Blood Rage (1987)

Once a movie is in the can one would think that the studio that put forth the money to make it would want to get it in theaters as fast as possible.  That is not always the case.  There are times where directors or actors decide that they made a terrible mistake, such as Jerry Lewis with The Day the Clown Cried.  Pretty much the movie is done except for a few details, but Lewis soon realized what a tonally dissonant mess he had made, and decided that no one should see it while he was alive, and preferably not even after.  Other films are just held back to try and make the most money, and some because studios have no idea what to do with them.  Then there are films like Blood Rage, when someone realizes what a steaming pile of garbage they spent the money on, and that not releasing it is going to cost them less than spending the time trying to trick people into seeing it. 

Blood Rage was made in 1983 with the idea that it would be released in 1984.  It received some sort of limited theatrical release in 1987, albeit slightly altered from its original title, Slasher.  After that release went nowhere it was briefly released again, with the gore cut out, as Nightmare at Shadow Woods, before being dumped at video stores with most of the scenes restored again under the name Blood Rage.  For whatever reason - the movie was not even known well enough to have the slightest cult following - Arrow Video decided to reassemble the original Slasher cut and release it on Blu-Ray in 2016, along with the butchered Nightmare at Shadow Woods version.  Thus, we get the rare Thanksgiving-themed slasher film, with Louise Lasser as the only known name at the time and Ted Raimi in a quick scene as a shady condom salesman.  

In 1974 Maddy (Lasser) and her boyfriend head to the drive-in with her twin boys, Terry and Todd, sleeping in the back of the station wagon.  Terry wakes up, sees her mom making out with a guy, and decides to murder someone at random - only, he hands a shocked Todd the murder weapon, smears blood on him and convinces everyone his brother is the killer, resulting in Todd being committed to a mental institution.  10 years later Dr. Berman (Marianne Kanter), who has begun working on Todd's (Mark Soper) case, has made a breakthrough to get Todd speaking again.  He tells her that it was Terry (Soper) that did the murder and, although Maddy doesn't believe it, Berman does.

On Thanksgiving night Todd escapes, and Berman comes looking for him.  Maddy has announced her engagement to her boyfriend Brad (William Fuller), something that Terry obviously is not too happy with, and he also finds out about his brother escaping.  While his girlfriend Karen (Julie Gordon) tries to get more of a commitment from him and a new girl named Andrea (Lisa Randall) tries to get in his pants, Terry's mind once again turns to murder, and making sure once more that Todd takes the fall. 

There are two good things about this movie, and while most people would say they are on Lisa Randall, who has a gratuitous nude shower scene, they are actually the special makeup effects by Ed French (who plays a brief role in the movie) and the score by Richard Einhorn.  Like many of his scores it may have not been released at the time of the film, especially due to the delay in release, but in a genre populated by electronic scores, the soundtrack to Blood Rage is among the best.  French presents a number of scenes of dismemberment, often imbued with a dark sense of humor, including a severed hand gripping a can of Old Style for dear life.  Mix that with some truly shocking scenes, including a head split open to where one can see the brains, and one wonders why this guy is wasting time on such an incompetently made piece of dreck. 

I've seen Blood Rage compared to a John Waters film but the difference is, for all the seeming amateur acting and strange cinematic choices Waters made in his earliest films, he knew what he was doing.  His dialog was delivered the way he wanted it to because he was purposely trying to make bad films, but bad films that were just as entertaining as they were revolting.  John Grissom, the director of Blood Rage, just doesn't seem to to have much of a clue on how to make a movie.  When we are introduced to the adult Todd, there is voiceover from Dr. Berman explaining her findings, but this is over the dialog they Marianne Kanter act out with Louise Lasser and Mark Soper.  In both cases it appears to be the same exposition, making the voiceover unnecessary unless there were problems with the sound, which it doesn't appear there was.  

Despite Lasser giving her all as a woman constantly on the verge of a nervous breakdown (something I understand was kind of a specialty of hers), the rest of the cast - and this unfortunately includes Soper - is like a bunch of wooden blocks.  Most of them are there to get killed, while there is an obvious final girl.  It is about as rote and predictable as possible, and while it might be entertaining for those just wanting to have a laugh at a bad film, I found it way too stupid to even enjoy for camp value.  Soper says what is supposed to be a catchphrase over and over again, as if writer Bruce Rubin is trying to convince someone this is how they are going to sell the movie, when except for one death by turkey fork it fails to even try to sell a Thanksgiving connection.  Of course, when released, it came out nowhere near the holiday, proving that the studio barely had any more idea what to do with this than the writer and director did. 

It is nice when certain movies that got dumped into video stores or were delayed find their audience, but there are many, many films that remain obscure for a reason.  I am happy that there are those companies that specialize in genre film that make sure they don't disappear completely, but that doesn't always mean the movies ever deserved an audience.  Blood Rage, no matter when released, would have languished with all the third- and fourth-tier slashers from the time.  There is nothing to rediscover here, as there was nothing really worth the time in the first place.  

Blood Rage (1987)

Time: 82 minutes

Starring: Louise Lasser, Mark Soper, Julia Gordon, Lisa Randall, Marianne Kanter

Director: John Grissom