VARSITY BLOOD (2013)

VARSITY BLOOD (2013)

Label: Image Entertainment UK
Region Code: 2 PAL
Duration: 82 Minutes
Rating: 15 Certificate 

Audio: English Dolby Digital 5.1

Video: Anamorphic Widescreen (1.78:1)
Director: Jake Helgren
Cast: Lexi Giovagnoli, Wesley Scott, Debbie Rochon, Natalie Peyton, Blair Jackson, Elyse Bigler, Jesse Ferraro, Chris Hlozek, Payton Wood

VARSITY BLOOD comes to us from the writer of BLOODY HOMECOMING who both writes and directs this high school set slasher - it's Halloween night and a group of small town jocks and cheerleaders head out to a farmhouse in the woods for some under-age drinking and promiscuous good times. Unfortunately for them someone wearing the hometown team native American warrior costume shows up with his tomahawk and they're not there to cheer on the team - they want sink their tomahawk into the teens nubile flesh. 

Kudos to Helgren for writing a group of teen character who are fleshed out more than the typical stalk and slash movie. Our final girl Hannah (Lexi Giovagnoli, BLOODY HOMECOMING)  is very likable as are most of the cast of characters though we have the mandatory assortment of douche nozzles and bitchy cheer-divas too - because it's just so much fun to watch them die, but we're rooting for quite a few kids with this one. The writing is pretty strong with some true wit and even some depth though not all of the young cast are up to the challenge of the written word. There are plenty of groan-inducing dialogue - particularly when each of the cast face off with our masked killer one on one, sometimes it's just the delivery but often the dialogue is just awful or a bit too corny.

From what I've seen from Jake Helgren's previous writing credit and with this film he is a obviously a huge slasher buff and as such he provides us with a decent masked murder hacking-up the kids - there's some true heart in this one. The mascot suit is a bit ridiculous and not at all practical but it is visually interesting. Unfortunately the suit is so bulky the guy in the costume cannot really add any character to the movement. 

As a low-budget slasher the film looks pretty damn decent - shot on digital we have some great chase sequences and reveals but some a few of the sequences are overly dark and not very well lit.Overall it does have a consistent tone but the score did nothing for me and doesn't muster up much in the way of atmosphere for me. 

The kills are pretty gruesome in a lo-fi sorta way but I give props to the filmmakers for not going super-digital and they seem to stick with mostly practical gore with some decent blood work and decapitations. Other than some budgetary limitations and  my main beef with the production  is the reveal of the killer's identity and everything after - the tone shifts so suddenly from a fairly straight-up slasher to hammy and convoluted camp-fest it took me right out of the movie and it never recovered.

VARSITY BLOOD is a fun slasher throwback with some decent kills and an semi-interesting masked killer but I cannot say I'll revisit this one again despite it having some heart and soul. It just doesn't do much to separate itself from the dozens of indie slashers that pop up on Netflix and Red Box these days - a decent one and done. 

The movie arrives on DVD in the Uk on August 18th from Image Entertainment and on the 19th here in the U.S. also from Image. 

DVD Review: BLOODY HOMECOMING (2012)

BLOODY HOMECOMING (2012) 

Label: Image Entertainment UK
Release Date: March 4th 2012
Region Code: 2 PAL
Rating: Not Rated
Duration: 85 Minutes
Audio: English Dolby Digital 5.1
Video: Anamorphic Widescreen (1.78:1)
Cast: Jim Tavaré, Rae Latt, Lexi Giovagnoli, Alex Dobrenko, Randi Lamey
Director: Brian C. Weed


It's been three years since Winston High School's star athlete and wanna-be rapist Billy (Jesse Ferraro) was burned alive at the homecoming dance. The group of freshman responsible for his demise are now seniors and as the homecoming festivities get underway the teens receive ominous "Happy Homecoming" notes in their lockers - it seems someone might want them dead - but who? 

Here we have a fun assortment of high school archetypes represented including the straight arrows Steve (Alex Dobrenko) and Laura plus horny burnouts Robbie (Shaleen Cholera) and Nora (Elizabeth Bigger), a trio of vapid cheerleaders Cheryl (Victoria Park), Darcy (Hillary Wagner) and Cassie (Taryn Cervarich) and the class president Wade (Branden Lee Roth). The cast do a decent job with the sometimes adversarial teen friendships which are full of sarcasm and  teen drama as you might expect, the characters are decently fleshed-out and once the body count commences you actually do feel some sense of loss for these folks, a good job on part of the writer and cast creating more than just cookie-cutter stereotypes. Even the homecoming queen Cassie is given more depth than what you might expect from a slasher entry and I appreciated that. The teens felt like teens and the humorous/sarcastic dialogue came across appropriate and was pretty funny, I laughed quite a bit. 

The teaching staff get some decent screen time as well, we have the pervert principal Mr. Patterson (Steve Earnest), a handful of teachers, the lecherous football coach (David Young) and the requisite creepy janitor (Jim Tavare) who seems to be channeling Michael Berryman (The Hills Have Eyes). While the staff are not developed quite as much as the student body we do get some fun exchanges between the staff and student, some more than others.

Our masked-killer wears a fireman turnout coat and helmet face-mask to conceal their identity. The look definitely added a My Bloody Valentine (1981) by way of Prom Night (1980) flavor to the film, the murder weapon of choice is the coveted Winston Wildcats spirit baton that goes missing early on in the film, it's  fine choice of weapon and does the deed nicely. Occasionally the killer branches out a bit and at one point suffocated a victim with a burst balloon skin which I give credit for originality if a bit odd. 

As the killings get underway we have a nice assortment of baton-killings, they're not gore-soaked but there's plenty bloody. There's not a lot new under the sun as killings go but they're executed nicely and I don't require a ton of originality to enjoy a retro-slasher and Bloody Homecoming does just fine with an admirable body count and decent kills. 

I didn't guess the identity of the killer but the revelation is decent and we get a fun monologue as the murderer lays out the motivations for the murder-spree, again it's not original by any means but nicely done. The shortest straw of the film would be a few of the performances seem awkward but overall this was just a damn fun watch with steady performances, a decent amount of humor and some decent low-budget deaths. 

The film is low budget but has very nice production value, it doesn't feel cheap. The digitally shot image looks just fine and while I wasn't in love with the slightly desaturated aesthetic it is well shot with some nice camera movement and decent editing. The score definitely has a bit of John Carpenter (Halloween) flavor to it from time to time as well as that particular stressed-strings sound I usually attribute to an influence from Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (1980).

Bloody Homecoming (2012) is a damn decent slasher entry that doesn't stray far from the established formulas and that's just fine by me, I like my slashers straight-up without a lot of irony. What it does it does quite well and the end result is a very enjoyable retro-slasher with a Prom Night (1980) by way of My Bloody Valentine (1981) flavor - what's not to enjoy? The film is available on March 4th in the UK from Image Entertainment and currently available here in the US from image on DVD.  3 Outta 5