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As director’s
go, Joel Schumacher has definitely been
all over the place in terms of genre and
budget. He has a cult classic under his
belt with “The Lost Boys”, he’s
given us some creepy thrillers like “Flatliners”
and “The Number 23”, crossed
into musical theater with “The Phantom
of the Opera,” hit up John Grisham
twice with “The Client” and
“A Time to Kill” and even touched
on brat packiness with “St. Elmo’s
Fire.” Unfortunately his foray into
Caped Crusader territory gave us little
more than ‘Batman with nipples’
and a fey, yet icy Arnold Schwarzenegger.
So I guess I shouldn’t have been
surprised to see him go back into the supernatural
thriller department with the fairly low
budgeted “Blood Creek.” Originally
titled “Town Creek”, Schumacher’s
newest outing (so to speak) deals with a
Nazi occultist, who back in the 1930’s
settled into a farm in rural America to
experiment with a mysterious runestone in
the hopes that he can learn to reanimate
the dead.
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After being introduced to said occultist, we
are propelled into present time where two brothers
find themselves pitted against the still living
occultist and his… experiments.
“Blood Creek” starts out with a tremendous
amount of promise. The opening sequence where
we learn of the experiments and how they began
deliver some really cool looking and creepy imagery.
I was really hoping that this terrific opening
was just the overture for what would be a surprisingly
original and horrifying film. Unfortunately, this
opening is the best part of the whole movie. Michael
Fassbinder, who was excellent in “Inglourious
Basterds”, paints a picture of psychotic
glee in these first few moments. Once we move
into the present day, the film and Fassbinder
appear to go a bit off-track and it loses steam.
From this point, “Blood Creek” falls
prey to several foibles, including using way too
many hand-held camera shots and opting to use
extremely low light in others. Both of these render
some of what might have been horrifying or tension
building scenes into more of a muddled mess. At
times it was very hard to follow the action, even
when the plot promised some excitement…
it was lost visually. I was a bit disappointed
by all of this as again, the movie had a pretty
good start. In spite of some of Schumacher’s
failings in the past, he had an opportunity to
do much, much better here.
The DVD for “Blood Creek” is fairly
lackluster in terms of special features, as it
only offers a commentary by Schumacher. However,
I’ll say the commentary was actually kind
of interesting as he spends an inordinate amount
of time discussing the history of Nazis and the
occult. Admittedly, his commentary as a whole
is quite engaging and would have felt more at
home on a better overall film.
Directed by: Joel Schumacher
Starring: Dominic Purcell, Henry Cavill, Michael
Fassbender, Emma Booth, She Wigham, Laszlo Matray
Extras: Director’s Commentary
Specification: Widescreen; 5.1 Dolby Digital Audio
Studio: Lions Gate
Release Date: 01/19/2010
MPAA Rating: R
http://www.lgf.com
We'll give Blood Creek a C+.
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