Blood Cult

My review was written in August 1985 after watching the show on United Home Video cassette.

Made in Tulsa, "Blood Cult" is a regional horror feature for home video fans that demonstrates the viability of shooting scare pics directly on videotape rather than the usual 16mm or 35mm film modes. Pic was preceded in this format by another regional, taped horror opus, last year's "Copperhead".

Familiar storyline concerns a series of murders of coeds one winter at Central State College in the Midwest. Sheriff Ron Wilbois (Charles Ellis), who is planning to run for the senate, is investigating, hampered by lack of cooperation from the college dean (Fred Graves) and local coroner (Josef Hardt).

Key breakthrough in the case comes when Wilbois' daughter Tina (Julie Andelman), who works in the school library, finds a book recounting an American cult of the 1700s that aimed at avenging the victims of the earlier Salem witch hunt era. Cultists would kill victims and create a mannequin (for later sacrifice by fire) out of body parts taken from the victims. The mutilations and a clue of a gold amulet (and a dog symbol displayed) left with each corpse link the historical cult with the pattern and evidence of the current murders.

Tina's boyfriend Joel (James Vance) aids the sheriff in his campus stakeouts, but the film ends inconclusively after the sheriff witnesses modern cultists meeting in the forest and later uncovers the killer's surprise identity.

Screenplay by Stuart Rosenthal (with additional dialog by co-star James Vance) is too derivative of previous stalk & slash horror pics to let "Blood Cult" soar, but director Christopher Lewis, son of actress Loretta Young, develops some effective atmosphere, especially in night scenes. Credit must go to director of photography Paul MacFarlane, whose wide-angle shots and moody lighting prove that horror via video can compare with the filmed variety. Gore is emphasized here, and convincing special effects makeup for the mutilations (executed by David Powell and Robert Brewer) merits the "graphic violence" warning on the package.

Production outfit plans further videotaped horror features, but would do well to come up with more interesting scripts.

in the bathroom killing scene at the beggining of the movie the gorey special effects looked so fake. It looked like they used something like hersheys strawberry sauce for fake blood. And in the scene where the cashier in the cafeteria saw the dead body in the garbage container her scream sounded so bad that i almost died laughing. So if you like cheesy poorly made horror movies than this is definately the movie for you.

"Blood Cult" opens pretty promising with two pretty gruesome murders within the first 15 minutes. Then it goes into normal slasher fare with none of the later killings being as near as interesting as the first two, all set around what appears to be a 70 something year old Sheriffs investigation (he even narrates some of the film). The later half pretty much turns into a cult conspiracy movie, with the reveal of the killer being handled pretty well since the film doesn't really give you any red herrings. There's a lot of dull dialogue, padding, and bad acting particularly from our sheriff hero, but, it's far from the worst SOV I've ever seen.

I got this movie on dvd for the pure reason that it was a slasher movie. This would be a decent movie if the acting was better, i mean its just terrible, beyond terrible. The best actor is the chinese cook in the campus cafeteria. The death scenes were kool, but would be better if the women being slaughtered acted a lot better. Ive seen bad acting, but the acting in this movie looks like someone is acting acting. Movies ok, just needs better acting and more death. You can definitly tell that the film was made by non horror fans, which also kind of kills it.

In a nutshell some serial killer is avenging the burning of witches by collecting body parts from his victims.

This is reportedly the first direct-to-video movie, and it looks it.

It seems to have been made with college actors, as they are thoroughly unconvincing when they plead for their lives.

The shower scene, a common feature of slasher films shows nothing. We don't even see the girl hacked to dead; just blood splatter. In fact, we never really see the kind of hacking we expect to see in slasher films.

It was an interest story, but a poor slasher film.