Now available on DVD
Cast:
Dominic Purcell as Victor Marshall
Henry Cavill as Evan Marshall
Emma Booth as Liese
Rainer Winkelvoss as Otto
Directed by: Joel Schumacher
Review:
Blood Creek is a brutal, blood-gushing, imperfect gorefest that actually has some originality to it if you can get past the batshit crazy subjects of satanic Nazi occultists, Viking runestones, undead horse possession, the fountain of youth, and zombie Nazis. Okay, that last one I can get behind.
Leading up to Adolf Hitler’s quest for domination (and subsequently World War II), the Nazi ruler and a number of his high ranking officials believed that tapping into the occult – among other things – would be a way to secure complete victory.
Maybe they should have looked a little harder, no?
In order to appropriate a certain number of runestones from Viking lore, Hitler sent his special branch of occult Nazis (yeah, it’s just fun to say) across the globe in order to obtain these stones and gear up on black magic. One of these stones just happens to have ended up at a German-American family’s house where an occult Nazi visits to conduct his own supernatural occult tests in order to prepare for the great war.
From there, things get a bit odd. And that’s saying something.
After spending the first 15 minutes in the 1930s, we are transported to modern times where we see Evan Marshall (The Tudors‘ Henry Cavill) in some awesomely chaotic situation as an EMT and we learn his brother went off to Iraq and never came back. He wasn’t killed, he just went missing.
One night, his brother Victor (Prison Break‘s Dominic Purcell) returns in sorry shape. He’s got a two-year beard and hair, blood all over him and he reveals later a number of nasty scars on his back. He tells Evan that he needs his help and to gather weapons and supplies. Victor then leads his brother into the country and to an old farmhouse – the same one we visited back in the 1930s – on a crusade of revenge.
You see, Victor had been held captive at the farmhouse for two years during which time he was tortured, mutilated and abused but he had no idea what was really going on. The Nazi occultist had been taking Victor’s blood (and the blood of many others over the course of the next 60 or so years) in order to perform a certain ritual that would give him power to command more than just troops but the undead, animals and more.
But the German-American family had contained him by using their own limited knowledge of the occult but in return were granted eternal life – a life filled with fear, killing people and trying to stop a Nazi occultist from gaining enough power to do some real damage.
But with the brothers showing up, if the Nazi can drink enough of their blood, nothing will be able to stop him. And that includes ripping off his own face and growing a third eye. That’s a neat party trick by the way.
In the end to save themselves, they must go mano-a-mano with occult Nazi in goretastic fashion.
It is nice to see that director Joel Schumacher perhaps is back on track. After a number of great films in the late 80’s and early 90’s (including Lost Boys, Flatliners and more), Schumacher stumbled with Batman and Robin, 8MM and The Number 23. Blood Creek offers up some new horror elements while keeping the gore factor high and a sense of desperation the entire film. Hopefully this means we’ll see some more good horror from the director in the future.
Extras:
Nothing at all on the DVD beyond previews to other films. Too bad as a special effects featurette would have been nice since they are pretty well done with only a few cringe worthy CGI moments.
