Blood Trails (2006)

As Good As It Gets

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

The last years we have seen a lot of horrors that happens in the wild. High Lane was one of them for example. Here we have another one. It hasn't received very good reviews and even I still don't know what to think about it. The acting by all actors was convincing, I never have seen another flick they were in but again, they did well for me. The only negativity I could give is that it is sometimes a bit slow. Again, the storyline is very simple, Anna, while doing her job as a bike messenger gets in contact with a unknown biker. She was supposed to have sex with him but instead he played some kind of bondage with her. Due that bad experience she decides to go for a hike with her best friend. But not knowing that the unknown biker is watching her. From there on it's cat and mouse with some decent gore added with it. Robert Krause, the German director surely comes from goreland so he knows what he has to deliver. There are indeed some rare twist of situations, for example, the workers in the wood make strange reactions towards the girl without knowing her story. But now and then it's a bit of the same. Running away, being caught, running away again, being caught again. The final scene is again in the gory department so again that's okay. I guess everybody could watch it but some will indeed turn their face away with the first and last killing. Not that bad but lacking in delivering fear.

The lead character lives her life the way she drives her bike, fast and furious loose and without rules. UNknown off in the corner a stalker awaits. he pulls her over Identifies himself as an officer. She figures she'll go out with him and has a bad date a horrible date. Shje lets her boyfriend take her out on the woods for a therapeutic bike-ride. And her comes the stalker. Before he cuffed her to a bed, this time he doesn't hold her captive, he just slaughters anyone in the woods who tries to help her and get her to safety. His derangement is proved when he captures her and gives her a bowl of spaghetti witch she wolves down, he thinks she's over on his side. Until she gets her strength back and she comes at him with his own knife. He's quick enough to get it away but there's still more people to kill before this movies over.

Blood Trails starts as the relationship between lovers Anne (Rebecca Palmer) & Michael (Tom Frederic) is on the rocks, in one last effort to salvage the relationship they decide to head out to Whistler Mountain Range where they have a cabin & can go mountain biking. One of the reasons why Anne & Michael's relationship is on brink is because Anne had a one night stand with a guy named Chris (Ben Price) who claimed to be a cop but is in fact a brutal & sadistic serial killer who has followed Anne & Michael out to the isolated mountain range with the intention of killing them both, can they survive as they use their mountain biking skills to try & find help as Chrissets about his work...This German production was co-written & directed by Robert Krause & one has to say that Blood Trails is a rather dull, clichéd & frustrating horror slasher come thriller that has a few positives which are lost amongst the negatives. The script is largely to blame for the films major failings, Anne as a character is really awful & she's one of those dumb horror film heroines who do the most bizarre, unnatural & stupid things. When faced with a brutal killer who has killed two people in front of her Anne decides to ignore the 4x4 Jeep & casually ride her bike away back into the woods instead of getting in the Jeep, running the killer over & heading for safety where she can find proper help. Anne blindly rides along & ends up riding off a cliff & into a river, why? Then she hits a large tree in the middle of her way which knocks her out, again why? Couldn't she like just stop & climb over the tree? Then there's the scene in which she phones for help & the operator tells her to stay where she is so they can track her mobile phone so what does she do? That's right she leaves. Brilliant. Then there's the notion that in broad daylight Anne can sit against a large wooden cross & not notice that her dead boyfriend is nailed to it for about five minutes. Right. The list goes on. Then there's Chris the killer who can just magically appear anywhere he wants & can instantly find Anne wherever she is in the mountain range. What were those two cops at the end doing there? How did Chris kill them? They had their guns pointed at him for God's sake. Why didn't either of those two forest workers not say anything? Surely if you see a scared, bloodied & upset woman you would at least ask her if she was OK, right? They don't even talk to each other & it's just a totally bizarre sequence that makes zero sense. The film takes itself extremely seriously but there's not much to it, the mountain biking aspect doesn't amount to anything & the character's are really empty & soulless, there's barely any dialogue & at nearly 90 odd minutes the film drags badly at times with seemingly endless shots of Anne walking, running or riding through the woods which become pretty tedious pretty quickly.There's not that much actual gore here, there's some blood splatter a ridiculous scene involving a slashed throat & a mutilated body is briefly seen. I actually thought the majority of Blood Trails looked terrific, there's some cool camera angles & some strong colour schemes & lighting that showcase some of the isolated wilderness to great effect & the 2:35:1 widescreen image is used to good effect & the film has an expansive feel but it's off-set by the annoying hand-held shaky camcorder moments & quick editing which gets annoying. It's debatable whether Blood Trails is a horror film or a thriller, it doesn't seem to know what it wants to be & ends up short changing us in both departments.Shot in Austria & Germany the production values are really nice & the film has some style about it but the script is poor, the pace is slow & the kills, character's & narrative are weak. There's only about five people in the entire film, a couple seem dubbed (badly too) while leading lady Rebecca Palmer puts in a decent performance with questionable material.Blood Trails is a mix of standard horror slasher & thriller which doesn't really satisfy on either account, in fact despite some nice visuals Blood Trails is pretty forgettable.

This is an extremely sick idea of a "love" story. Its about some kind-faced psychopath with sparkling blue eyes who obsessively chases and stalks the girl he had previously had a violent one night stand with. For some reason she is the girl of his dreams??????? and he ruthlessly murders anyone and anything that will prevent him from having her at the palm of his hands. I actually believe that he wanted her all to himself and would not have hurt her if she had just complied with his wishes/demands. I really liked this movie as it provided something different from the typical horror movies of today. The scenery is spectacular!