Blood Vessel

Killing off the most recognisable member of a film's cast in a early shock moment is almost cliche in modern horror movies but it's something I've always secretly enjoyed. It adds an air of unpredictability, especially when the rest of the cast is unknown. When we've no idea who's going to survive you can't relax and you'll nearly always be surprised by the outcome. It's one of the things that lifts Blood Vessel above the usual glut of DTV horrors you find streaming online these days.

The year is 1945. The second World War is coming to any end. The nazi war machine is crumbling. Their plans are getting more and more desperate by the day. German U-boats have been ordered to fire on civilian, merchant and medical vessels, ships that would have usually been guaranteed safe passage, in an attempt to demoralise and cause chaos in the Allied camp. A rag tag group of survivors from one such vessel has been floating in a dingy for days. They're in the middle of the ocean without a chance of being found. Death is nigh in more ways than one as they come across a deserted German ship and when they explore it they find out yet another desperate attempt by Hitler to hold onto power. Something, that in the old world would have been called a Strigoi.

Cinema has been interested in the mix of nazis (I'm not giving these cunts a capital n) and the occult ever since Indiana Jones watched the power of god decimate a battalion of them at the end of Raiders Of The Lost Ark. That blend of the supernatural and the scariest people real life have to offer just works well onscreen and most recently we had Overlord which turned out to be one of the most entertaining but sadly underwatched films of 2018. This year we get Blood Vessel and while it's not a patch on that one there's still plenty to enjoy. It lays the spooky atmosphere on thick, it doesn't feel the need to revel in the blood and guts of the situation and for a low budget 95 minute long genre pic it has a surprising depth of characterisation which is always key to a horror movies success. If you don't care about the people on screen it's suspense and scares just won't work but Blood Vessel sketches out it's survivors just enough to get the job done. That said though...

All is well until the halfway point, a nice sense of creeping dread has been created, we've gotten to know something about each member of the crew and had a laugh at their terrible accents (this is an Australian film, but the characters are Yanks, Brits and Russians) and then things start to get messy. The bad guy turns up and the film goes from wartime chiller to a camp Buffyesque horror. No, I'm not saying Buffyesque is a bad thing because I love that show but the change in tone is jarring and dare I say laughable but to it's credit the movie commits and flips into a full on stalk and slash horror with a vampiric twist. But with stalk and slash horrors comes inevitable baggage and here every cliche in the book appears, namely the fools who wonder off alone & the token minority who may as well have a bullseye on his face. Tropes like these really need to get the bullet because they're an instant eyeroller for horror fans.

That cast commits though and they'll keep you going through the silliness and help you overlook that one big plothole (oh you'll know the one i mean). There's a nice chemistry between the survivors with their differing viewpoints on war, coming from different countries, adding colour commentary and cutting dialogue as cultures clash. Then the growing friendship between the initially standoffish Yank Phillips (Nathan Sinclair) and Russian Teplov (Alex Cooke) gives you a reason to want our good guys to succeed as they bond over past tragedy. Will they? There's only one way to find out.

Blood Vessel is streaming now at the Google store.