E's Reviews RETRO: Blood Rage (1987)

BLOOD RAGE was directed by John Grissmer, written by Bruce Rubin, and stars Louise Lasser, Mark Soper (and Mark Soper), Julie Gordon. As kids, Todd is institutionalized for a murder whilst his twin goes free. 10 years later, on Thanksgiving, Todd escapes and a killing spree begins in his neighborhood. But since Todd and Terry are twins...it's hard to know which is which, which is the killer, and which is the innocent brother (spoiler alert: you find out in the first 4 minutes).

If you thought your arguments at the dinner table on Thanksgiving were killer...you ain't seen nothin' yet! Blood Rage is here, it's on Shudder, and it's absolutely bananas! This isn't one of those feel good, happy ending holiday films. It's definitely a messy, cheesy, stupid, insanely bloody, and ridiculously over-the-top slasher films. I'm not even going to go into the bad, because this entire film is definitely BAD! The acting is almost tragically bad, the editing (if you can call it that) is horrendous, the script is just terrible, the cinematography...I mean, at least we see everything? It's almost like the director told the camera man to hold it front and center so we can see the people in the movie...and that's it!

For the goods? The kills are definitely hilarious to watch. The budget of this movie definitely shows, but it looks as though they spent most of it on the blood and gore, of which there is copious amounts. Some of these kills are downright overkill. The effects of each kill are really well done, too. I loved watching people get hacked up only to have blood squirting out of a limb. It was so stupid the amounts of violence, that I couldn't help but laugh at it! The location of an apartment complex surrounded by woods was actually pretty well done. It felt isolated but don't get me wrong, this movie ain't scary at all, not even the location felt scary. The other thing I really liked was the score, that classic, cheesy, 80's synth music made me feel right at home.

This movie is most definitely a giant B-movie, Grindhouse feature, something you'd see in the drive-in and ignore it in favor of making out with whoever you're with. The other thing that was absolutely insane in it was Ted Raimi, portraying a condom salesman...like, what? I nearly died when I saw him in the film, selling condoms to people...at a drive-in! The stupidity, the gore, the simplicity, it definitely makes this movie a cult classic. It's available for streaming on Shudder, there's also a 3-disc collector's edition Blu-Ray on Arrow video that I highly recommend getting.

Final Score: 6/10