January 28, 2010

Review: Blood Creek (2010)

"Who doesn't love a good story about a Nazi necromancer and a herd of zombie horses?"

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0450336/
Cast Members of Note- Dominic Purcell, Henry Cavill, Michael Fassbender, and Emma Booth.
*Directed by Joel Schumacher.

During WWII, a German family living in America is bribed by the Third Reich to let a Nazi scholar come and live with them on their quaint little Town Creek farm. It turns out that the scholar is in search of a rune stone that is buried on their property, and wants to use it to turn himself into a Super Nazi bad-ass. Subsequently, the family is trapped on their farm (which is frozen in time) and put through hell for the next several decades.

"Ich liebe untoten Pferde!"
Fast forward about 70 years, and we meet Evan; an EMT with a heart of gold (?), who lives near Town Creek. He's been a mess ever since his brother Victor disappeared while they were camping together 2 years earlier... my question is, how do you stay lost in the woods for 2 years? That shit is beyond me, but when Victor suddenly shows up in the middle of the night looking like Dan Haggerty on crack, the two of them head back to Town Creek to get revenge on "Those Kraut Bastards" who have been keeping him a prisoner all along.

For the love of God I hope he's planning to shoot Channing Tatum.
The problem is, "Those Kraut Bastards" have a Super Nazi bad-ass Necromancer with a thirst for warm blood locked in their cellar, and when he gets out, they're all pretty much destined to die painfully. Can the brothers defeat the evil Nazi Sorcerer? Will Zombie Horses nip a guy in the shoulder and pull him through a window? Do the words "bone armor" make anyone else laugh as much as they do me? Maybe, yes, and they just have to.

Bone armor... lol.
I am absolutely astounded at how good this movie was. First and foremost, I loved the premise; the Nazi's sent "Scholars" to America to find ancient rune stones, hoping to harness their Occult powers to win WWII, and thus rule the world. If that isn't creepy, I don't know what is, especially since the Nazi's actually were into the Occult.

The Occult aspect of this movie is its strong point. Magic rune stones, reanimated dead people (and animals), blood rituals, wards painted on the house to keep the evil at bay, people frozen in time, the Lovecraftian "third eye," and those creepy Necromantic spells that the Nazi whispers... It was just all really, really cool.

I actually felt tense during much of this film, and especially once the Super Nazi shows up and starts kicking all sorts of ass. The guy can reanimate anything dead to do his bidding, which makes things all the more interesting. Zombie Horses, y'all. Yep. Bad ass.

It's nice to see Joel Schumacher making a strong return to the Horror genre; after all he is the guy that gave us The Lost Boys and Flatliners. And two horrible Batman sequels... anyway, welcome back, Joel.

*Addendum- This movie features a pre-Superman Henry Cavill and pre-Magneto Michael Fassbender, which is kinda cool.

Yeah, this actually happened.
Zombie Horses. Not only are they huge, mean, and very creepy to look at, but they are near impossible to kill. If they don't die after 10 shotgun blasts, I'd quit shooting and run. Or, I'd turn the gun on myself.

Zombified and under the control of an evil Nazi Necromancer, Butternut tried to rape everyone in the cabin, earning him a hide full of buckshot and a heart full of shame.
After a few title changes and basically no promotion whatsoever, Lionsgate dumped this movie into a handful of Dollar Theaters and then banished it to Straight-to-DVD hell. Why? Did anyone see The Stepfather, Whiteout, or Sorority Row? They all got Theatrical Runs, decent promotion, and they all sucked. Badly. Blood Creek is a great little movie, and I refuse to believe it couldn't have made enough $ at the B.O. to justify even a Limited Release... and no, Dollar Theaters do not count. I just don't get it.

Then again, it's not like this movie is Superman or something...
This one is a Gorefest; blood-drinking, bloodletting, torture, bone-knives through chins, all sorts of shotgun violence, Zombie Horse violence overkill, dog stabbings, zombie violence... there's all sorts of messy goodness to be found here.

Ouchie.
No.

Was it rape?
"That's mine" or "No. You're going to feed me."

Zombie Horses are really hard to kill. Also, Evil Nazi's never die, which means that Hitler is probably a zombie somewhere in Guam or something. Great.

Fassbender.
This movie was as enjoyable as any I've seen lately, and the best Horror flick of the year so far. Creepy, tense, interesting and bloody as all get out, Blood Creek is far better than its treatment by Lionsgate would have you believe. If you love Nazi's, zombies, or just have a love for the Dark Arts of Necromancy, then you'll love this movie. You definitely need to rent this one, if not buy it, as soon as you get the chance.

A

Blood Creek is available now on DVD and VOD.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002USF1TU/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B002USF1TU&linkCode=as2&tag=thehorclu0a-20&linkId=C3YVPMQXB7VTGS4A

Emma Booth is in this. *Apologies to Emma Booth for our originally mistaking her for Winter Ave Zoli. Hey, they do look kinda similar...

16 comments :

  1. But, but is Schumacher. He putting f-ing nipples on the batsuit!

    Great review. I'll definitely check it out. After this and Dead Snow I have a feeling we'll see more Nazi zombie combos.

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  2. Agreed!

    This was fantastic...

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  3. Best line: "Can you put me somewhere I can't hurt you?"

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  4. What a great site. I just stumbled across it, but will certainly bookmark it.

    Hey, I'd like to ask that you give my book a review. It's newly out so I only have a few reviews on Amazon, of which I get five stars.

    Can't be all that bad, and might be great. Check it out if you don't mind.

    Go to Amazon and search for Annie's Gift by Holden Herbert. There is lots of info there that will let you know that it is worth your time.

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  5. I'm definitely watching this.And was that Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze? Sure looked like though.

    Haha, so much hatred towards Channing Tatum.

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  6. man this sounds awesome... I freakin love the whole Nazi experiment thing in any media. Like in that movie Outpost, that was good too.

    Will be getting this soon as :D

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  7. I saw this, it's quite amazing. But at the very end why did Dominic Purcell gave us that look? Does that mean he'll go Nazi this time?

    Who's Winter Ave Zolie by the way, the two actresses were Emma Booth and Lynn Colins. And I'm pretty sure she wasn't in this.

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  8. I could have sworn she played Dominic Purcell's wife, buy IMDB doesn't have her listed. Other sited like Shock Till ya Drop have her lsited too...

    Hmm.

    Well, at least she's hot to look at. LOL

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  9. WOW! The fact that this movie didn't get a theatrical release astounds me to no end. I mean, Schumacher's name alone is enough to make this big screen worthy!

    Seriously though, the jackasses at Lionsgate need to have their heads bashed against a cement wall. Maybe then they'll wake up and get a f**king clue!

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  10. I know, Lola, I don't get it. Blood Creek was a great movie, and how it didn't get any release at all theatrically astounds me.

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  11. Best horror movie I've seen in years! Can't believe they sweept Joel schumacher under the rug like that. Found by accident. Never heard of it. Awesome buy!

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  12. Agreed, Anon. Blood Creek is severely underrated.

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  13. Of course M'Hael liked the film, it was filmed in Romania. He would get the creeps when watching the news here, lol!

    I thought it had a nice premise (plus Fasbender before he was in all the movies), but then screwed it up. I disliked the whole setup with the wife and children and demented father and the story between the brothers. Something that took a lot of time to explain and had no relevance to the story. Also the idea that one needs blood and takes it via cuts on the back, rather than from a medically proven system that has been used for centuries: a needle.

    But besides obvious issues with logic, what bothered me so much that I couldn't consider this a good movie is the lost potential. A smart and educated Nazi necromancer spends 50 years in a farm?! With a family that never ages? The guy should have died of boredom!

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    1. Of course he liked the film, it was really good. I would have paid to see it and I rarely pay to see any movie. Them some critic whanna be tells us how he disliked the whole set up. Sure, lets go directly to the action and then try to figure out who all the people are and how some are really old but don't look it, or who the two guys were that are obviously not related to the rest. Hey, our critic missed the part about RITUAL. I'm sure most rituals don't include going to the Red Cross for a blood donation. Dumb critic also misses the part of why smart and educated Nazi necromancer can't GET OUT. Plus 50 years? 1939 to 2010? Can't add either. Good movie, lousy reviewer.

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    2. Total and utter garbage, pure rubbish. Schumacher should be ashamed for producing such drivel. Comedy not horror!

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  14. Siderite, I love it when you rip apart a movie. It feels... normal to me :)

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