Blood Stalkers (1976)

Pretty Good

A different way of telling a story

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

The other reviews here give a pretty accurate view of the story and how it plays out so won't rehash any of it here. In presenting a review I would only add the filmmakers appeared to have a distinct vision of the film they wanted to make. Once a hardcore horror film viewer I've sat thru a lot of low budget dreck, so while some horror fans may describe Blood Stalkers as a bad and poorly made film, I would strongly disagree. Certainly not on par with say Sam Raimi's early work (The Evil Dead trilogy), it is an entertaining and sometimes scary film. The actors are not the buff and pretty people found in today's slasher films and Chainsaw remakes, but instead ordinary looking middle aged folk. And within the context of a low budget horror story they give rather good performances. The film has a terrificly crude visual style, and makes nice use of it's locations. Not as polished as much of today's low budget fare but worth seeing if you can find it.

This is a pretty obscure, dumb horror movie set in the 1970s Everglades. It is really stupid and lame for the first half, then it actually starts to get good for the last half. There is a scene with the hero running to save his friends interspersed with shots of a church group singing, I don't know. It is mesmerizing. I was impressed with the night time scenes, because it actually looked like night, unlike most low budget horror films where it still looks like daytime. I feel like the director was really talented but was working with a miniscule budget and a tough schedule. There are a few scenes towards the end, the one mentioned above and also the end credits that are extremely cool. This movie could have been a genuine classic if it left its Scooby Doo conventions behind and went straight for the throat. I was surprised at how good this movie turned out to be. I couldn't take my eyes off of it, and I had to ask myself "why?"

BLOOD STALKERS is a small dramatic movie with horror overtones. The body count is high and there's some on-screen violence and gore but the script is more concern with Mike (Jerry Albert)'s fragile psychological well being than scaring or grossing out the viewer. The film ain't bad but it's not stellar too. For instance, the three hicks, who keep fighting with each other, and the old man who runs the gas station, look more like cartoon characters than real people living in the backwoods. As for the good guys, Ken Miller is a strange actor, if you know what I mean. Jerry Albert is also an odd looking fellow. One rarely sees his average type of face in today's films, which, when you think about it, is unfortunate. The two women are buxom and don't make fools of themselves (a rarity in these types of films). The actors are okay in their roles but their characters are pretty limited. The cinematography is at times pretty good. The worst thing in BLOOD STALKERS is the music. The soundtrack actually nullifies all attempts at suspense or empathy towards the characters with its terrible TV-like generic music. Had the music been better and the gruesome foursome had been a bit more believable, BLOOD STALKERS would have been fairly good. As it is now, BLOOD STALKER is okay, nothing more.

This film is about a couple that decides to take a vacation to The Everglades along with another couple and the family dog. When they first get there, they are not welcomed by the neighboring gas attendant that warms them to stay away from the cabin in which they are to spend the night at for the week. After pestering with the old man, three hillbillys also do not take kindly to their arrival as they approach their car and threaten them to leave. After asking some of the local dummies that can't speak or just don't want to answer, they finaly find the cabin. After they settle in, strange things happen to the visitors including discovering crap on their car, the man thats the head of this trip thats an idiot shoots the family dog thinking it was a killer clawing at the door and a series of deaths later on in the end. Adding a church group did not make the story any better. Then at the end, the idiot that survives the whole ordeal goes around the town carrying a shot gun. Lame. thats what this movie is.