When I was a kid, my father loved entertaining (torturing?) me with dad jokes. When I least expected it, while I was zoned out watching TV, he’d tiptoe into the living room like a master assassin and drop a joke on me like “Hey Kev, I’ve decided to sell the vacuum cleaner, all it was doing was gathering dust!” Yeah, it was corny, but damn if my 9-year-old self didn’t think that zinger was a real knee-slapper.
“Here for Blood” (currently showing on Screambox, directed by Daniel Turres and written by James Roberts) is the equivalent of a great dad joke. It’s a horror comedy that’s frequently corny, wears a dozen influences on its sleeves and totally frenzied from beginning to end.
A Reluctant Partnership
Phoebe (Joelle Farrow) has a huge upcoming final college exam. Having committed to babysit a yuppie couple’s 8-year-old daughter Grace (Maya Misaljevic) the night before the test… but needing some extra time to study…she asks her boyfriend Tom (Shawn Roberts), a professional wrestler, if he could babysit in her place for a few hours until she comes to relieve him. Tom reluctantly agrees, quickly bonding with Grace even as a cult of masked killers invade the house, determined to kidnap Grace to use her in an unholy ceremony. He has to keep them at bay and protect Grace as more people start showing up at the house, unwittingly putting themselves in the middle of a battle for survival.
Tom quickly becomes a sympathetic and relatable character, because we find early in the film that the big lug isn’t wrestling for a huge multi-national WWE-style corporation, making millions of dollars. He’s the equivalent of Rocky Balboa at the start of the first “Rocky” film, wrestling in dive bars and getting banged up for cash that barely covers the gas to drive home.
A Throwback to Over-the-Top Horror
Shawn Roberts makes Tom a super likable guy. He’s as massive as 1980s Schwarzenegger, looking like he could easily deadlift a pickup truck, but he’s also charismatic, easygoing and kind with a sense of humor. It made me wonder why Disney hasn’t grabbed him up for one of their endless parade of Marvel superhero films. Likewise, Maya Misaljevic is equally great as young Grace. In most films like this, Grace would either be an impossible brat or a child who’s an adult with a 200 IQ in an 8-year-old’s body. Thanks in part to the great script, Grace comes off as a perfectly normal kid in a horrible situation and she and Tom develop a lovely father/daughter dynamic throughout the film.
Once Tom arrives at the isolated house in the countryside and meets Grace, the film is relentless from there. The killers come from all directions, the front door, the kitchen windows, even the attic. They all wear masks that look like a combination of Ghostface’s mask from the “Scream” films and Michael Myer’s mask from the “Halloween” films. They’re a mixed bag, with one of them so clueless and goofy that he seemed to stumble out of an old Jerry Lewis film.
Good Old Bloody Mayhem
That’s why the film has so many moments that are (intentionally) hilarious, because everything is over-the-top. Why be subtle when you can crank everything up to 100? It’s reminiscent of Sam Raimi’s “Evil Dead” films, primarily “Evil Dead 2,” where some “Three Stooges” type gags are tossed into the horror mix.In one scene, Tom, having had enough of one of the attackers, elbow drops him a dozen times and slowly turns his head to mush in the background while in the foreground, one of the other characters screams and sobs, trying to pull themselves together. The contrast between the two is hysterical. There are some truly terrifying moments too, especially when the film starts wandering into supernatural/H.P. Lovecraft territory, with blood rituals and invocations of elder gods.
When kills occur, they are BRUTAL, all delivered with superb practical effects. There’s just no substitute for practical effects because no level of modern CGI is ever going to look as real as prosthetics, masks, puppets, etc… Sure, it requires more work and ingenuity, but so does anything that’s worthwhile. One scene in particular, where Tom introduces a killer’s face to a burner on a stove, lingers so long and looks so realistic that it dares you to keep watching without covering your eyes.
Practical Effects for the Win
The house is a great location. Deep in a rural area, there’s nothing around but ominous woods and it’s always bathed in icy moonlight that makes “The Amityville Horror” house look bucolic by comparison. The only flaw in the film was the “plot twist” that came a little over halfway through that was as predictable as the sunrise.
If you love 1980s horror films like “Night of the Demons” or “Hell Night,” you’ll love this film. I enjoyed it, because as much as I love moody atmospheric horror that makes you think, sometimes it’s nice to just turn off your brain and watch some good old-fashioned bloody mayhem that’s as subtle as a suplex.
“Here for Blood” is available to watch on most streaming networks.
