A babysitting wrestler suplexes a demonic cult into a gory mess
Its professional wrestling meets bloody good fun in Screambox’s new original film, Here for Blood. The movie follows indie wrestler Tom O’Bannon (played by Shawn Roberts) agreeing to help his college student girlfriend out by babysitting a 10-year-old girl, as she usually does. All he has to do is order pizza, hang out, and go on with his life, right? Wrong, there’s a masked murderous cult in the barn who has some pretty evil things on their mind.
Here for Blood knows what it’s doing from frame one. It’s genre fan service done right, even at an indie level. Seriously, how many indie horror films try to sell you on the whole “hey, it’s kind of a retro-feeling horror film that homages Friday the 13th and Evil Dead, you’ll like it” kind of thing?
They have all been doing it since Stranger Things. Everything a horror fan who loves those kinds of films has all of those tropes in Here for Blood. There’s professional wrestling, creepy masks, and gore gags that gross you out but double back and make you laugh when you really think about it.
You feel the budget in many of the scenes of the film. Some of the dialogue-heavy sequences that get you from one major plot point to another show the real indie set-up the film had. However, it banks some of its budgetary constraints in those scenes to give you a payoff from the thirty-minute mark of the movie on.
Here for Blood feels like a cross between Adventures in Babysitting and Evil Dead, with a sprinkle of the splatter of early Peter Jackson films, talking about Bad Taste and Dead-Alive here.
The evil cult in this movie, so to speak, has an interesting arc that follows them as to what they’re trying to accomplish, and let’s not forget how creepy their masks are. Here for Blood is a horror comedy that doesn’t take huge swings at the horror of it all, but boy, do a few of those masks that the film’s antagonists have kind of stick with you.
The real charm of the movie is the chemistry between the star of the movie, Shawn Roberts, and the little girl he is tasked with babysitting, Maya Lisaljevic as Grace. Having a big bulking guy and a ten-year-old girl as two of the film’s protagonists is a real treat, as blood flies everywhere across the floors of the upscale country home that is being invaded by harmful demonic murderers.
Yeah, some horror movies want you to turn your brain off for ninety minutes, and you do, and sometimes they’re a snore. Here for Blood wants you to do that, and it rewards you for it. It has cool villains, sympathetic heroes, pro wrestling, blood and guts, and pizza.
Here for Blood gives off a nostalgic vibe without being so-called “nostalgia porn.” Seriously, imagine catching this on the shelves of a mom-and-pop video store in 1992. You would rent it and grab a pizza to go along with it. Comfort food in your horror comedies isn’t a bad thing, so enjoy a little of it this Friday on Screambox.
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Verdict - 8/10
8/10