A Chave do Inferno

I've seen enough (too many) films churned out by Uncork'd Entertainment that I should know better by now than to watch a title released onto the Internet before first checking to see whether or not they were involved. The Asylum has shown themselves to be more capable of producing good movies than Uncork'd Entertainment. Yet here we are, with 2013's 'Blood shed.' By the time only about fifteen minutes have passed we're treated to poor dialogue and scene writing, including touches of ableism, racism, and classism, the direction seems a bit blunt, and there are signs of weak pacing. Still, hope remains this early on. After all, I appreciate the makeup, costume design, and art direction that are applied in terms of the antagonist, and the practical effects; there are good ideas here in that regard, and even the post-production visuals are welcome subtle additions rather than the glaring eyesores we've seen elsewhere with Uncork'd. This has these qualities going for it in the very least.

Doubts do continue to surface as the length advances, however. The weak pacing seems to be intended as a substitute for honest atmosphere; randomness seems to be intended as a substitute for honest creepiness. I don't know whether the fault can be chalked up to Patrick Hasson or Juan Carlos Saizarbitoria, but either way the direction most certainly continues to be majorly heavy-handed, an issue that's evident partly at those times when the horror facet is emphasized and even more so in all those other scenes where characters do, well, anything else. The latter is unquestionably true in at least some measure because the dialogue and scene writing - and the characterizations, for that matter - prove to be not just poor but altogether abysmal. I feel bad for the cast, for they had to struggle against all this in an effort to not come off just as tawdrily. Bai Ling, for example, is given nothing to do but be a walking stereotype, and much the same is true of Jillisa Lynn; even the acting of "star" Gabriel De Santiago is brusque and forced. Of anyone I think Bree Essrig and more so Cherie Jiminez come off fairly well, whether through sheer earnestness and skill or in combination with the benefit of slightly better writing for their characters and scenes.

In addition to the primary notion of a malevolent entity in the storage facility, there are suggested story threads of the sleazy manager, some mystery for kind-of-sort-of protagonist Gabriel, and the comings and goings of other characters. I don't think every last element here is a good or necessary inclusion, and that's to say nothing of any hint of a romantic element (far too often wholly contrived, in a vast preponderance of films, and no less so here). 'Blood shed' could and should have been streamlined. Credit where it's due, though, because Hasson did pen a complete, cohesive, compelling narrative. Even that core narrative doesn't receive the best treatment (not even on paper) - there was definite room for improvement - yet it's suitably strong that it provides a minor anchor for the proceedings. I also observe that in addition to the qualities mentioned above that were the first admirable notes to present, the feature can claim some fine use of aspects like lighting and sound effects. Why, to my surprise, this was able to achieve at least one thing that can't be said for anything else that Uncork'd has been involved in, or The Asylum for that matter: a chill. It was only one, and the scene where I got it had some issues, but it was there all the same.

Would that the writing bore more quantifiable strength, or demonstrated more care and sincerity. Would that the direction illustrated a more mindful, delicate touch; were the writing and direction better, I trust that the actors would have had a chance to show more of their own skills. Most of the nudity here is genuinely unnecessary, but I suppose that's not the worst flaw to deserve criticism. These problems are unfortunate, because I recognize the hard work that did go into 'Blood shed,' and there's real value here. In fact, as far as pictures put out by this company, this might be the best I've seen. That's sadly not saying much, for I believe the troubles here are so ponderous that the end result still falls below average; for what it's worth, though, "below average" is better than "rock bottom." All told I somewhat want to like this more than I do in consideration of what is truly done well here; on the other hand, for what is done poorly, maybe I'm being too kind. I don't really know who I would recommend this to in light of the substantial difficulties, and there are too many other flicks that are more deserving of one's time. If one does come across 'Blood shed,' though, I guess there are worse ways to spend ninety minutes.

"Blood Shed" is a low-budget movie with a story inside a self-storage facility that does not make any sense. The lead character is Gabriel, an epileptic young man that uses drugs for seizure and is living in his car. His stepbrother sends the key of a container in a self-storage facility in Los Angeles and tells that he might find the truth about his biological parents inside the container. Gabriel, who is dirty, unattractive, rude, homeless and penniless, meets the janitress Samira in the facility and she falls in love with him (love is beautiful, isn't it?). Meanwhile there is a deranged ghost hunting down the homeless people that spend the night in the storage. This is the first time that I see a crazy ghost. The plot point is that the ghost is Jezebel, who is Gabriel's mother. In the end, awful is not enough to rate this movie. My vote is two.

Title (Brazil): "A Chave do inferno" ("The Key from Hell")

In the intro we see some Latin guy get killed by some Spanish-speaking something. We learn that a percentage of homeless in Los Angeles somehow live in storage units.

A homeless guy with mental issues, named Gabriel, living in his car receives a key from his brother. His parents wanted him to have it. It's a key to a storage unit. At the storage facility he meets the mean boss who warns him that any violation of the regulations will get his property seized. Also there is the cute attendant who likes him.

Earlier we met a homeless couple that lives there. The girl is pregnant. Suddenly a creepy lady appears who kills the guy and keeps the girl in a cage and is very interested in the baby.

We meet some of the other tenants. An old mute guy who writes on a typewriter. Two hookers. A young kid and his hot mother (the lovely Vida Guerra who unfortunately gets little screen time).

Gabriel finds a chest in his unit and some junk. The chest is locked. When he finally opens it there's a folder with old newspaper clippings about a missing woman and a child.

The creature lady appears a couple of times and the tenants sort of know about her. She pushes her long black nails into people's heads and that's when we see some flashbacks.

Turns out she was a girl somewhere in Latin America eager to make it to the US, so she hires some lady to do some witchcraft/santeria so she'll find a man to take her to America. And she does. But this guy is violent and nasty and kills her at some point while she is in advanced stages of her pregnancy. Actually the guy is the old guy with the typewriter.

So Gabriel and survivors will have to confront the creature as we learn more about this woman and about Gabriel's identity.

A horror movie about the homeless sure is uncommon. The question is whether that's something you'll want to see. But then again this movie isn't about the homeless you'll run into in LA, but rather a fairly young and attractive bunch. Problem is setting a movie in a storage facility is rather limiting and also not appealing. The movie does look very good though. There are problems with the audio, often sound effects get in the way of understanding what is being said. But as often happens with movies these day, not a lot is said. There's very little dialogue and so you can't really care about any of the characters. Gabriel makes a weak lead. That's a common problem with characters with mental problems. Things improve when the lovely attendant and her hot friend are on screen. The background story of the villain is pretty good, that's what this movie should have focused more rather than on the various storage facility tenants.

They tried to do something different here but could have done more.

What we have here is what I like to call a "null-point film". Now typically when you go out to watch a film, or head to the store to rent one, you have something in mind for what you would like to see. If you rent a drama, you are probably looking for good acting mixed with touching real life scenarios. If you are looking for horror, you are probably hoping to see scary monsters and frightening circumstances.

If you decide to watch ANY sort of movie in the horror genre with the word "blood" in the title, you are most likely expecting to see some gore.

Surprisingly, this movie offers non of that. This is why I call it a null-point film. Everything I was expecting to see didn't happen. Oh sure lots of people died.. and each one of them died completely off-screen, with the killing blow happening off-camera. You hear bloody ripping noises and screaming, but see nothing. The special effects were limited entirely to red contact lenses and fake blood with something mixed in to look like intestines.

I am normally a proponent of not overdoing your special effects. The rampant CGI in movies today is annoying at best and it's always good to see amateur film artists looking to avoid that sort of thing. However, in this film the creators got excessively conservative.

Why would you make a slasher film with no slashing in it? Because honestly the plot, acting and atmosphere add next to nothing to the movie; slashing was really all that was left. It was the point, and for some reason it was avoided almost entirely.

Hence, a non-movie.

From the description I wasn't expecting anything from this movie, and I got less than that. I am usually a fan of bad horror movies as they are often an amusing way to pass time, however with this one that was not the case. The poor acting itself made it near impossible for me to watch, so trying to follow a story line (if there was one) was an unworthy headache. I really tried to find something about this movie to make it worth my time, but kept finding myself disappointed I spent my pocket change to rent this thing. I got it from redbox and will make sure I get it back before being charged another day for it. To sum it up, and say so politely, I found more amusement watching my cat groom himself.