Project Terrible: Bloodthirst 2- Revenge of the Chupacabras
To see the review of
Bloodthirst first, go
here. Make Austria proud!
There are many, many things wrong here. Today's film is the sequel to Bloodthirst (duh), a film that my colleague- and fellow Project Terrible victim- Maynard Morrisey has already covered. How did I end up reviewing the sequel and not the original? It's quite simple...in that it's quite confusing. Basically, the first film is not available readily in the United States (where I live), while it's sequel is not readily available in Europe (where he lives). Netflix doesn't even have a listing for Bloodthirst, which is a bit odd if you ask me- especially since they still have one for Sin City 2. Never mind the circumstances that led a low-budget film made in America to have one film not available in the States, while another to be! They must have had one really f-ed up distribution deal. So what is Bloodthirst 2 about? Well, a Chupacabra- yes, only one- runs loose in the Woods. Meanwhile, about six other plots are happening simultaneously, most of which don't involve it for most of the time. Confused yet? If not, I'll take care of that soon enough. This low-budget dreck is enough to make your head spin! Make sure to question the use of a plural in the title...
The film begins with some guys driving down the road. They stop for no clear reason and run from...well, nothing. They go back to their car and check on the trunk's contents- a woman! At that point, the movie flashes back 1 Week (just to be pretentious). The divergent plots are as follow...
- A young woman is kidnapped and held for ransom by the thugs. They use a made-up light gun on her. Why? Because it's clearly not a Deus Ex Machina device for later, no sir! - A doctor covers up some creepy goings on in a Sanitarium. I haven't been this shocked since Shock!
- A policeman/authority figure investigates both of these plots, while his scenes just kind of appear on their own.
- A priest is called to investigate a scene of demonic possession. After wasting five minutes with a mini-sub-plot about him missing breakfast (no joke), he goes to a barn and dies at the claws of the Chupacabra. That's not so much a plot as it is filler, I guess.
*****
The movie just kind of drags its feet for a while, as it can't have the plot go too fast & can't afford too many effects shots. You'll note the real irony of that last statement when you actually see them! The lady talks to her kidnappers, but doesn't know much about them. You see, their made-up gun renders her blind for several hours...which can't be too healthy in the long-run. When you find out the truth (what little can be deciphered) about the kidnapping, this will seem even more dubious. Meanwhile, the people in the hospital scheme against each other, with one of them killing the other two. Before that, however, two of them wander around a mine where the police are also looking. This is meant to imply that the monster is there, but nothing actually happens. The cop, meanwhile, talks to random people and the lady's boyfriend looks for her too. Don't worry- something will happen eventually!
Finally, some stuff goes down...and it sure is silly. Due to earlier events, the kidnapped woman has a tracking device on her ankle (don't ask, please) and the kidnappers never took it off. It finally gets activated, leading to the detective and the boyfriend both going to look for her. She escapes while the lead kidnapper is away, but gets caught again. He's killed by the Chupacabra (better late than never!) and it chases her back to the Cabin. The dumb-ass co-kidnapper tries to sneak past the thing and dies. The stepfather (did I mention him?) shows up and ends up being killed as well, but not before revealing that he staged the kidnapping. Of course, that makes perfect...whaaaaa?!?!? Our heroine runs for a little bit and ends up at the Sanitarium, allowing the filmmakers to wrap up that random sub-plot too. Yes, it's all connected...somehow. Thankfully, the boyfriend shows up and they can run away from the poorly-modeled CG monster together! Conveniently enough, a pair of those stupid light guns are on the ground (how did they get there exactly?!?), so they kill the beast. It turns into that weird guy from the beginning (who appeared to be killed by a Chupacabra) and the movie ends with no explanation. Why start now? The End.
*****
Now this, this is Terrible! The plot of this movie is...a bunch of random shit. I mean, how much of that above made sense to you or seemed the least bit coherent? If you found this plot to be logical, then you're the kind of guy who can actually explain the plot of Inland Empire. By the way, I don't care, so don't explain it to me! The difference between this film and that confusing movie is that this film is stupid, stupid, stupid! Let's just diagram the title, shall we? Bloodthirst- why? They don't ever show the creature drink blood (let alone really show any blood), so how does this make sense? No. Revenge of the Chupacabras. First off- what revenge? A crazy guy escapes a Sanitarium and gets attacked by the beast. I guess that's revenge...maybe. The bigger problem- there is still only one creature! How can you not grasp the concept of singular and plural forms of words? When you have failed at basic Grammar, you have failed at life! This movie is poorly-written, poorly-paced and is flat-out Terrible. The only positive- the lead actress is kind of cute. Take us out, pretty lady.
Up next, I cover a film about sharks, surfing and a giant crocodile. Along the way, you'll learn to hate the cast and discover the meaning of the word 'croc-tease.' Stay tuned...
Austria loves you :)
ReplyDeleteEveryone is entitled to their opinion and if you don't like the plot or the acting or the effects of BLOODTHIRST 2 REVENGE OF THE CHUPACABRAS, that's your prerogative. However, before criticizing the title, brush up on your Spanish. The word "chupacabras" literally means "sucker of goats" that's why it ends with an "s." To spell it chupacabra is incorrect. Also the "made up" light gun is based on an actual law enforcement weapon (light burst gun)that explodes with a blast of light so powerful, the person hit with it is rendered blind for 8 hours and suffers an intense, migraine like headache.
ReplyDeleteYou can laugh at the cgi if that's your pleasure, but it is actually quite sophisticated for a movie with as low a budget as BLOODTHIRST 2. A stunt man dressed entirely in black played out the scenes as the monster and then was painted out frame by frame and replaced with the cg chupacabras. As far as the cast is concerned, look them up on IMDB. Most of the actors have quite a few credits under their belts.
It's always good to see that I can get the attention of people involved with the film- whether they're happy or not.
ReplyDelete1. I never pretended to know Spanish. That said, the singular-looking spelling is common enough. Plus, Wikipedia lists BOTH spellings as okay, at least until you go to change it.
2. A Google search for 'light burst gun' brings up a lot of hits, but mostly for light-burst MACHINE gun. The closest thing I found was a light-burst gun...as a Transformers toy. I'm not sure where you're getting that so-called weapon from.
3. I really couldn't care less how the effect is done- it still sucks. They could have hand painted in every single frame- it would still have sucked.
Oh and bad effects are bad effects- no matter what the budget is.
I don't hate on people for making a shit film if they try. I will still call it a shit film though. No amount of second-guessing in the Comments- 18 months later- will change that.
I agree that that was probably one of the film makers but I do have to wonder to myself sometimes... It's pretty easy for us or any reviewer to say how something sucks. We haven't made a film yet. Sure we can go about saying how we could, but we'll never know. And besides, I don't watch b-movies to torture myself. I generally enjoy them and celebrate them. Take a look at my site.
DeleteI'm not going to sacrifice my right to an opinion because of hypothetical ideas though.
DeleteThere's a lot of things that I know suck and haven't done. Jumping off of a building and falling to your death sucks and isn't a good thing to do.
I don't need to have actually done this to know that.
If you don't feel like you can say a movie sucks just because you haven't made one, then I wonder why one would even bother being a critic.
I wasn't saying that. I just was saying that it's funny that we judge things as critics but might be hard to make ones ourselves. I'm a critic, but I do plan to make movies. Did you misunderstand what I meant?
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure that I did.
DeleteI'm also not laughing.
If you weren't questioning the idea of being a Critic, I'm not sure what you were doing.
I don't know exactly what I was trying to say. I guess I was saying that we are easy to judge things but it must be hard to make films themselves, that we have it easy. And I guess it's just interesting to me the thought of what a critic would do if he made a movie. Would it be good? Would it be bad? That's kind of why I like Martin Scorsese. He makes films and thus I think he is the best kind of critic for others. I don't know where you got the idea I was judging criticism. I review films myself. I was just thinking out loud. I'm kinda eccentric like that. But yeah, I can still tell when a film is bad. I guess I'm just not as harsh to films. I generally like movies that people even say are "erggg... this is torturous." I wasn't trying to start any negativity so sorry if that seems that way.
ReplyDeleteThat's alright. There's enough people that go 'you can't review films if you can't make them' out there, so some of us get a bit defensive.
DeleteAs far as Scorcesi goes, I have nothing against him. Well, except for the fact that he was in 'A Fish Tale.' Fish don't have eye-brows!