The Blood Shed

USA 2007
produced by
Brian Jude, Rachel Gordon, Ian Reinhard (executive), Jeremiah Kipp (associate) for Southpaw Pictures
directed by Alan Rowe Kelly
starring Alan Rowe Kelly, Terry M. West, Joshua Nelson, Mike Lane, Susan Adriensen, Sandra Schaller, Brian Juergens, Michael Gingold, Jerry Murdock, Katherine O'Sullivan, Zoe Daelman Chlanda, Kane Manera, Sasha Friedenberg, Victoria Bensen, Stephanie Marracho, Robert Norman, Tom Burns (voice)
written by Alan Rowe Kelly, music by Tom Burns, cinematography by Bart Mastronardi, special effects by Ken Shupe

review by
Mike Haberfelner

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Beefteena Bullion (Alan Rowe Kelly) is different ... well, very different: A woman past her prime, she still acts and dresses like a twelve year-old, she pulls a roadkill-squirrel attached to a cart around as her pet, and she lives deep in the woods, at the site of a long abandoned factory, with her family. But only because she's different, that doesn't give young Andy (Sasha Friedenberg) the right to mock her mercilessly, to an extent that he actually throws her roadkill-squirrel into a nearby brook - at least her brothers (Joshua Nelson, Mike Lane) see it that way and play a game of tug o' war with him as the rope, that ends only when Andy's torn apart ... ouch!

Now one has to admit, Beefteena comes from a very, ummm ... unusual family, a bunch of inbred hillbillies who live mostly from the scrap of others, love roadkill, have at best questionable taste - oh, and they love to kill strangers, they do resort to cannibalism once in a while, and they tend to keep people they don't like in cages to kill them at a later date. But they - Beefteena, her two brothers, their father (Terry M. West), grandma (Robert Norman) and cousin Sno Flakes (Susan Adriensen) - are really there for each other, like all families should but only few are. So when Beefteena falls in love with the very sheriff (Jerry Murdock) who's investigating the disappearance of Andy, they capture him and force him to marry her - even if they have to cut off one of his balls in the process. And when the boss of a modelling company (Zoe Daelman Chlanda) makes fun of Beefteena when she tries to fulfill her childhood dream and become a top model, they abduct her to become the guest of honour of Beefteena's birthday party - a bizarre event that makes one's worst nightmares look like a walk through the park ...

Now according to all laws of nature and then some, this movie should have been a deplorable crapfest with no redeeming value whatsoever - and yet this has turned out to be one of the most remarkable pieces of hillbilly horror ever, mainly because unlike so many other directors of this peculiar subgenre Alan Rowe Kelly has tried and succeeded to find a heart in his story, has while by no means supressing it found a way to not overstrain the story's camp factor, and has kept the whole thing light-footed enough without shying away from gore and such to not alienate the casual viewer.

A pretty unusual and yet very nice piece of genre cinema, actually!

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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