Some of my guiltiest pleasures come in the form of horror comedies from the 1980's. Waxwork, Dead Heat, House, are just three of the many titles that I would step on and over young children just to get in front of the screen to which they were projecting. Generally, the films are not very good. But they had a playfulness to them and I will give the benefit of the doubt to the producers that they knew exactly what they intending and to what audience it was intended.
The new millennium has tried to produce some of the magic of the horror/comedy peers of yesteryear, but have been largely unsuccessful. With exceptions handed out to a small few (including the best example of late: Tucker & Dale vs. Evil) the studios try too hard to mix the different genres without just letting it flow and develop into what it might become.
The latest horror/comedy to cross our desk was Blood Shot – a film that has brought 80's horror actors Brad Dourif, Lance Henriksen and Christopher Lambert together (even if none of the three share a scene). Blood Spot is a typical buddy cop film that is not your typical buddy cop film. Brennan Elliott plays Rip, a rogue cop who fights both terrorists and vampires. Bailey Smith plays a vampire – a vampire that works for the CIA (Vampire Division) under the direction of Sam (Henricksen). Rip and the Vampire are constantly at odds with each other with Rip trying everything from garlic to holy water to bring down the undead bloodsucker. But both are crusaders for good. And both find themselves having to team together to fight an evil Middle Eastern terrorist (Dourif) who is planning a nuclear attack on U.S. soil. That's the story. Long and short.
Blood Shot is based on the short film of the same name by writer/director Dietrich Johnston. Johnston gets a bigger budget (estimated at $3.5 million) for this full length feature and does the best with opportunity spinning an enjoyable tale that has a handful of good one-liners and a whole lot of fun as the story plays out.
The film never takes itself too seriously and comes very close at times to resembling a deleted scene from The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! But it manages to consistently pull itself back in from the brink of absurdity to get back to what it does best – entertain.
The story in itself is not ground breaking and painting white actors brown to look like Middle Eastern terrorists will either be offensive or hilarious depending on one's sense of humor. But the action and the relationship between the two reluctant partners is enough to keep this film afloat and amass enough appreciation to present a recommendation.
More interestingly still is where the premise can go from here. The idea of a vigilante vampire has been done before with Blade, but Blood Shot doesn't attempt for spectacular stunts and action sequences. It instead spends time on character and that makes the idea of continuing the series an interesting premise we would like to see exploited.
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