Midlands Review of Blood Demons
Blood Demons
Directed by Kieran Edwards
2024
Severed Head Entertainment
Murder, magic and a vampire cult is the order of the day in a new Midlands-made feature from Kieran Edwards that hopes to guzzle on the lifeblood tropes from the b-movie comedy genre.
We open with Goldie Lookin’ Chain (yes, those Welsh rapper guys) smoking drugs by the coast before a mysterious hooded ghoul appears to drain the tasty red sauce from their necks
Viewers are then introduced to Jake, an often-angry drug dealer who wakes to find that his cannabis crop has been destroyed much to the annoyance of his steampunk gangster boss Mr. P.
Mr. P and his henchman grab Jake and his mates and, after a little bit of torture including some excellent nasty gore effects (fingernail removal is always wince-inducing), the boys agree to go to an island to find a particular potent drug to make up for their mistakes.
You may think at this point we’re 10 minutes in and ready to begin a darkly comic island horror adventure. Sadly though, we’re actually at the 40-minute mark and we get to the main sticking point of the movie. Its length.
It’s unfortunately way too long for what it is. At 2 hours-13 minutes it begins to feel quite a slog early on, which is a concern for the homemade style, rough around the edges acting and overall genre.
B-movie horrors have a history of late-night double-bills which meant they were relatively short to fit both movies on the bill. But here you feel every minute like you’ve been sent to limbo in Inception.
That said, there’s actually fun to be had if you’ve got the patience. Writer-director’s own stint as Mr. P. delivers a suitably snide calm-then-manic villain. Drug-induced psychedelic sequences also add some nice visual variety and there’s some good practical SFX by Martyn Kilvert and very well done make-up and prosthetics from Rachael Painter.
And a few of the over-the-top characters also work well in the context of the film. It swings for some absurd fences in performances but the good ones are never dull.
However, it comes back to that length problem. You’ve got to go and work hard to find these nuggets and there’s a huge amount of time wasted between them on screen.
Filmed around Kidderminster, the Black Country, Leicestershire and parts of Worcestershire, finishing a feature movie is a thankless yet epic undertaking and it’s tough to criticise such efforts when you have such limited resources.
But as a filmmaker you’ve got to be cruel to be kind. Even with your mates. If something isn’t working or you need to move the plot quicker then simply chop it.
The slightly sloppy execution therefore pushes aside some of the later neat touches like split-screen sequences, great use of spooky and unsettling rural locations and the eventual reveal of the gruesome cult entities.
Once these appear in the final third, it starts to pick up pace with its survival story providing intense thrills, cave-based action and a nice appearance from the always pleasing actress-model Dani Thompson (last seen in the similar Midlands cult horror parody One Night Rental).
In the end, it’s the kind of fun project you make with mates and family, show it at a local premiere and everyone gets back to their day job having had a cracking time through the production. But whilst this drug-fueled comedy was probably a huge laugh to make, too little of that translates to the screen and it requires a stimulating dose of editing to make it more accessible for us mere “recreational users”.
The positive to take away is that there’s a solid stoner-fright-flick buried deep amongst the footage that makes up Blood Demons. But with the structure and editing needing some real sharpening, it’s time to get those virtual scissors out and chop the unnecessary flesh footage from this overlong horror.
★★
2/5
Mike Sales
Watch the new trailer for Blood Demons below:
