Review: Bloody Hell (2021)

Bloody Hell

Rating

Director

Alister Grierson

Screenplay

Robert Benjamin

Length

1h 33m

Starring

Ben O’Toole, Meg Fraser, Caroline Craig, Matthew Sunderland, Travis Jeffery, Jack Finsterer, David Hill, Joshua Brennan, Ashlee Lollback, Sophia Emberson-Bain, Ryan Tarran

MPAA Rating

Review

It’s difficult to imagine how a horror film based around the concept of post-traumatic stress can come off without feeling crass but Bloody Hell sure tries.

Centering around Rex Coen (Ben O’Toole), a veteran who becomes famous after a video was released showing him turning the tables on a team of bank robbers. Although his celebrity couldn’t overcome his conviction for the accidental death of a bank worker, he decides a change of scene is necessary after his release from prison. Through random selection, he ends up in Finland where his anonymity helps him disappear but not as he expected. Instead, he’s kidnapped by a strange Finnish family who capture unsuspecting travelers and turn them into a meal for a creation that isn’t immediately understood.

The creature elements of this horror film blend well with the ’80s horror tropes it employs. Although some of the performances are outlandish in the worst way, O’Toole gives a convincing one as his friendly outward appearance goes toe-to-toe with his hyper-militant internal monologue. It gives him an edge in both the physical realm and the emotional, using his skills to both woo a recalcitrant member of the family, and outmaneuver the more dangerous members. It’s a cat-and-mouse game that often sees the hero struggling against insurmountable odds in a high stakes battle pitting Goldilocks and the family from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Director Alister Grierson and screenwriter Robert Benjamin don’t add much to the genre with serviceable directing and script but there are kernels of creative energy bursting through at times and the end result is an entertaining slaughterfest with plenty of appeal to fans of gory horror and those who like something a little more meditatively substantive.

As for its handling of PTSD, the gimmick isn’t quite as offensive as it could have been but it also gets a somewhat superficial treatment. While the condition can result in sufferers becoming violent when faced with a triggering stimulus, this particular evocation makes it feel a bit shallow. Had the ex-soldier element been reframed and the story been written around someone who suffered from Multiple Personality Disorder, it would have fit better with the story and wouldn’t have been so off-putting at times. That the idea came to Benjamin based purely on foreign stereotyping (he got the idea when being looked at and whispered about by a non-American family at an airport), is a major knock against the film even when enjoyable.

If you’re a fan of ’80s horror, this film feels like it would have been at home on the video store shelf where curious youngsters would have discovered its charming qualities, affecting lead performance, and splattery good time. Unfortunately for Bloody Hell, finding a film like this in a sea of like-minded features is difficult but will be mostly worth the time of someone who finds it by chance.