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The Bloody Man
USA 2020
produced by Casi Benedict for Red Serial Films
directed by Daniel Benedict
starring Tuesday Knight, Lisa Wilcox, Sam Hadden, Olivia Sanders, David Daniel, Jeremy Carr, Nicholas Redd, Ellie Parker, Lila Schaffner, Whitney Hamilton, Xavier Varble, Dan Eardley, Stephanie Wells, Casi Benedict, Dawn Phillips Fink, Cherokee Parker, Kye Hicks, Spencer Kingsley, Ella Benedict, Aiden Mao, Katy Cusick, John Burlew, Mercedez Varble, KateLynn E. Newberry, Roni Jonah, ZJ Mathews, Parker Dean, Paul Gregory, Evender Hodges Sanders, Dominick Wilkins, Annette Gregory, Jonathan Humphrey, Jeremy Scoggins, Mitchell Lee, Eme Elleser, Kimberly Coons, Fisher Hicks, Jason Crowe, Hunter A. Cleary, Rianna Shelton, Jason L. Watson, Lauren Wallace, Daniel Benedict, Rena MacMonegle, Hallie Mullen, Dave Docimo, Matthew Martin, Jacob Alexander, Brian Youpatoff, Nolan Hayden, Clementine Clark, Robine Elleser, Brian Hill, Brian Cage (voice), Larry Kenney (voice)
written by Daniel Benedict, Casi Benedict, music by Johnathan Fan Octo Evans, special makeup effects by Lisa Duvall, animation by Daniel Benedict
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Being that he's still in his early teens, Sam (David Daniel) sure could
have an easier life: He's still suffering from losing his mother (Lisa
Wilcox) in an accident and doesn't really get along with his stepmom Kim
(Tuesday Knight), his older brother Michael's (Sam Hadden) a bit of an
asshole, his pre-school sister Amy (Olivia Sanders) is constantly getting
on his nerves, and at school he's constantly bullied for being on the
dorky side of things. And then, on the day of the anniversary of his mum's
death, Sam's dad (Jeremy Carr) has to go on a business trip, leaving the
kids alone with Kim. Thing is, with dad gone, Kim shows her own colours,
is mean to the kids, and eventually even abusive. Now Michael and Amy just
think she might be a bad person, but Sam soon gets the idea that something
more sinister might be at work, something that has to do with the urban
legend about the "Bloody Man" he has just researched for school,
and that pretty much would suggest that Kim isn't Kim at all but a demon
impersonating her. And things sure get more grim, as first the phone lines
are cut, then there's a power outage, and instead of trying to have a
calming influence on the children, Kim does her best to keep them apart
and at one point tries to strangle Sam. And things only go downhill from
there ... and yes, Sam was right, it really is the Bloody Man - but how to
fight an urban legend ...
Now one thing's for sure, the film's director Daniel Benedict
sure is a fan of the 1980s, as this movie's filled to the brim with
allusions and throwback props to that decade, and the movie does its best
to look like a movie of old, with the script perfectly mirroring teen
horrors of old, while at the same time The Bloody Man totally lacks
any ironic distance to the long gone era. And one has to tip one's hat to
Daniel Benedict for sure, he has created a pretty perfect hommage,
unfortunately not only taking the good from yesteryear's genre cinema (of
which there's plenty of) but also a certain amount of cheesiness that good
horror has long since overcome. The other point of critique is that at a
running time of circa 2 and a quarter hours the film's rather
over-saturated and seems to take its hommage to (literally) extreme
length, trying to fit as much 80s mainstays and paraphernalia into its
story as possible. But for what it does, the film is pretty perfect, and I
guess how much you'll enjoy it depends solely how much you enjoy horrors
from back when, as for what it is it's fast-paced, slickly directed, with
suspense and jump scares in all the right places, as well as the
occasional horror and gruesomeness, to guarantee a fun ride.
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