Blood Myth – Film Review
A journalist attempts to find his missing fiancee and uncovers the truth behind a sinister folklore that leads him down a dark and dangerous road.
Right from the opening scene of Blood Myth, I got a really weird and gross feeling in my stomach. A feeling that told me that I shouldn’t be watching this movie. Not because it’s a horror movie that’s so scary that, if I continue to watch, it will scar me for life. No. It was a gross feeling that told me that I still had over an hour left.
Despite the fact that this is billed as a straight-up horror flick, virtually nothing about it will give you any sort of thrill or will make you feel freaked out. It’s an extremely low-budget film that oftentimes feels more like a soap opera akin to Coronation Street rather than a “scary” movie. Right down to the cinematography, the dialogue, the acting, this just screams lazy filmmaking and it was painfully frustrating to watch.
It’s one of those movies where you can’t help but notice where certain scenes could have easily been so much better had the filmmaker stopped for a moment to think about things. It’s just riddled with too many problems scene after scene. I knew I was in for trouble when I noticed one of the actresses’ eyes darting back and forth as she was reading off of a teleprompter or a script.
Jonathan McClean as James Lincoln in Blood Myth (2020).
All of the acting is incredibly weak and feels extremely wooden at all times. To be fair, I’m not sure whether or not the script is wholly to blame, or if the actors themselves just aren’t good actors. But I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.
But all of the poor acting and dialogue aside, it’s simply boring and bland. It takes about half an hour for the film’s concept to even start to kick in. We never see our lead protagonist actually go on this journey of finding his missing fiancee until halfway through the film. The character development is basically non-existent here.
It feels like we meet our protagonist, and then, a scene or two later, he is off on his mission and for some reason, we are supposed to care about him and his plight. I understand that if your fiancee was missing, it would be a terrifying and stressful situation, but that’s kind of obvious. We should be given some other reason to care about his plight.
A large portion as to why we don’t care is because of the running time and the script. With a total length of eighty-one minutes, there isn’t any room for a slow-burning build. There’s no room for this story to bloom and to show what it really could have been. Instead, what we get is a drastically unscary, sometimes unintentionally hilarious horror film that misses the mark completely.
Blood Myth feels more so like an edgy soap opera rather than the terrifying horror film it wants to be, thanks to its weak acting and its familiar and underdeveloped story.
Overall Grade: F
MPAA Rating: N/A
Cast: Jonathan McClean, Anna Dawson, Hannah Chalmers, Matt Ray Brown, Charlie Walker McClimens, Adrian Annis, Neil Summerville, Daniel Thrace, Ian Small, Eva McGillivray
Directed by: Sean Brown, Luke Gosling
Distributed by: High Octane Pictures
Release Date: 2020
Running Time: 81 minutes