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April 20, 2011

Movie Review: Blood Oath (2010, Troma)


The folks over at Troma have been tackling a lot more indie horror titles as of late - The most recent releases being Blood Junkie, Grim and our review for today, director David Buchert's, Blood Oath. I enjoyed some parts of both Blood Junkie and Grim but in the end they felt like mediocre missed opportunities. Does Blood Oath turn the corner? Unfortunately, no it doesn’t and it's easily the worst of the three.

Buy Blood Oath on DVD

Blood Oath is pretty ridiculous from the get go. The killer in the film looks like Captain Caveman with Edward James Olmos' complexion. He wields a giant blade which he slashes, and disembowels campers with who are in search of this mysterious cabin in the woods. Yet another cliché campfire story is told about the urban legend that involves this "house of death" and how they actually find the place, I have no idea. The movie is so dark it's as if a camera crew wasn't even brought on board for the project. I mean fuck, someone flick their lighter on , or something. A minor redeeming value that Blood Oath hold is that it's fairly gory - though most though most of the FX are badly executed. One notable decapitation will have many viewers falling out of their chairs at how bad it is.



Tiffany Shepis shows up very briefly and I think for the first time ever in "starring" role (she's in it for five minutes!!) she keeps her boobs covered. She does caress them manically so not all is lost. Fans of gratuitous clothed titty-mushing may just like this scene. I just wanted those things to spill out, but that's me. If you wanna see Shepis in a much better role showing off some really good acting chops check out Frankenstein Syndrome (co-starring CHC’s very own, David C. Hayes).

The primitive oaf in Blood Oath (that almost rhymes) is also hung like Ron Jeremy and yes we get the prosthetic meat swung in our faces. I'm actually surprised it isn't Ron as he seems to pop up in many of Troma's films. Maybe he's uncredited. The creature uses this filthy, smegma covered kielbasa as a raping tool. It's all very tastefully done for any of recent smegma covered kielbasa rape scene. Amazingly, it has the most lighting, too...gahhh!!

Troma as usual has loaded up the DVD with extras. You can never fault Troma on extras, they always deliver in that department - even if it's trailers for the Toxic Avenger series that you've seen 82 times. We get a Behind-the-scenes and Special FX featurette, Outtakes, Slideshow, trailer and a commentary with Buchert. The commentary isn't bad. I'd probably recommend watching that over the feature . The film is ultra-low budget so different crew wore different hats during the production. Buchert also talks about how he got Shepis interested in her very brief role.

I really can’t recommend Blood Oath in anyway – not even for camp value. We should still look forward to the summer though where Troma we’ll be releasing some gems in the form of Mother’s Day (on Blu-ray) and one truly great indie, Klown Camp Massacre. By then, the taste of "Oath" will hopefully be washed away.

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