THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #19: BLOOD STALKERS (1976) * ½

(Streamed via Free Flix Tonight)

Mike (Jerry Albert) and his friends go to stay at his family’s cabin deep in the Florida Everglades.  They are warned by an old coot at the gas station to stay away from the place as it’s full of “Blood Stalkers”.  Needless to say, they press on, and before long, they are terrorized by a band of grubby, demented hillbillies.    

This low budget regional horror flick is long on talk and short on horror.  To add insult to injury, the murders of the major characters happen offscreen.  At least the comeuppance of the bad guys is shown in full gory detail.  This brief highpoint unfortunately comes at the very end, and it’s not exactly worth the wait, but it does at least save it from being a total washout.

The beginning is chockfull of enough scenes of people driving to remind you of Manos, the Hands of Fate.  Once the action switches over to the cabin, things don’t get much better.  If you take a shot every time the hero talks about his past/family/himself or every time the camera cuts away to the woods where someone could be/might be/is spying on the main characters, you will be fucking obliterated by the halfway point.

Then there are the nighttime sequences that are so dark that it’s often hard to tell what the hell is going on (which sometimes, is probably for the best).  I know they had to shoot day for night on these low budget horror movies, but this is more like day for total blackout.  It doesn’t help that many of the scenes just feel like excessive padding.  One sequence where Albert runs and runs and runs towards the cabin in super slow motion while a chorus of gospel singers drowns out the soundtrack feels less like the director trying to be artsy-fartsy and more like he’s trying to stretch out the running time.   

Although Albert is not much of a leading man, the supporting cast is decent enough.  If Albert’s friend Daniel looks familiar, it’s because he’s played by Ken Miller, the guy who sang “Eeny, Meeny, Miney Mo” in I Was a Teenage Werewolf.  His girlfriend is played by none other than Celea Ann Cole, AKA:  Cisse Cameron, AKA:  The chick from Space Mutiny, AKA:  Mrs. Reb Brown, AKA:  Cameron Mitchell’s daughter.  Blood Stalkers is not good at all, but I’m sort of glad they got a paycheck out of all this.  

AKA:  Blood Night.  AKA:  The Night Daniel Died.