The Bleeding House

Home
Smell the Movies
Smell the TV

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Year:	2011
Country of origin:	USA
Director:	Philip Gelatt
Genre:	Thoughtful frights
Starring:	Alexandra Chando, Patrick Breen
Rating:	4/5
IMDB link:	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1535566/
Tagline:	Grace will come to you.
Favourite line:	"At least she's not doing drugs."

Slasher / home invasion with a surprising twist.

The plot:
The dysfunctional Smith family have a stranger at their door, requesting a place to stay for the night.
His car has broken down and the garage can't send out a mechanic until the morning. He's seems a pleasant enough chap so they agree.
The fools.
See, Nick is a surgeon/missionary sent from God to right the wrongs of sinners by relieving them of their blood.
Swiftly, he renders the parents of the house unconscious, but takes a keen interest in their somewhat peculiar daughter, Gloria aka Blackbird, who has a penchant for collecting bugs, walking into the forest at night, and snapping the necks of birds.
Of course, Nick thinks he has a young apprentice to teach, but she's not the willing pupil that he thought she might be...

With a desperately mediocre rating of 4.8 on IMDB at time of writing, this seems to have been rather harshly treated.
Though clearly a B movie – no one has ever heard of either the writer/director or any of the actors – that doesn’t stop this being a surprisingly profound affair.
In psychotically evil, God fearing, killer surgeon Nick, a genuinely creepy character has been forged, and one that will linger in the memory long after the end credits have rolled. Starting out with a formula that seems as cliché ridden and obvious as it gets, about half an hour in it kicks you in the nuts and veers off quite wildly because, with still an hour to go, it seems Nick has achieved what he set out to achieve.
But he hasn’t.
He has designs altogether more nefarious than first glance suggested.
With some reasonably prolonged periods of sadistic peril inflicted upon his chosen victims, this makes for some tough viewing at times, and almost verges into that murky area loosely dubbed torture porn, as the director appears to be taking great delight in making you feel highly uncomfortable as you watch.
Which is fabulous, clearly.
Though not in the same ball park in terms of sheer class, there is no doubting that this is a film which shares some aspects of its DNA with the truly excellent Hard Candy and, in many ways, this is the meaner of the two.
Stand out performance goes to Alexandra Chando as Blackbird, the potential psycho protégé, though Patrick Breen as Nick is pretty effective, if a little wooden to begin with.
Hard Candy’s younger, uglier brother?
Well, not quite, but maybe a deformed cousin hidden away in the basement.
Decent.