Blood Frenzy (1987)
Directed by Hal Freeman
Again, a slasher movie. I know, I know I have an obsession. I can’t help it, I love slashers so much, even the bad ones. Youtube has really become a great source for 80s slasher movies and that’s where I found Blood Frenzy. I became interested in this when I heard the guys from The Hysteria Continues review it, so I searched, and it sent me down a wormhole of garbage that I watched haha.
First off, there were SO many slasher movies in the 80s alone that I’ll likely never see or even hear of them all, which is nuts. At the time of writing this I have seen over 140 of them, and that’s not even scratching the surface. When I find a slasher that has an interesting premise or location, I’m quickly intrigued. Iced is a movie that caught my attention because it’s all shot in a ski lodge with tons of snow. Blood Frenzy caught my attention as well for three reasons: it takes place in the desert, it stars Lisa Loring aka Wednesday Adams, and its directed by porn director Hal Freeman. I figured how could I go wrong?
Blood Frenzy is about a group of mental patients (naturally) camping in the desert with their psychiatrist. Slowly one by one they are hunted and killed by an unseen killer. The premise isn’t anything special, its your typical slasher. The location is kind of cool and we get some cool shots of scenery. Each character is actually treated as important and we get a little bit of backstory fore each which is refreshing. I find it funny that a porn director took time to somewhat build characters. Lisa Loring plays Dory, she has a short fuse but she’s pretty damn hot. The Dr. Shelley is played by Wendy MacDonald, with her are the rest of the patients: Rick whom has PTSD, Cassie is the sexy blond nympho, Crawford is constantly drunk, Jean is very introverted, and Dave has a crude sense of humor. It’s a hodge podge of crazy characters that are basically cliché.
The acting isn’t too bad for the genre and as I mentioned earlier each character is defined by certain traits. Lisa Loring is probably the best actor of the bunch but she also probably has the most experience. If you remember she was also in the movie Iced which I reviewed a few years back. The dialogue is a bit clunky at times but I’ve heard worse, movies like Offerings have some worse dialogue that’s for sure. Ted Newsom wrote the film as kind of a mash of Friday the 13th and the classic Ten Little Indians, and you can see some subtle nods to each and some not so subtle. The opening of the film shows a flashback of a father berating his child because they’re playing with a jack in the box and he says they can’t afford it. The child ends up killing the father in a “bloody frenzy” oooooh they said it!
The effects are average at best. There aren’t too many crazy scenes of gore. You get your normal stabbings, a decapitation, a throat slashing, nothing too noteworthy or out of the normal. This is one of those 80s movies with the bright orangey red blood, like Dawn of the Dead. For some reason I just love that style, it makes me laugh. Since this was direct to video the budget wasn’t too high so they had to compromise with the effects a little but they’re done well enough that they won’t irritate you.
I’ll discuss the ending so spoilers are very much in effect now. You find that Dory and her crazy brother Lonnie (the kid that killed the guy at the beginning) have been killing the mental patients off. There is a scene towards the end where Dr. Shelley goes into a cave and gets captured by Lonnie and Dory. She is then tied to a table where Lonnie starts trying to cut her, its really unnerving and Rick makes the save. They tussle afterwards until Dory and Lonnie are killed.
Blood Frenzy is an above average direct to video slasher shot in a cool and interesting location. The character work is also above average. The effects may be lacking and sometimes the audio isn’t the best (youtube may be to blame for that) but it is entertaining and I’d suggest it to fans of the genre. I give Blood Frenzy a C. I was entertained the whole time, it isn’t a long movie so you can watch it quickly without being bored.
