Blood Cult was not the first Shot on Video horror movie, although it was advertised as such. Boardinghouse and Sledgehammer actually came before. This one is slightly better than those two formative SOV slashers, but that’s not saying a whole lot.
A killer wearing black gloves is going around a small college hacking up women with a meat cleaver and stealing various body parts. The fact that he leaves gold coins at the scene leads the sheriff on the case to believe the slayings are linked to a witch cult. His daughter and her idiot boyfriend both work in the college library and he enlists their help to put an end to the cult.
At first, this feels like it’s primed to be a classic as the set-up has echoes of both Pieces and Blood Feast. I’ll admit that the gore scenes are good. An arm is chopped off, a leg is hacked off, there’s a decapitated dog, and severed fingers are found in the school cafeteria salad bowl. My favorite bit was when a girl was beaten with the severed head of her dead friend. Too bad the gore almost completely dries up in the second half.
The slow-moving scenes with the senior citizen sheriff really let the air out of everything. I don’t know who the casting director was, but couldn’t they find a younger leading man? At the risk of sounding ageist, all I’ll say is that this guy is older than the dirt in Jesus’ sandals.
Blood Cult might’ve been okay if it ended at about the hour mark. However, it uselessly plows on for another half hour. The shit with the sheriff convalescing in the hospital also eat up a lot of precious screen time late in the picture. It also doesn’t help that the identity of the killer is a foregone conclusion.
On the plus side, it looks better than a lot of SOV slashers from the same era. That’s hardly a ringing endorsement though. I’d say only die-hard SOV gorehounds would want to join up with Blood Cult.
AKA: Slasher.
the 1986 sequel "Revenge" is a better movie. I always found Boardinghouse to be an underrated gem.
ReplyDelete