Sommerleigh Pollonais, Horror Head Writer
I’ve been playing catch up with some of the movies I missed in 2022 and Blood was one of them. Why am I doing this you asked so politely (because in my imagination all my readers have super fancy old timey accents)? Well, let’s just say I made a list last year of both television shows and movies I wanted to watch, and I may have bitten off more than I can chew.
Anyway, because this came out last year, I’m going full spoiler mode on it so if you haven’t seen this horror/thriller and you still want to, you can always hit “pause” and come on back later to see if you agree/disagree with my thoughts.
Blood stars the very talented Michelle Monaghan (Messiah, Echoes) as Jess, a newly divorced mother of two who moves her family and their dog Pippen to a remote farmhouse. All’s well enough until one day old Pip runs away, only to return doing his best impression of Cujo. And after taking a big old bite out of her young son Owen (Finlay Wojtak-Hissong) Jess, who also happens to be a nurse, rushes him to the hospital. She later discovers Owen now has a taste for blood and only blood.
Monaghan’s performance is just about the best thing in this movie as she truly sells you on a mother that would do whatever it takes to keep her son alive. And to their credit, writer Will Honley and director Brad Anderson don’t over complicate things with their allegory for drug addiction and the damage enabling an addict can do to a family (or at least that’s what I took away from this). But the potential for big scares and solid tension is wasted on a movie that feels longer than it needed to be and where nothing of worth happens until the very end.
Blood is one of those movies that I think could’ve been really good if they took things a bit further. The concept is solid and leaves a lot of room for some solid thrills and chills but unfortunately, we don’t get much of either. Solid performances save it from being a terrible movie but if you missed it the first time around, I don’t see much reason to check it out now.
Score: 5 out of 10
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Sommerleigh of the House Pollonais. First of Her Name. Sushi Lover, Queen of Horror Movies, Comic Books and Binge Watching Netflix. Mother of two beautiful black cats named Vader and Kylo. I think eating Popcorn at the movies should be mandatory, PS4 makes the best games ever, and I’ll be talking about movies until the zombie apocalypse comes.
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