Bloodletting (1997)

Directed by Matthew Jason Walsh [Other horror films: The Witching (1993), I’ve Killed Before (1995)]

Filmed in Ohio, this rather low-budget horror-comedy, revolving around a serial killer and al young woman who wants to learn how to kill, is pretty terrible. I mean, it’s bad, from dialogue to story. I’ll be damned if it’s not a hell of a lot of fun, though, and while certainly below average, I’ll admit that I did dig this one.

If there’s one main complaint, it’s that the film didn’t need to be almost an hour-and-a-half. They could have shown some restraint and kept it around 70 minutes or so – there were definitely a few sequences that could have been trimmed a bit. I also wasn’t that fond of the ending (or more specifically, one of the twists, as it was), but I mean, for the most part, this movie is what you’d expect going in.

The dialogue is hilariously awful. I think that James L. Edwards, who plays the serial killer, has some of the best lines, and his hammy over-acting is just a pleasure to watch, but certainly Nina Angeloff (“A threesome?! Far-fucking out!”) and Ariauna Albright get plenty of terrible dialogue too.

By no means is this a dig at them as actors or actresses or at the movie’s script – it was clear that Bloodletting knew exactly what it was aiming for, and personally, as a fan of low-budget horror, I had a blast for a large amount of the time, and much of that is directly related to that lovable, horrible dialogue.

I don’t know James L. Edwards or Ariauna Albright from anything else (though the pair of them have been in quite the variety of lower-budget horror in the 90’s and 2000’s), but I thought they worked well together in this film as a bit of a messed up couple. Edwards, like I said, was my favorite performance of the film, but Albright did a great job too, and she was attractive to boot. The only other performance that I suspect I’ll remember was Nina Angeloff’s, who’s exaggerated southern accent (her character’s name was Bobbie Jo) was just heaven.

Sometimes the movie did focus a bit too much on the blossoming relationship, as it was, between the main characters as opposed to random kills. The kills we got weren’t great, to be sure, but the special effects were definitely okay for the budget, plus a – wait, maybe I shouldn’t spoil it. Let’s just say that maybe, if you’re lucky, a baby meets a terrible end via shotgun.

Yeah, that happened, and it was awesome, as it’s a taboo that few horror films seem to stoop to. Call me an edgelord all you want, but I was #ThereForIt.

Anyhow, Bloodletting was a lot more fun than I ever expected. I do wish it was a bit shorter, but beggars can’t be chooser, else wise winners become the losers. At least that’s what Gandhi said.

6.5/10