‘Blood Vessel’ Review (Shudder)
Stars: Nathan Phillips, Alyssa Sutherland, Robert Taylor, Christopher Kirby, Alex Cooke, Mark Diaco, John Lloyd Fillingham, Troy Larkin, Vivienne Perry, Ruby Isobel Hall, Steve Young, Jacinta Stapleton, Mackenzie Stephens | Written by Justin Dix, Jordan Prosser | Directed by Justin Dix
Horror at its best gets under your skin and stays with you for some time, making you think over what you’ve seen. Some horror though just wants to be fun and provide some blood-soaked entertainment. Blood Vessel is one of the fun ones, for those with a taste for vampires. When a life raft adrift in the North Atlantic find an abandoned German minesweeper, the people on the raft believe they are saved. It’s not long though before the seemingly abandoned boat reveals it’s blood soaked secrets.
In terms of storyline don’t expect any brilliant twists or meaningful revelations with Blood Vessel, that isn’t what this movie is. What we are presented with is a movie where you are more likely to sit with your popcorn, laugh at some of the unintentionally funny moments, and for the most part just enjoy the fun.
The fact that the film is called Blood Vessel gives away that the menace on the ship is of course vampires, and the slow reveal is actually well done. Instead of just rushing into the crew getting the blood sucked out of them we are introduced to the fact that something is not right, with the lack of crew for the minesweeper and treasure stolen from the Nazis. I did find it amusing that the stolen treasure was from somewhere you’d almost expect, with this being a story about vampires, and of course as I’ve already said Blood Vessel doesn’t provide any surprises. This isn’t a bad thing, because honestly we know what we are getting with this movie. If anything we just wait for the blood to flow.
What I did like about Blood Vessel was the fact that the action takes place in an environment that is small, and doesn’t try to create horror on a grand scale. If anything this keeps the horror contained and focused on the small crew, instead of losing focus on the story that is being told. This is a film that doesn’t bring anything new to the table, but in truth it doesn’t need to. It’s just about fun, blood, and of course fighting against the forces of evil.
Horror doesn’t always have to be cerebral and impactful, it just has to be fun. This is why Blood Vessel is well worth checking out.
***½ 3.5/5
Blood Vessel is available to watch on Shudder now.
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