(Director/co-screenwriter: Norman J. Warren. Co-screenwriters: Frazer Pearce and Hayden Pearce.)
This British film opens in a ballroom New Year’s Eve party (“Goodbye 1959, Hello 1960” its banner reads) before cutting to the late-1980s summertime. Three twenty-something couples go sailing after fleeing carnival punks. The couples’ boat springs a leak, and they swim to a nearby island where they find a hotel whose decorations are those shown at the film’s start. Unbeknownst to them, they’re being watched.
The SCOOBY-DOO-esque friends settle into the seemingly abandoned Grand Island Hotel as supernatural things happen (e.g., electronic devices turn on by themselves, including a projector that shows scenes from the 1958 film FIEND WITHOUT A FACE, before a hard cut shows a bizarre, genie-like spirit jumping out from the screen). And then there’s that wild indoor weather, with further, sometimes fatal weirdness in store. . .
The camera work during key parts of BLOODY is lifted straight from THE EVIL DEAD (1981), with A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (1984) providing further influence in the wackadoodle, sometimes fun, sometimes lackluster BLOODY.
Cult softcore/horror Norman J. Warren (INSEMINOID, 1981) eschews his usual gore, sex and brutal violence for a relatively bloodless, mainstream horror work. Sporting kind-of Eighties/kind-of retro rock ‘n’ roll music from Nick Magnus and Cry No More, its soundtrack makes good, limited use of synthesizers and a particular recurring piano riff.
BLOODY’s ending, with its Plot Convenient Dumb Character Moment and odd end-shot, disappoints. That said, this sometimes fun, unfocused, and overlong movie might be worthwhile if you’re loopy, tired, or high.
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