Blood Car (2007) Review

Written by: skfan   

Blood Car is a unique and rare film that can be best described as a gem. This is one of the few film that I've ever seen that has managed to blend and mix different genres and at the same time perfectly nail the social state of our society right now.

The film is a perfect hybrid between an exploitation film, horror, comedy and a romantic triangle of the three lead characters. Not to mention a social commentary that is original and fresh.

The film opens with a Twilight Zone style host that explains that the story you about to see is true. It takes place in the near future (which is about 2 weeks from now) where the rising price of gas has made it impossible for anyone except the rich to be able to drive and pay for gas. This means that emergency response, police and even truck drivers have been forced to stop driving.

This brings us to Archie, a kindergarten teacher, vegan and all around tree hugger that has decided to take matters into his own hands and find an alternative fuel source. Archie believes he has the answer to the worlds fuel problems with his wheat grass engine. The only problem is that he just can't get his engine to run until one day when he cuts himself and his blood mixes with the wheat grass. Finally his engine runs but only with blood. After a long and hard trial and error period in which Archie hunts and kills numerous small pets and rodents, Archie realizes that in order for his car to run it has to be human blood and nothing else. Of course Archie is terrified and disturbed at the prospect of using human blood as fuel but he rationalizes his murderous plans by believing that its for the better good of the human race.

Once Archie begins to use human victims as his gas, things start to look up for him. Suddenly he is the most popular guy and every girl wants to sleep with him since he is the only person around that can afford to drive a car. Meanwhile Archie has been monitored by the government, who consist of completely incompetent fools that are trying to discovery his secret as to how his car runs. He also gets into a love triangle with Denise the slutty girl that runs the meat stand, who is only interested in Archie because he drives a car and Lorraine the sweet girl that runs the vegetable stand that is in love with Archie.

I won't say the plot twist at the end since I highly recommend this film but there is a great dilemma with the lead character Archie and the film certainly didn't end how I expected. The ending was not only tasteless and brilliant but it was downright brutal.

First time director and writer Alex Orr does an unreal job at both. Most of the cast and crew involved with the film have had at least some experience in the production of film projects but for the most part this is really the first film that they took control and the film feels like a work of love.

Its a very low budget film and there wasn't really any breathtaking directing or filming but Orr keeps most of the shots restrained within the frame and the shots are well thought out and filmed. The strongest part of the film is the writing. Simply put it was funny when it was supposed to be. I laughed more in the first ten minutes of Blood Car then in the entire 90 plus minutes of most of the mainstream hollywood comedies that have come out lately. Don't expect any high brow humor or thought provoking writing because this is about as crude as comedy can get but its funny and there isn't really a mean bone in any of the characters. There is also some pretty brilliant inside jokes for horror fans such as the mention that teens still have sex in cars, the only difference is that they do it in car graveyards now.

The acting was hit and miss for me and if the writing hadn't been so good or if the movie hadn't been as entertaining I probably would have had more problems with it but as it stands it didn't bother me enough to take away from the film. Easily the weakest of the cast would be Anna Chlumsky from "My Girl" fame. Anna played Lorraine and she wasn't annoying in fact she had some really funny scenes but she seemed to lack any chemistry between any other actors and her acting seemed very stilted throughout. The stand out would be that of the African American man that tries to kidnap Archie and his car. The guy was just downright hilarious and stole the scenes he was in. The rest of the cast I would mostly put in the average category which like I said it didn't bother me at all epically coming from a super low budget film like this.
The gore wasn't much to talk about but there was gallons of blood sprayed throughout the film and there was a few gory scenes involving Archie putting people in the trunk of his car where he has built a juicer of sorts with huge lawn mower blades.

This is a rare comedy horror film that deserves to get notice and some much needed praise. It doesn't nearly reach the heights of some other films in the sub genre such as "Shuan" or "Dead Alive" but its still one hell of a fun entertaining fun film and I highly recommend it to everyone. Trust me you won't be disappointed if you gave this a chance