REVIEW: Blood Of The Beast

At 67 minutes, I still managed to fall asleep during BLOOD OF THE BEAST (I’ve of course watched the rest since). It was during the silent film part. For the last 15 minutes or so of the movie, during the climax, it reverts into a silent movie, with black-and-white video (previously it was color) and title cards with text as the only dialogue. The only sound is the eerie music being played. It really took me out of the movie, and just made me wonder as I was watching it “when will it switch back?”

I would wonder that, because this movie uses a lot of experimental visuals. For most of the movie, it goes like this: normal-scene-with-dialogue, then weird-experimental-arty-shot, then normal scene, then a different experimental visual; repeat. It makes the film visually disjointed and look in-cohesive, which makes the overall feel of the movie seem incohesive.

Which is too bad, because the story it’s trying to tell is intriguing: after World War III, three billion people had died and 90% or something of the male population were sterile, and we had to clone people to keep the race going. These clones showed no discernible flaws and were a great success, so they rolled out strand after strand of clones. 19 years later, where our plot picks up, it looks like something in the first strand of clones has gone awry and they now want to eat people and fuck their bodies. As more and more first strand clones go haywire, there’s three separate storylines that eventually converge: a doomsday reverend with one his followers and followers’ daughter staying in a single fortified room somewhere, while the slightly-off-but-kind reverend broadcasts over the radio; some kids on a college campus; and some kids hiking around in the forest.

As I said, at 67 minutes, this is a pretty short movie, but it still seemed full-length. I attribute this to all the many scenes that really could have been edited down a bit. They draw themselves out, adding nothing to the story or atmosphere, but instead adding to the viewer’s boredom. It was very difficult for me to suspend my disbelief that, while watching stock footage of World War II, I was watching footage of a future World War III.

I do commend these guys for trying something different and new, not only with the visuals, but also with the story. There’s not enough zombie-sci-fi movies out there. And though a truly good effort, it was just too drawn out and uneven for me. I give BLOOD OF THE BEAST 5/10 clones.

Available at Amazon.