If you take one part Frank Henenlotter and mix with one part Alex Cox and some spare parts from every killer car movie that you’ve ever seen then you will get close to imagining just how much fun Blood Car is. I can’t remember the last time I sat down to watch a low-budget horror comedy with absolutely no advance knowledge of it and ended up being so highly entertained.
It’s the future and the prices of fuel have climbed higher and higher. Thankfully, sweet-natured vegan Archie (Mike Brune) is doing his best to make an engine that will run on wheatgrass. However, like many great experiments through the years, all doesn’t go to plan. Archie ends up spilling some blood into the mix and it’s the blood that ends up running the car. Which is great news. Archie goes about in the car and gets some attention from sexy Denise (Katie Rowlett) while the lovely Lorraine (Anna Chlumsky) looks on in frustration. Of course, everything starts to get complicated when the car needs refuelled.
While it doesn’t actually rise above the low budget, Blood Car fills almost every scene with a wit and energy that makes the cheap look and feel of the thing completely irrelevant. Director Alex Orr, who wrote the movie with Adam Pinney, is almost telling you that the visuals and special effects are obviously unable to compete with blockbuster material so don’t worry about them in the slightest and just enjoy the performances, the subtext and the thin line between the absurdity of the whole premise and the scary proximity to reality it also has.
The performances are generally very good. Mike Brune may not be the best actor in the world but he has that great mix of awkwardness and naivete. Katie Rowlett is great fun as the hot-blooded Denise wanting to have fun on wheels. Anna Chlumsky may struggle to get beyond being tagged as “the girl from My Girl” but she does her best to show that she’s all grown up and stands out as the most likeable character onscreen.
If you need everything in the right place and plenty of polish and professionalism in your movies then you’ll probably want to give Blood Car a miss (although it’s definitely NOT a rushed amateur effort) but anyone willing to give their time to a movie that sets out to entertain, provoke some thought and also provide one or two major surprises should find themselves suitably rewarded.
Blood Car revs onto DVD on 23rd July. Two film commentaries are on the disc, one being a joke chat-track by “film historian Dr. Rutherford Thorpe” that also intersperses genuine wit and intelligences throughout some of the more rambling and nonsensical ramblings. A “making of” featurette runs for about 40 minutes, it’s pretty rough and loose but also fairly amusing and rarely dull. “Blake Makes Blood” is about the man who is responsible for making all the blood and is another amusing featurette, running for 17 minutes. One unamusing skit, one sporadically entertaining short film entitled “The Last Last And The Tribulations Of Johnnybush” and a couple of trailers round out an enteraining package.
DIRECTOR: ALEX ORR
WRITER: ALEX ORR, ADAM PINNEY
STARS: MIKE BRUNE, ANNA CHLUMSKY, KATIE ROWLETT, MATT HUTCHINSON, MARLA MALCOLM, MR. MALT.
RUNTIME: 76 MINS APPROX
COUNTRY: USA
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