Blood Relic (2005)

the audience applauded

Sadly Over-hyped

One of my all time favorites.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

A good story and above average acting in Blood Relic. You can never go wrong when Debbie Rochon is in a movie! I'm a Billy Drago fan too but considering the very short amount of time he's on the screen I wonder why he gets top billing and an Associate Producer credit. Debbie and Jen Lauren Grant should have top billing. The other actors were good too. There's a nice amount of gratuitous nudity which you have to have in these type of movies. The sound was annoying. One second I'm turning it up to hear the dialog a second later music plays or another sound comes up and blows out my ear drums. It looked like they had a great time making this movie and that translated well for me. See if you notice something you rarely see in horror movies at the end. I noticed it quickly and said I'll be damned.

In 1983, the aviator Hank (John Christian) kills three sailors in a military airbase while wearing a voodoo talisman that he found in a mission in Granada. He hides the object in an electrical box and twenty-two years later, he is released from the asylum where he had been hosted considered mentally sane again. Meanwhile, the former base is transformed in an aviation museum owned by the idealistic Harry (Billy Drago), who is facing financial difficulties to keep the establishment working and problems with his partner and brother. When one of the workers finds the weird hidden artifact, she gives it to Harry. In the end of the working day, the group of co-workers decides to meet each other after 10:00 PM for a séance followed by sex, gamble and beer. When two couples vanish, the others decide to seek them and find them killed. Sooner they meet Hank that tells the survivors that the talisman unleashes a fiend that possesses the person that is wearing the necklace, forcing the owner to kill people with sadism. The group joins forces trying to find a way out of the museum while Hank chases the killer."Blood Relic" is an average slasher low-budget movie, with all the common clichés of the genre including many breasts, exits closed, silly lines and stupid decisions. However, most of the deaths are original and there is a great twist in the end when the identity of the real killer is disclosed (I confess that it was a good surprise for me and totally unpredictable). The acting is not as bad as indicated in some reviews, in spite of the exaggeration of Billy Drago and the incoherent and frantic attitudes of Joshua Park. In the end, as a fan of the genre, I had fun with this movie. My vote is six.Title (Brazil): "Maldição Voodoo" ("Voodoo Curse")

Let's see what we have to work with, a blood relic just sitting in the middle of an open field resting on a skull with no other relics or warnings not to touch it. Where anyone can find it, that makes perfect sense (NOT!) Second, what is the back story of the relic, how old is it, how did a demonic force get into it? These are kind of important subtext questions so the movie will make sense. Since they don't have it, it doesn't. Lastly, the big twist of who the killer is also makes perfect sense (NOT!). In one seen, the killer grabs one of the girls, pulls her into the room and while holding the door shut ties her up, takes her across the room and places a noose around her neck that's connect via a pulley to the door that when they force the door open it hangs her, then leaves via an unknown door, changes her clothes and returns to help open the door and kill the girl in about ten seconds. That doesn't make any sense. Plus, the pilot that found the relic, he hasn't changed in twenty years. So, what the hell was Billy Drago thinking when he agreed to this disaster of a flick? What's more shocking is this crapper didn't go right to video. THE NOOSE!

Everything you desire in an 80's slasher movie is here. And what elevates Blood Relic somewhat, is the unique location used, which certainly beats the cheap storage garage sets many low budget films use today. Also two of my personal favorites, Debbie Rochon, and Billy Drago are involved. Sadly Debbie is not the star, but her scenes are still beneficial to the film. And for my money, Billy Drago can be in the most lousy piece of trash film imaginable, and still deliver an engrossing villainous performance. The kill scenes were solid here, and the ladies shed there clothes often. Ingvordsen has finally got a grasp on what fans of this genre enjoy, after his watchable, yet almost pg level Bog Creatures. In the end this is an above average throwback, with a unique setting, and the required horror goodies.