THE BLOODY MAN (2022)
The Bloody Man is an 80s set horror flick centering on young Sam Harris (David Daniel) a comic book loving kid dealing with the death of his mother (Lisa Wilcox), a new stepmother (Tuesday Knight), the bullies in school and an obnoxious older brother (Sam Hadden) and brat little sister (Olivia Sanders). Feeling alone and out of place, Sam turns to his comic books. When a malevolent entry called the Bloody Manis is accidentally unleashed, Sam has to figure out a way to stop the spooky specter.
Throwback to 80s horror is directed by Daniel Benedict from his script with Casi Clark. Benedict definitely has a love for 80s horror and does a good job giving this flick the look and feel of the films he is paying homage to, right down to its very 80s score by Johnathan Fan Octo Evans. There are some unfortunate drawbacks though. Some of the dialogue is straight-up bad. The acting is very flat, from a mostly amateur cast, though it is fun to see Freddy alumni Tuesday Knight and Lisa Wilcox back on onscreen again. At well over two hours long, the flick drags on and on with a lot of long running flashbacks and there’s enough material for two movies. It’s over an hour before The Bloody Man even starts to make its presence known. A good forty minutes could have been cut without any harm to the story. The slow pace also doesn’t help with such an unnecessarily long runtime. It’s like the film was barely edited at all. It becomes a chore to sit through, when it should have been fun to watch. On the plus side, the filmmakers smartly don’t try to attempt things beyond the modest budget, and if some SPFX are a bit cheesy…well, that’s how they were in the 80s. There is some blood and gore, with some of it a little graphic for what is otherwise a fairly kid/teen centric flick.
Overall, the flick has its heart in the right place, but needed a lot of editing and a little more energy from director and cast to make this the fun nostalgic treat it could have been.
The Bloody Man arrives on VOD on 7/12/22
-MonsterZero NJ
MonsterZero NJ's Movie Madhouse 