Blood Rage Review

Blood Rage review.

The line between bad movie and good bad movie has rarely been thinner than it is with Blood Rage. Crazy choices, over the top gore and interesting performances overwhelm a plot that had potential in the worst, and best, ways possible.

Classic movie reviews will contain spoilers.

Blood Rage

Directed by John Grissmer

Written by Bruce Rubin

Starring Louise Lasser, Mark Soper, Julie Gordon and Jayne Bentzen

Blood Rage Review

Blood Rage has a unique place in the slasher timeline. It was made in 1983, before A Nightmare on Elm Street came out and reinvigorated slashers. The production happened during a period where ideas were tapped out and replaced with more nudity and gore. But it didn’t come out until 1987, after A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors. People didn’t see it until the next wave of slasher popularity had already started its decline. It’s a movie out of time.

Ten years after blaming his twin brother Todd (Mark Soper) for a murder he committed, Terry (Mark Soper…still) begins to kill again. It’s either brought on by his innocent brother’s recent escape from the institution or his mother’s (Louise Lasser) engagement to a new man. The movie isn’t very clear about it. Everyone thinks Todd is the crazy murderer and wants to stop him, unaware that Terry is the real threat, reawakened.

Where do we begin with Blood Rage? The film is made with so little artistry I’m not entirely sure it qualifies as a movie. The kills and gore effects are so good that it beats most of its contemporaries with ease. It’s pieced together with so little understanding of pacing or narrative flow that you can spend long stretches wondering if you sat on the remote control and switched channels. The acting is all over the map. It would make sense if you found out they were all reading lines from different movie scripts. Let’s start there.

Mark Soper does an excellent job playing two different parts. There is no part of his performance as Todd or Terry that feels like it would fit the other character. He creates two distinct people from the way he carries himself to the way he speaks. He’s truly giving two separate performances. Both of which are bad. They’re tremendously fun bad performances though.

Louise Lasser’s mother on the other hand…oh boy. She makes odd choice after odd choice. The movie loves letting her do it. The camera lingers on her for such long stretches as she does and says weird things it almost felt like a prank. Like they kept forcing her to do a silly one and then used every one of those takes. She spends half the movie calling random numbers trying to find her fiancé who dies in the first reel. Her scenes grind the movie to a halt over and over and you can’t take your eyes off of her. Every choice is odder than the last.

The rest of the cast is filled with far more uninteresting but equally bad actors. Our final girl is Karen (Julie Gordon). She has a strange arc of being a liar but also the person I guess we’re rooting for? she meets Todd before anyone else and just flat out lies about the altercation. I think the director recognized she wasn’t all that likable because she ends up holding a baby through the final confrontation for almost no discernable reason. That’s Blood Rage.

Every other line in the movie seems designed to explain why that character will inevitably end up naked at some point. The good news is that Soper and Lasser are giving memorable and watchable performances in the lead roles. The bad news is that no one in the supporting cast can give you a moment’s break from the questionable acting choices.

Not wanting to be left out of the bad choice parade, we have director John Grissmer. There is an early scene in Blood Rage where Lasser’s character visits Todd’s doctor. For no reason whatsoever the scene has a voice over by the doctor as if she was making a documentary. There is no other scene in the movie that does this. It’s just…a choice. At one point we watch Lasser eating leftovers while sitting on the kitchen floor for what feels like an eternity.

Obviously, this can all add up to some good unintentional comedy. Blood Rage is a pretty funny movie. Some of the laughs come from such odd moments that they had to be intentional. Terry’s repeated line “it’s not cranberry sauce” in response to seeing blood is too great for them to not realize it was comedy gold. Most of the laughs will come at the expense of the movie though.

The unquestioned highlight of Blood Rage is the practical gore effects. This movie brings peak 1983 kill scenes. People cut in half, limbs cut off, heads sliced down the middle…Blood Rage has it all. It’s all so well done that it’s shocking to see it in a movie made so poorly in every other way. There’s enough death on display here to satiate gore hounds everywhere. In fact the only thing that the movie seems interested in showing is excellent gore, naked middle aged people playing teenagers, and whatever weird thing they dared Louise Lasser to do with the last take.

It’s hard to say anything qualifies as the oddest part of Blood Rage…but the most disappointing odd thing is that you keep waiting for a twist that never comes. In the end, Lasser shoots and kills Terry (the crazy son). She’s been told Todd is innocent. You assume she was protecting the son she let down ten years ago. But no. She shot the wrong one. She kills herself when she finds out. The scene makes no sense whatsoever. Lasser enters the scene with someone yelling Todd’s name to a completely different person than the son she shoots. But she’s…surprised anyway?

The whole time you expect to find out something new. They’re both crazy! Terry switched clothes somehow and the evil one survived! The mother was sober long enough to understand and did the right thing! But none of that happens. Todd is left standing next to his dead family. End credits.

What makes the lack of a twist so strange is that the movie makes no sense without one. Todd is just a good person who isn’t killing everyone. Terry is a psychopath on a killing spree. There’s no mystery or point to any of it. It doesn’t even add up to anything. Todd is a non-factor. Terry dies by an impossible case of mistaken identity. There’s no character growth for the mother despite the obvious ending they could have done. Or any of the endings they could have done for that matter.

Perhaps the best thing about Blood Rage is that it takes place at Thanksgiving. It doesn’t matter much for the plot…but with the extreme shortage of decent horror movies base around the holiday it ensures people will be watching this warped broken possible masterpiece forever.

Scare Value

It’s impossible to review Blood Rage without coming to a simple conclusion. Some people will watch it and turn it off after 15 minutes. Others will immediately put it into their comfort bad movie watching rotation. Neither side is wrong. Blood Rage is a mess. An at times glorious one. Great kills and odd choices combine with the most fascinating acting you’ve ever seen to make something unique. For better or for worse.

2.5/5