror films (I saw another commenter mention Drag Me To Hell, which I also enjoyed more than just about any other "big" release I've seen this year), then you can't really go wrong here. Iffy acting, senseless plot, and bad CGI are not enough to defeat the high entertainment value of this fast-paced flick. If I had expectations for this, or had I paid $10 to see it, I would probably be pretty irritated. But if you can catch it at your cheapo second run theater, I can think of far worse ways to spend an hour and a half.

This is a horror movie about a Nazi necromancer, that means he can raise dead things to do his bidding. The actor interpreting the Nazi is Michael Fassbender. The director is Joel Schumacher. Now, with a premise like that, I expected a great movie, especially since I've read a review describing it in very positive words. Instead, I get a slight twist of a typical zombie/monster movie. I was disappointed.

What was amazing was how the movie started. Fassbender coming from Germany to the US, doing his nice guy voice (but with a German accent) explaining to a little girl how he can raise the dead, now that he had found a runic stone. Then a lot of detailed action and scenes explaining the story of the paramedic brother of a soldier lost in Iraq. Then suddenly the brother returns, all rags and long hair, asking for help to get guns and shoot people.

Then the film turns into the typical "group trapped with a monster and they have to kill him before it kills them" thing. The dichotomy between to two parts of the movie was shocking, like someone did two different films and then spliced them together, and therefore I can't really recommend the movie, except as a well done monster flick. Go in with low expectations and you might enjoy it fully.

A Joel Schumacher helmed horror flick starring Michael Fassbender as a deranged, occult obsessed Nazi zombie vampire, hunted by Lincoln Burrows from Prison Break. Sounds like a flick from an alternate dimension that doesn't exist, right? Well it's out there, tough to find as it was somehow buried around it's 2009 release, and relegated to a relic before it was even a decade old. Shame, because it's a ton of warped, bloody fun. Officially titled 'Blood Creek' on iTunes, it can also be found as 'Town Creek' or simply 'Runes' elsewhere, but like they say, a rose by any other name. Fassbender is all kinds of scary in a black and white prologue as a Nazi occult agent who shows up at a rural American farm to study ancient Nordic runes which may hold the key to resurrection of the dead. His chilling work initially is nothing compared to the balls-out, gory makeup covered incarnation he gets to prance around in later though. In present day, two brothers race into the foggy backwaters to stamp out this evil, and they're played by an intense Dominic Purcell, as well as Superman himself, Henry Cavill. Not a whole lot of time is spent on character development for all involved, the film choosing instead to jump headlong into a notably gory free for all, banding together with the poor German family who has had to deal with this psycho for almost a generation on their farm. At a crisp ninety minutes, there ain't much time for anything but action and gore, with a few scarcely scattered, breathless moments of exposition that were already made clear in that prologue, the one interlude of the film that isn't soaked in adrenaline. Hats off to Fassbender under all that chatty, gooey makeup, his physicality is really menacing, and who else gets to play a Nazi vampire zombie who pounds a metal stake into his own forehead to make room for an emerging third eye? Truly a villain for the ages, had the film been allowed to gain any notoriety. And what other film can boast a sequence in which Purcell eagerly blasts zombified, rabid horses with a shotgun, chunks flying all over the barn? Such are the levels of disturbed imagination on parade. Poor Schumacher though, really. This would've been his first good film in awhile back then, and the studio goes in for the kill on every single marketing front, not even giving it decent room to breathe on DVD. At least it's still floating about on iTunes, where any horror fan would be rewarded with a rental.

I give a big applause to Joel Schumacher, the director. He's 70 years old when he directed this, imagine that. Joel is known for a few blockbusters like Batman and Robin and Batman Forever or even for 8mm. This supernatural tale was for me a big surprise on the blood content. I didn't really knew this flick but I've seen some of his efforts and really, this I would put into the horror label (with a supernatural twist of course). You could say that it could be compared with Jeepers Creepers (the way the killer acted, I mean). But I was a bit disappointed on the fact that it never was really scary or even frightening. Again, if you haven't seen creeps with white eyes than you surely will be frightened but I think people who will watch this are into the horror genre. But it's the use of gore and the special effects that really up-scaled my vote. The decapitation, the hitting with some kind of crowbar is really well done. CGI is used but in a very good way. It doesn't distract you from the screen. The acting was believable, let's face it, Fassbender is the biggest name and casted as a German nazi, great because he's German and does well on the accent. I had this DVD a lot of time in my hands at the shops and a few times I put it back on the shelves, but I'm glad that I picked it up again recently...

I'm surprised at the lackluster ratings for this one. Joel Schumacher does have a reputation as a bit of a Hollywood hack (based chiefly on the abominable Batman Forever and Batman & Robin), but has actually turned out a surprising number of well-crafted films (Phone Booth, The Client, Flatliners, etc.) Thematically, Blood Creek is a departure even for him, but it's an excellent new spin on the usual horror-by-night formula.

Blood Creek starts out looking like a sequel to Texas Chainsaw Massacre (or the similarly named Australian film Wolf Creek). But it quickly veers off, taking us through a Night of the Living Dead zombie scenario, then spinning into the more gruesome supernatural elements of Hellboy. The shifts are somewhat disconcerting, but also highly entertaining. In hindsight, all the elements do hang together, so you won't feel cheated on a logical level.

No, this isn't a 'classic' film in any sense. But it's got good performances, excellent visual design, all the blood and gore you could ask for, and a whole bunch of solid action that could almost make a film on its own. I enjoyed the weird mix from end to end, and I can't see why any horror aficionado wouldn't.