Trail of Blood (2011)

As Good As It Gets

Absolutely the worst movie.

it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

This is a really good movie. I am surprised that it is not better known or more appreciated. Though it may start out like just another "slasher in the woods" movie, that is not what it is at all. The writing is very good, and the story doesn't lead exactly where you think it is going. The acting is also very good, especially Tim Barraco and Trevor Torseth as the main protagonists. The characters are well fleshed out and believable. This is a very subtle movie. There are several threads in addition to the main story that all come together at the end. It is the kind of movie you may have to watch more than once to fully appreciate. The ending in unexpected and powerful. They don't make movies like this much anymore. It seems to me to be a throwback to the 70's, when movies like LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, I DRINK YOUR BLOOD, and THE HILLS HAVE EYES showed that movies could be both violent and intelligent. If you liked those movies, I highly recommend TRAIL OF BLOOD.

A few friends hit the forest with some tents and find themselves sharing the woods with a couple of serial killers. They end up being picked off one by one with two FBI agents hot on the blood trail.This wasn't too bad at all. Tons of tense scenes all through this one. The killer looked like too much like Marc Singer though, so when you got the Beastmaster trying to be a menacing psycho it doesn't really work. The gore was pretty good as lots of blood gets spilled in this one.The ending took a different turn which probably ruins it for a lot of people.

Lionsgate has done nobody a favor by releasing the catatonia-inducing slasher flick "Trail of Blood." Whoever tricked Joe Dante into putting his name on this should be awarded greatly. All we get here is a complete retread of every camping trip-gone-bad movie that's been forced on us since "Friday the 13th" hit theaters in 1980.A group of friends head out on a weekend camping trip of drinking and debauchery. They've apparently never seen "The Burning," any of the 12 "Friday the 13th" movies, or the countless other slasher movies warning them this is a bad idea. They stumble on a couple who have been brutally murdered. As they try to figure out what to do, the group find themselves being held captive by a crazed Marine and his bleach-blond girlfriend. The two believe the bunch are responsible for the deaths of the slaughtered couple and plan to make them pay for it.Yes, "Trail of Blood" really is as ho-hum and forgettable as it sounds. There's absolutely nothing here to get excited about. It looks like it was shot with a typical HD camera that anyone could pick up at an electronics store. Granted, the shooting quality doesn't look like it was the cinematographer's first time behind a lens. I'd say probably their third or fourth. One good thing is it's not a "found footage" film.The only star actor in "Trail of Blood" is Robert Picardo. He must have had a large traffic ticket to pay off or used this as a means to grab some extra cash to play with while in Vegas or something. All I can say is Picardo is much too good to be doing drivel like this. He does a great job lingering behind trees and looking menacing, though."Trail of Blood" is rated R for strong bloody violence, language, brief nudity, and drug use. In other words, it's just like every other slasher movie released in the past few decades. Why would they break the stale mold here of all places?I love slasher movies and I really don't feel like I ask much when watching them. However, when it's so obvious that you're following a checklist of things to do with no inspiration to go outside of the box, I completely lose interest. If you're going to pay homage to the great gory thrillers of the 1970s and 1980s, at least try to add something new to the formula.

I confess that my expectations for Trail of Blood were really low. The first 20 minutes or so were about as trite and formulaic they come: 5-6 kids out on a camping trip, scary-music set ups that turned out to be a friend walking up from behind. The campers were of course your stereotypical self-absorbed millennials. Really? Why was I watching this? But at about minute 30, things turned.... a turn to the bad for the young campers, and to the good for the viewer. Enter ex-Marine (Trevor Torseth), who in his first minute of screen time raised the average quality of the acting by about a third. It's not a spoiler to say that people die here. While much of the last 45 minutes of Trail of Blood are predictable, there are enough twists and unexpected flashes of brutality to raise it a notch or two above the typical Survive the Madman in the Woods flicks that are a dime a dozen. Trail of Blood is an example of what can be made on a small budget with decent direction, a solid performance in a key role and a good script,