Blood Tracks

Blood Tracks main crime was a complete lack of any interesting characters or lead character of interest. Supporting this the kills weren't really interesting and most of the horror was done in the dark which made it very hard to really care.

The acting wasn't much better with many of the actors sounding like they are reading their lines verbatim a lot of the time. So bad, this is true B territory. Then there is the script, jeepers. No explanation provided for anything, the whole script is pure trash. A women stabs her hubby to death because he was picking some coins up off the floor so they become mutants living in a factory then kill anyone that comes near them.

Other issues with the plot like why didn't the locals know anything about these killer hermits living practically right next to them. What we do actually get is a fair amount of blood, quite a few kills, some moody music and a very nice assortment of t&a. All of which went to waste because no interesting characters were available.

Unquestionably one of the dumbest, dullest and most redundant slasher/exploitation hybrids of the entire 80's decade, "Blood Tracks" is a Swedish-American co-production that desperately attempts to cash in on the success of "The Hills Have Eyes" and other similar mountain-survival horror flicks, but tremendously fails. The most transparent problem of this film project is the lack of budget. The acting performances are weak, the choreography looks amateurish and – worst of all – three quarters of the film is shot without lighting. During practically all the death sequences, you find yourself staring at a fully black screen with only a bit of loud screaming in the background. The basic plot outline isn't too bad, actually – albeit very derivative – but in spite of this and the reasonably high body count, "Blood Tracks" is an insufferably boring and retarded 80's movie. The intro sequence is undeniably the best of the whole film, as a worried mother of three slays her alcoholic and abusive husband and flees into the snowy Colorado Mountains. Many years later (forty according the synopsis on the back flap of the DVD), a cheesy and ultimately gay rock band called "Solid Gold" journeys to the area, along with groupies and backing vocals, to record a video clip. Their atrocious music and annoying behavior quickly causes avalanches so immense they find themselves trapped and cut off from the world. The family from the intro, by now completely bewildered and having developed cannibalistic appetites, resides in a nearby abandoned factory and prepares for a luxurious smörgåsbord. The influence of "The Hills Have Eyes" is obvious, as it is even hinted at that the self-exiled family engaged in naughty inbred games, but they're not the least bit menacing or scary. The band members and their dim-witted entourage form the least amiable horror characters I have ever seen. They say imbecilic stuff (like "the snow is cold" and "hey, let's do it in the snow"), make stupid decisions and honestly deserve to die in the most painful ways imaginable. The Colorado filming locations – actually shot in rural Sweden – are beautiful to look at, but that's pretty much the only positive thing I can write about "Blood Tracks". They're quite a bit of sleaze and nudity, but none of the female cast members are attractive or sexy. If I remember correctly, even that dreadful similarly themed movie "Terror on Tour" was better than this.

My review was written in May 1986 after a Cannes Film Festival Market screening.

"Blood Tracks" is a gory horror film that although it was made last year belongs rightfully in the cycle of teen slasher features from five years ago. Prospects are modest in international markets.

Silly premise has a rock group amed Solid Gold (played by Swedish band Easy Action) on location in the Colorado mountains (actually filmed in Sweden) to shoot a music video. A large contingent of attractive femme models isalong, to provide th usual scantily clad decoration (even though it's cold and strictly snowsville, with frequent avalanches to boot).

While the troupe is holed up in a snug mountain cabin, workmen disturb the peace of a barbarian clan of savages living underneath an abandoned factory nearby. A prolog sequence shows how an ultraviolent domestic quarrel some 10 years earlier ended up with daddy dead and mom and the kids trekking to the remote spot where they're living and murdering primitively today.

When the rock entourage youngsters are not engaged in sex they're wandering out in the snow (this being a cornball horror picture after all) to be attacked by the primitives.

"Blood Tracks" emphasizes some grisly makeup effects, particularly one in which a girl suddenly is split in two from head to toe. Several sex and nude scenes are included, the silliest of which has blonde Mary (Karina Lee) making love to a musician out in a car when they're buried by an avalanche; when rescued she scrambles across the snow naked much to the merriment of the rescuers.

Cast is hampered by the use of post-synchronized English dialog, but the youngsters are good looking and that apparently is all that is required in this genre.

Easy Action were one of the first Swedish glam rock band and was formed in Stockholm in 1982.In 1983 they released their self-titled debut album and had a minor hit in Sweden with the song "We Go Rocking".In 1985 the band appeared in cheap survival horror "Blood Tracks" made by B-movie producer Mats-Helge Olsson.Easy Action broke up around 1986 after having recorded "That Makes One".If you are a fan of this cheesy glam rock group then check out "Blood Tracks" with its corny murderous family hiding in a a snow-swept disused factory.The family lives close to the cabin where 80s Swedish rock band 'Solid Gold'(Easy Action) have just arrived to film their latest smash video."Blood Tracks" is a dull horror movie with flat characters and almost zero gore.Still I have seen worse.5 blood tracks out of 10.

In the snowy hinterlands of what is presumably the U. S. Rocky Mountains (but is in reality Sweden), a drunken father bullishly intimidates and threatens his wife and children. The wife retaliates by knifing and leaving him with the kids in tow. Many years later, a film crew looking for an atmospheric location stumbles upon an abandoned factory, which is the hidden home for the wife and children, now living like wild animals, with scabby, yellow faces and bug eyes.

The film crew includes a real-life heavy metal rock band, Easy Action, brought on location with a group of models to shoot a music video. When an avalanche isolates the crew from civilization, the scary-looking family in the factory goes on the hunt.

For a simple stalk-'n-slash type gore movie, BLOOD TRACKS is pretty good. In 1985, it probably stood out amid the FRIDAY THE 13TH clones that proliferated. Though BLOOD TRACKS resembles THE HILLS HAVE EYES and DEATHLINE, in this case the social-outcast mutants are not cannibalistic but kill only to keep knowledge of their existence a secret. At least that's how it seems at first.

The makers of BLOOD TRACKS tried to make each successive murder sequence more elaborate and horrible than the last, so in the end whatever sympathy one has for the outcast family is long gone. The film crew members are not just killed, they are dismembered or burned alive in sophisticated traps. The murderous family acts so witless and undisciplined, though, these spectacles seem far beyond their abilities.

Despite the large number of inconsistencies and coincidences that pile up by the movie's end, BLOOD TRACKS is diverting enough to deserve a slightly dismembered thumbs-up.