Blood Reservoir (2014)
Director: Mark Anthony Del Negro
Stars: Felissa Rose, Jonathan Tiersten, Hannah Landberg
I wasted $1.99 on this garbage.
Not the usual way to start a review, but this particular tidbit bothered me. It's not like $1.99 is going to break me, but it's the principle of the matter. Let me explain. I have Amazon Prime. It's highly recommended just for the free shipping alone, but there's tons of stuff to watch FOR FREE on Amazon Prime video. Lately I've been revisiting those good ol' Jersey boys and girls of the Sopranos. Still as good as I remembered it. The fact is, is this tremendously written and acted show was FREE on Prime video. Blood Reservoir wasn't. You had to pay for the privilege of watching the equivalent of getting kicked in the balls for 54 minutes straight. Yes, that's how long this "movie" is.
Let's get the dumbass plot out of the way...what sense of it I could make. A group of late 20's jackasses decide to go hiking in an area of woods where people are getting killed by one of several different serial killers or legends. It's never made clear if it's the legend of Pumpkin Jack (who'll make you die tonight, I assume) or the serial killer the Ice Woman (who I guess keeps her victims in those little ice trays for parties).
In the midst of this, there's a love triangle of sorts between the biggest...pardon my words...pussy magnet of the tri state area. He's got a girl to pay his bills, but he's got the hots for some eighteen year old who's on the trip as well. The teenager's sister (also on the trip) has daydreams about men in bowler hats strangling women and ordering people around in sepia tone. Oh, and there's the token black guy. I'm not kidding.
They go to the local general store where they meet the store owner (Rose) and the sheriff, who looks disturbingly like an animatronic Rob Schneider. Let that image sink in. Little did I know robotic Deuce Bigelo is the brother of the Situation. I will rename this guy the Shituation for how badly he acted.
Look, I'm just going to spoil it for you as best I can. The campers die, even though the flashback having lady set up the whole thing to kill everyone. They are murdered by an overacting Rose and the Shituation. Oh did I mention there's a guy in the woods who's a ghost FBI agent dressed up like the Fonz? That slipped my mind along with around thirty-two brain cells.
This "movie" is shit. I usually don't call out other sites by name for giving turds like this positive reviews, and I won't here, but that's basically what one unnamed site did. The guy writing the review even admits to doing a promotional article for the director previous to the review...so why have this guy gingerly talk about the problems this movie has? He basically talks about several of the problems I'm about to go into, but then pats Del Negro on the back and go "There there, champ, it's great for a first try!". That's bullshit. Be a shill for the guy if you want, but don't fool people into thinking this movie is good in any way. People don't deserve to waste money like that on misleading shit.
That takes me to what I did not enjoy about this film (and a few other things).
Things That Pissed Me Off About Blood Reservoir
- The audio is atrocious. Half the time the music or sound effects are louder than the dialogue, or even better, the actors and the mic are as far away as humanly possible.
- Deeply bothered by the lack of any reference of time. Yeah some movies overdo it on the establishing shots, but this movie is one scene cut to one scene cut to another scene. They're walking, next scene they're all set up camping, and then the next scene everyone is all over the damn place. All in the span of like two minutes.
- The "news segments" are not funny, and did we need four of them within five minutes of each other?
- The acting is bad. Super bad. There's a few actors here I think could do better (Rose for sure) but I blame that on the shitty script. The other actors are just awful. The Shituation is a particularly bad actor.
- Why was the death of the black guy the only one lovingly shown while all the other deaths were offscreen? Hmmm.
- The script. I know Del Negro had a story in mind, and I could even see it at points, but he has no idea how to pace a movie and have it make any kind of fucking sense. I still don't know why flashback girl wanted everyone dead.
- None of the characters are the least bit sympathetic. I'm not talking about the annoying campers trope you see, I mean every character in this film is someone if you saw get on an elevator, you'd take the stairs. You'd rather be in discomfort and tired than to spend thirty seconds with these people.
- When every single executive producer has the last name Del Negro, I know how this was funded. They said the budget was 100 grand? Where did it go?
Before I mercifully end this, I have to mention something. I know I've been really hard on these people, and no it's not the worst film I've ever seen, but this is why I'm so angry. If you look on Amazon reviews for this film, or even IMDb, you'll see super positive reviews for this film. I get trying to cover a turd in a golden wrapper and calling it a Wonka Bar, but it's dishonest and scummy to go under different names and write fake reviews of your own film. While I don't have "proof" of this, any sort of common sense can tell you these positive reviews come from someone involved with the production. Don't call your movie shit, but don't try to fool horror fans.
If one person reads this and doesn't waste $1.99 on this, then I'll have done my job. I need to review something good next time. This can't be good for my health.
