Blood Rage

Maddy (Louise Lasser! Louise Lasser!) takes her twin, ten year old sons, Terry and Todd, to the drive-in theater for some wholesome movie watching fun. Unfortunately, Terry is a homicidal maniac, who can't resist the opportunity to slip out of the car, and murder someone with an ax! To make matters worse, he blames Todd for the murder, causing him to be locked away in a mental institution. Ten years later, Todd escapes, and heads home, just in time for Thanksgiving.

BLOOD RAGE is another enjoyable slasher film from the sub-genre's heyday. Overflowing with gushy gore FX, 80's fashions and decor, mountainous hair, and a skull-fracturing synthesizer score, it's a perfect slab of blood-drenched cheddar.

Still, in spite of the grisly goings on, the most haunting scene involves Maddy sitting on the floor devouring leftovers. Then, in her horror and grief, she cleans the oven! Vigorously! Drop whatever you're doing and watch this right now...

Being a sucker for old posters and VHS-covers, I have to start by stating that the cover image displayed here on the website does not correspond with the actual movie. The image is that of another movie named "Blood Rage", although that one is a misogynic exploitation/thriller from the year 1979 and directed by Joseph Zito; creator of "The Prowler and "Friday the 13th The Final Chapter". If you're interested, the most frequently seen poster for this "Blood Rage" features a Rambo knife with the reflection of a terrified and screaming woman in it. But anyways, on with the actual review…

This obscure and initially shelved (between 1983 and 1987) '80s slasher may have an incredibly dumb storyline and may feature some of the most absurd plot-twists in cinematic history, but it's inarguably entertaining and delivers just what the target audience for this type of movies craves the most: extreme gore and gratuitous nudity! With sickening murder sequences and reasonably well-crafted make-up effects like these, I'm actually even surprised that the film wasn't released in 1983, as there definitely must have been a market for it. Who cares if the script is retarded when blooded machetes are fiercely swinging and chopped off heads are joyously rolling, right? Somewhere in the seventies, during a night out at the drive-in with their mother and her latest lover, the twin brothers Todd and Terry decide to go for a little walk between the cars and look at couples having sex. For no apparent reason, Terry hacks up a guy's face and then quickly puts the ax in the hands of his brother who is just standing there looking stupid. Todd spends the next ten years in a mental asylum (although his mother refers to it as a "special school"), until he suddenly decides on Thanksgiving Day that it is time to escape and tell the world that he's innocent. When Terry learns that his brother is loose, he starts butchering the entire neighborhood in order to uphold the idea that Todd is a maniac. So, before you ask: yes, we are supposed to believe that Todd never bothered to deny that he was the killer for ten long years, or that Terry is perfectly able to control his maniacal tendencies the entire time but then slaughters all his friends and relatives without any moral constraints. The film also never undertakes any attempts to build up suspense or mystery, what with the identity of the killer revealed straight from the beginning and it doesn't feature that typical "which one of the twin brother is this?" sub plot. Instead, there are a lot of dumb dialogs and quotes, for example Terry who keeps repeating "it's not cranberry sauce" whenever there's blood on his shirt, and an incredibly over- the-top hysterical performance of Louise Lasser. The body count is high and the murders are nice & nasty, with plenty of machete action and severed body parts flying around everywhere. Director John Grissmer didn't do a lot of film work apart from this one. He made the good but obscure and underrated plastic surgery thriller "Scalpel" (a.k.a. "False Face") and wrote the early 70s psycho- thriller "The House that Cried Murder". By the way, the latter is playing at the drive-in theater during the opening sequence of "Blood Rage".

The gore in this movie surprisingly holds up really well still now. Only ever having seen it once way way back i didn't really remember much about it until watching it on the Arrow video blu ray release. The acting for the most part is awfully perfect for what it is and there's much humour to be had seeing how they get around scenes with the twins in the same shot, their mothers reaction to everything that happens and the girlfriends fantastic searching for the crazed twin as if she was looking for a cat, looking under leaves and combing the ground. Amazing stuff. But that aside some great kills and gore take this up a notch and keep it highly entertaining for me. One to watch for any fan of 80s slashers.

Blood Rage isn't really that bad. But it isn't really that good. It is cheesy, but not cheesy enough. That's why I give it 5/10. It won't satisfy your craving for slashers and isn't even close to creepy or scary. Still, it has some cheesy charm of it's own. Mark Soper is really trying to be good, and succeeds most of the time. Music is also kinda cool and so are some characters. But that can't save this movie from being really uninteresting and uninspired for 90% of the time. I recommend this only to my fellow slasher fans needing a quick fix. Other people? Avoid it...

Blood Rage (1987)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Terry commits a brutal murder at a drive-in but blames it on his twin Todd who is sent to a mental hospital. Flash forward ten years and Todd has broken out of the hospital and returns home where more bodies begin to pile up.

BLOOD RAGE was filmed in 1983 but it sat on a shelf for four years before it was finally released without too much fan fare. The film was pretty much forgotten but over the years it has gained a rather large cult following and it's not too hard to see why. Even though I thought the film was pretty bad, there's no question that it contains some rather campy moments at times and the gore level is quite high.

I think it's the gore that most people are going to be coming to the film for. The special effects aren't the greatest thing around and they certainly don't compare to the work of Tom Savini but they certainly have an appeal. It doesn't matter what happens to the victim you're going to see a ton of blood come flowing out. So if they're stabbed, shot or chopped...prepare for blood. There are some creative kills throughout including one poor woman who gets cut in half and another man who loses his head.

The biggest problem with the film is pretty much everything else. The movie is available in three different cuts but I went with the original VHS version that clocks in at 82 minutes. Those 82 minutes feel triple that time because this thing drags so often. Whenever someone isn't getting killed off we're basically watching some pretty poor acting in a rather bad story without much going for it. There's no mystery, no suspense, no humor and not much of anything.

Again, BLOOD RAGE is going to be remembered for its gore and I'd still recommend slasher fans check it out for this reason alone.