Movie Review: Bloody Knuckles

Reviewed by James DePaolo

Bloody Knuckles is, quite possibly, the most fun you will have this Halloween if you are not out trick or treating. This is an outrageous comedy that combines Idle Hands with Street Trash to give us this very bold violent comic nugget of fun. This film shows us what can happen when a comic book artist makes a comic about a Chinese crime lord. Travis has created this comic book called “Vulgar Invasions”, which one issue caught the eyes of Leonard Fong who is a ruthless head of a street gang. After Travis signs the comic for Fong, well Fong takes a portable hand saw and cuts off his writing hand. They take the hand and throw it into a sewer. Travis turns to malt liquor to heal his pain. Travis’s hand takes on a life of its own and decides to persuade Travis to get revenge on the ones who did this to him and continue with the comic book. This film has such a dark sense of humor that you are never quite sure where the material is heading. At times the ride is a bit bumpy, there are some pacing issues and some of the situations do fall a tad short. The acting in the film was fine; it displayed depth with the character of Travis, especially in the scenes where he argues with his own hand. While the material in the man vs hand argument never goes over the top as Ash was in Evil Dead II, it still had a fun spirit to it.


The gore and violence in this film reminded me of Street Trash, it gets to a point of gross out but tries to have a class about it as well. Where Troma will go thru the gross out gags and just keep on piling them to the point where the material and acting feel second nature. This film relies on a story to carry it, but adds the other elements to help showcase the strengths of what it offers. I really felt that the last 30 minutes of this film was the best part of the film, where the first half the film tried to find itself and figure out what it wanted to accomplish, and around the 45 minute mark to hour, it just started to gel and feel complete. This film while it has some negatives is still a fun film that I can see me watching a few more times and hopefully with a group of people. This is a party film, watching this film alone in your house kills the feel of the film. I feel this film could be a cult classic someday; it just has the absurdity that people seem to clamor over, especially people like me. This film is definitely worth a peak.