Blood Harvest (2016)
Directed by George Clarke
Starring Robert Render, Jean-Paul Van der Velde, Griffin Madill, Alan Crawford and Liam Rowan
SYNOPSIS:
A rural village is terrorized by an evil force that drains the blood from its victims. A discredited police detective, who believes the killings are the work of vampires, must team up with his former partner to uncover the truth.
When your film opens with a torture scene where a young woman has her mouth sewn together and her eye gouged out with a fork by a killer wearing a mask akin to something from a steam punk fair, you know the type of film you’re in for. Low budget horror director and writer George Clarke’s latest effort Blood Harvest is a bizarre piece of filmmaking that seems to equate to a bunch of killing scenes and a hilarious third act.
Our lead character is Jack (Robert Render channelling Dennis Waterman’s character from The Sweeney) is trying to solve a series of murders in rural Northern Ireland. When he tells his superiors that vampires are to blame he is understandably kicked off the force. But this doesn’t stop him and he continues investigating with the help of his former partner Hatcher (Van der Velde).
Plot is not the purpose of Blood Harvest by any stretch of the imagination. Except for a third act twist and an exposition dump that reminded me of a classic Bond film when the villain explains his whole plan; there is no character development of any kind. Characters are introduced (not by name) and quickly slaughtered and the lead character stumbles from one scene to another. It’s all over the place and becomes dull quite quickly.
The lack of character is a big issue. We know that Jack thinks the killings are being done by vampires because they’re drained of blood. However, we have no reason to understand why he is so open to the idea of the supernatural. If this had been fleshed out it might have been easier to buy into the idea. Everyone else is just window dressing with not even a hint of personality anywhere. The killers are also unmasked quite quickly and have zero creep factor. Clarke has said that this film is partly a homage to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre so this could explain the hillbilly vibe that the audience get from them. Either way it just doesn’t work.
It is clear that Clarke loves gory B movie cinema. With a tiny budget of just £10,000, all the money has gone on the effects which, to be fair, aren’t half bad. The killers like to gouge out their victims eyes (with the aforementioned fork) and slit their Achilles tendons, so there are a ton of gory moments that help to alleviate some of the boredom. But gore does not a movie make, and Blood Harvest is at times laughable, at others boring. The main issue is that it is never remotely scary and this is its biggest failing.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ / Movie: ★
Helen Murdoch
Originally published October 29, 2017. Updated April 18, 2018.
