Here for Blood

In need of some extra money, a down-on-his-luck wrestler agrees to babysit his girlfriends' younger sister for the night while she studies for an upcoming exam, but when a deadly cult descends upon the house looking for blood he must put his fighting skills to the test to save everyone he cares for.

There's quite a lot to like with this feature. Among the brighter spots here is the film's wildly imaginative setup that provides this with a great opportunity for fun throughout. The main concept of him getting dragged into the babysitting gig is quite fun, making quite heavy use of the concept of him being a male trying to go through the act of babysitting a young girl. This gets brought up throughout the course of the film as his muscle-headed style and good-natured sense of duty conflicts with their more natural sense that try to explain what's going on as the situation spirals out of control involving the purpose behind the cult's appearance at the house and what they're actually doing there. It's all given a great comedic bent with the reactions, one-liners, and over-the-top nature of everything which all sets the film in motion rather well. This setup provides the kind of baseline starting point where the fun of the home invasion produces no shortage of high-energy confrontations. With that comedic bent still in full effect, the confrontations here with the initial members of the cult trying to sneak inside and take her without conflict but get interrupted by the wrestler putting his moves to the test in defending her. This continues with the added bodies being added to the fray as his friends arrive looking to end the night there and get drawn into the mix and then the parents that bring about all kinds of fun here with the series of twists they bring about which not only generates a slew of highly effective gore scenes for the numerous kills but also keeps the film going along as such a frenetic clip that it comes together incredibly well for a lot to like. There isn't much to dislike here but it does have some minor drawbacks. The main factor against the film is that it tends to introduce a few too many elements than it needs to for the type of story this is trying to be. The whole idea of the cult trying to gain immortality through the sacrifice is fine enough, but to constantly try to bring about the importance of the situation with a wise-cracking hero featuring supernatural healing powers just as much as the supernatural regeneration powers of the cult that tends to feel somewhat unnecessary. As well, with the film's heavy focus on the comedic touches not just in the reactions and quips being offered, some of them come off as being scripted rather than being genuine in-the-moment comments so the lessened tension isn't there at the wrong moments. These slight issues are all that keep it down.

Rated Unrated/R: Extreme Graphic Violence, Graphic Language, and children-in-jeopardy.

Babysitting, how hard could it be? Find out when pro wrestler Tom fills in on a babysitting job so that his girlfriend, Phoebe, has a chance to study for an exam.

Tom expects a pretty chill evening babysitting Grace. They order pizza and play some video games. Right before Grace's bedtime two intruders enter the house. They just want the girl, but Tom isn't going to let that happen.

Tom and Grace must fight off members of an evil cult. Phoebe and some friends join in on the unexpected fun as the battle the cult members in gory, comedic fashion.

I had never heard of "Here for Blood" prior to viewing it. I was pleasantly surprised.

Rocker Dee Snider of Twisted Sister is the voice of the head.

Sitting down to watch the 2022 comedy horror movie "Here for Blood" here in 2024 without ever having heard about it, I have to admit that I wasn't sure what I was in for. But with it being a horror comedy that I hadn't already seen, and my love of the horror genre, of course I had to give the movie a fair chance.

The storyline, written by James Roberts, is a pretty straightforward one. However, I have to say that it wasn't a particularly impressive storyline, and it was rather devoid of comedy, making it a weak horror comedy. I am sure that newcomers to the horror genre might enjoy "Here for Blood", but as a life-long horror fan, I have to say that writer James Roberts just didn't dazzle me with this script.

The movie starts out as a rather generic home-invasion movie, but takes a rather unexpected turn about halfway through, for better or worse.

I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble in the movie, which was good, as I do like watching unfamiliar faces and talents on the screen. And the acting performances in "Here for Blood" were adequate. Nothing outstanding or overly memorable, mind you, but definitely adequate for a movie of this caliber.

The effects in the movie were good, and I did like the gore effects and the glowing eyes, those looked really great. And there was actually enough gore and visceral mayhem to keep an old gorehound like myself content, and that was definitely something that spoke well in favor of the movie and helped keeping it afloat.

While "Here for Blood" was watchable, it wasn't exactly a movie that tickled me the right places.

My rating of "Here for Blood" lands on a five out of ten stars.

I personally don't care for Horror movies that mix their tone as much as this one does. Like I mention in my title, 'Re-animator' is way Over The Top too, but maintains more of a campy/satire tone throughout. This one right from the opening scene starts off with prolonged, extreme violence. Just not really my thing, especially if you are going to mix goofy humour with it later. The tones are just to extreme for my personal 'Taste' (such as it is)

However, in all fairness if you like these kinds of films that mix extreme violence with Over The Top gory humour, you may indeed like this one just fine. But, just for me, I don't really care for this more 'Modern' take on this kind of 'Horror', although I did kind of like the Supernatural elements as basic as they were.

For example, it is similar as to why I didn't enjoy the recent film 'Violent Night' Again, they were trying to mix humour with extreme violence, and in this case with a young girl involved. To me, I feel you should either go for a lighter touch and play up the humour, or take the whole thing completely seriously and just make a straight forward Slasher film. Just my take on it.

But, like I say, IF you are the kind who likes this more 'Modern' approach to Horror, and you don't mind the mix of really goofy humour and extreme, brutal violence, then you may very well enjoy this movie more than I did.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ My Particular Way of Rating:

5 - Flawed, but with some entertainment value.

6. A decently passable story maybe worth a watch.

7. A solid film, well made, effective, and entertaining.

And, obviously, you can probably figure out what above and below these would mean... : )

Here for Blood is a ton of fun. Shawn Roberts absolutely kills it with the awesome one liners while defending a house against a home invasion.

Tom (Roberts) is conned into babysitting by his girlfriend and thus starts the home invasion by a group of mask wearing killers.

The fun starts when Tom encounters the first man in a mask and kicks the loving junk out of him.

What makes this stand out from some other home invasion films is its absurdly funny humor, extremely creepy antagonists and awesomely over the top practical effects.

You find out that this home invasion is to possibly capture the little girl and anyone else is just dead meat. About a third of the way through you will probably guess the reasoning as to why they are doing it but it gets does have some twists and turns... especially when you figure out who is behind it.

Here for Blood is a lot of fun and Shawn Roberts really adds a lot with his cockiness and hilarious one liners through out the film. It also doesn't slow down at all. It's definitely worth watching if you like horror comedies.