Christian posing with one of the Creatures from
the film Bleeders.
Bleeders
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
As a Mainer I
have to voice my disdain up front for any story set in --but not shot
in-- Maine. "Stand By Me", "Murder She Wrote",
"'Salem's Lot"; you get the picture. Well "Bleeders"
would have you believe it's Nova Scotian setting passes as Maine.
I'll at least give them points for getting the coast right! Luckily
there is far more to have about Bleeders than just filming
locations (and for the record, the film's locations are great; they're
just not Maine). The acting is awful, especially from Roy (TV's "La
Femme Nakita") Dupuis. He simply isn't able to make anything
of the character he is given. With stronger material perhaps he could
have, and no doubt a stronger actor could have made this material
work. But since neither of these were the case we are left with a
lame protagonist. And the antagonists are played my midgets. That
right there should have tipped off the producers that they were making
a comedy. Midgets in large numbers are rarely scary, and in bulky
rubber suits they become entirely laughable. So what is good about
this film? Well, Rutger Hauer is okay as the town's drunken doctor.
Probably the highlight is the narration by Christopher Heyerdahl,
not because it particularly stands out, but because it was his
first foray into Lovecraft country (see "Out of Mind"
for his amazing portrayal of Lovecraft himself!). The final worthwhile
part of the film is the limited edition "bleeding" cover
art: a thin layer of fake blood was sealed between two layers of clear
plastic over the front image allowing you to push the blood around
with you fingers. Very, very cool. But the general rule with horror
films has always been "the cooler the cover, the crappier the
film".
~
~ ~ ~ ~
- Christian Matzke
An Imperfect Solution
http://www.reanimator.8m.com/
Crawling Chaos Pictures
http://www.www.reanimator.8m.com/ccp.html
H.P. Lovecraft's Nyarlathotep
http://www.miskatonic.net/pickman/mythos/nyar1.html
Propping Up the Mythos
http://www.miskatonic.net/pickman/mythos
