Blood Legend (2007)
Dread Central Staff
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Starring Heather Jacobsen, Jeff Dylan Graham, Syn DeVil, Erik Coffin, Randal Malone, Mara Marini
Directed by Rusty Nelson
The first bad omen was instantly recognizing several cast members of Blood Legend as being members of the cast of a terrible film I reviewed last year called Curse of Lizzie Borden.
The second bad omen was instantly recognizing the house being used in Blood Legend as being the same one used in Curse of Lizzie Borden.
The third bad omen was instantly recognizing the backyard used in Blood Legend as being the same backyard that most of Curse of Lizzie Borden took place in.
Ah, crap.
Chalk Blood Legend up as yet another entry into the category of el cheapo horror flicks that I have no doubt the people making it had a blast doing so but their enjoyment making it doesn’t translate into an entertaining movie for those watching it. Blood Legend borders on being a mentally challenged pseudo remake of the Mexican horror flick The Brainiac that was made with a budget that looks to have been only a bit more than the cost of purchasing The Brainaic on DVD. Sheesh, I just got finished reviewing a mediocre, budget-deprived, pseudo remake of The Brainiac just a few weeks ago too.
Young witch Diana is a descendant of Moira, a witch who’s burning at the stake some 300 years earlier has become an urban legend in the small California town the film is set in. We’ll just have to overlook the fact that California wasn’t even settled by the Spanish until the late 1700s, let alone British colonialists. Perhaps I misheard how long ago it supposedly happened. I don’t know nor do I really care. The date doesn’t really matter anyway. Nothing about Blood Legend matters.
Colonists accused Moira (portrayed by acting-challenged scream queen Syn DeVil) of witchcraft and shunned her for it, kicked her out of their village – something along those lines. Moira then decided to get revenge against the villagers by selling her soul to the devil for the power needed to seek vengeance against them. Yeah, way to prove them wrong there, Moira. Lucifer must not have given her enough dark power because the villagers still managed to capture her and burn her at the stake. She vowed to return for yet more vengeance someday.
Satan also must have given her massive breast implants too in exchange for her mortal soul. Some women get saline or silicone breast implants; Syn DeVil looks like she got her plastic surgeon to implant two cantaloupes in her chest. The tires on my car are less pressurized than those puppies.
Diana heads up her own coven consisting of herself and three other young females, all of whom always dress like they’re going to a Halloween party in sexy witch costumes. Not too many goth chicks walking around wearing capes on a regular basis, at least none of the goth chicks I’ve ever met.
Diana also attends California State University Northridge, where the classrooms look to be smaller than most people’s living room. A class debate about urban legends leads to the first reciting of the Moira backstory, done so in a confrontation between descendant Diana and pure as the driven snow classmate, Mary. Diana is angered when Mary starts telling the version of the urban legend that paints her ancestor as deserving of her fiery fate. This outrage rings more than a little hollow on Diana’s part given that her very first scene in the movie had her murdering two guys out in the woods, even cutting out the heart of one victim for use later. That sort of behavior really doesn’t reflect well on Diana’s bloodline, does it?
A large part of Diana’s problems stems from her controlling uncle who is forever manipulating her and goading her to continue forth with the ritualistic process needed to fulfill Moira’s prophecy about coming back from the dead and seeking vengeance against the ancestors of her executioners. Now if accomplishing this task involves the occasional homicide, so be it. This uncle is played by a guy that looks like the late transvestite Divine out of drag and sporting John Oates hairdo circa 1982. I think that’s a wig on his head. God, I hope that’s a wig. Before the movie is over he’ll change into traditional pilgrim garb that’ll makes him look that much more ridiculous. And if you think he looks ridiculous then just wait until you see him try to act. It’s not acting but I have to call it acting because there really isn’t any other word in the English language I know of that best describes what he’s doing.
Satanic ceremony advice for the budget conscious: a homemade pentagram banner, some candles on really tall candlesticks, a human heart kept in a small music box, is all one needs to successfully bring long deceased, half naked ancestors back from hell. You will need a fancy knife and a makeshift alter later on if you decide to move up to human sacrifice.
But there’s a bit of a problem. Moira needs to feed on blood to survive and cannot hold human form. She keeps transforming back and forth into this hairy demon creature that looks like a skinny sasquatch with a werewolf face and Tina Turner hair. This monster costume is the very definition of do-it-yourself. It’s so cheap and shoddy looking that it almost achieves greatness on a “you’ve got to be kidding me” level.
Next up: a virgin sacrifice. They’re in Southern California and looking for a virgin … Why not just make it more difficult and have a satanic ritual require the sacrificing of a virgin found in Michael Bay’s hot tub? Thank goodness for the virgin Mary. No, not the one from the Bible; the one from Diana’s class. She’s already let Moira eat the teacher so why not move on to sacrificing classmates.
Diana has no problem cutting out the hearts of strangers or aiding and abetting Moira’s monstrous side in murdering people or sacrificing a virgin in a backyard ceremony witnessed by her previously unsuspecting boyfriend Caleb, but when Caleb suddenly becomes next on the list of potential victims, this sort of bothers her a little.
By this point in the movie there was still another half hour to go and yet there really didn’t seem to be much of any plot left, certainly not enough to keep the movie afloat for thirty more minutes. Might as well invite some friends over for a keg party and then have Caleb and a friend who had tagged along to the virgin sacrifice ceremony in hopes of scoring with one of the witch babes running for their lives through the woods for the rest of the film. We can even toss in a pair of dimwitted redneck hunters in a bad attempt at comic relief. Diana can even repeatedly babble, “Blood of the innocent” over and over to whole were-Moira starts hunting down and mutilating the other members of her coven while we’re at it. They got to do something – too much time to fill before the big twist ending. I’d dare call that ending a “nonsensical” plot twist but that would be redundant seeing as how every aspect of Blood Legend is nonsensical enough as it is.
That finale also featured what I can only guess must have been a Guinness World Record attempt at achieving the longest prolonged slow motion death scene accompanied by distorted deep voiced moaning ever put on film. Geez, that was annoying as hell.
The longer Blood Legend went on the more I found myself asking one simple question: Why the hell am I still watching it? Damned if I know.
1/2 out of 5
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