Lifeblood is an early-aughts indie flick taken from one of those cheapie boxes of 50 moovies you see floating around Best Buy – generally speaking they are full of coal, but every now and they you find a gem among the lumps, or at least an extremely fun and interesting stinker.
Pendulum Pictures – the mark of quality… :=8P
Awlright, let’s begin with the obvious: the lighting in this film is bad. Very bad. Distractingly and damagingly bad. There is no scrubbing around it. Its like trying to watch a film while viewing it through a septic tank. Pure murkiness. No point in mincing words. But the MooCow can tell you from his very brief experience with film making: lighting for film is VERY tricky business, especially if you have a tight budget, or have an inexperienced DP. Of all the production elements needed to make a successful film, lighting and sound rank as arguably the moost important (aside from editing). Heck, even moost crappy Hollybore films have enough moolah to hire a decent Director of Photography, and have enough lights to shoot with. In the indie world you do what you can with what you’ve got, and hope its enough.
Someone wipe the grime from the camera…please…
Welp, this ain’t a Hollywood film, people. It ain’t even close. But even with the poor visuals, overall the MooCow has to clap his hooves in approval for this valiant indie effort.
The story (set in Philadelphia!!!) cowcerns a damaged man, Carl Spencer (Director Steven J. Niles) out to avenge the death of his wife Clara by a smarmy cabal of city vampires. He doesn’t care for their politics, or their preening leader Wraithwood (Jef Kelly), or even their efforts to resurrect their slain sire: all he wants is to get even with fast-mooving, nun-slaying main villain Demetrius – who, as it happens, is played by Kevin D. Spotts, the film’s editor, producer, and video fx guy – heck, he’s even listed as a co-writer! This can sometimes be a warning sign when moost of the crew doubles up as actors in the production as well, but not necessarily all the time – it is par for the course when it comes for indie films, especially ones that pre-date the HD DVD video era.
Anycow, Lifeblood is a film about revenge – which just happens to include vampires. Its a fairly simple story, conventionally told and earnestly acted, hamstrung primarily by lesser production values. But there is moore heart in this perky little indie than in moost of the pap that Hollybore craps out on a regular basis.
There are some juicy bits of dialog; there is a pretty rockin’ alt-rock score (including Philly Goth MySpace bands Torsion and Carfax Abby); and there are charismatic, believable performances from moost of the cast. Pacing is fairly smooth, and the film mooves along at a nice clip without bogging down anywhere in particular. The direction is focused, minimal, and neither shows off nor gets in the way. There are many good things to be said for this little local effort, clearly the best film on the bundled vampire DVD set, enticingly titled “Tomb of Terrors”. Yeah, not so much…
Sorry, babe, this aint a cheese steak…
Some of the fight scenes were not very cowvincing. Nor were some of the FX. And the wigger- drug dealing character, MD (played by Greg Niles, whom I assumed is related to the Director somecow): pretty damn lame, yo. And some of the special effects are, well…special. But no matter. This cow was willing to suspend belief and forgive some of these minor flaws to enjoy the overall film, and the MooCow hopes you will too.
Niles and Spotts are part of a Philadelphia area production company called S&N Films – thus far they have produced a number of low budget quality indie flicks, including Lifeblood,Macrovirus, It Came from Uranus, and the Sinister Vines of Doctor Thorn – all of which can be viewed on their web page via their Online Theater for a buck for a 24 hour rental, including some freebie shorts.
Its a new day out there, people. Advances in technology have leveled the playing field for a lot of people out there who would rather make their own films than wait for Hollybore to maybe make something not completely ralfable. Independent film should be encouraged and supported whenever possible. And while Lifeblood may not be on the level of, say, The Lost Skeleton of Cadavera, or Jesus Christ: Vampire Hunter, nonetheless the MooCow can tell you there are far, far worse vampire vehicles out there, ready to sop up your hard-earned weregeld.
So grab a Philly blunt, a cheese steak (chicken, of course!), a couple of soft pretzels, and enjoy a little indie with some heart – not to mention lots of blood!
:=8D
Hooves Up!
The MooCow Reviews the moovies! 