Random Can Be Deadly: Blood Was Everywhere (2011)

Blood Was Everywhere (2011)
Rating: ***1/2
Starring: Ashley Arnold, Kimberly Simone, Larry Holden

Remember Final Exam (1980)? That slasher flick where we spent an entire hour looking into the lives of students and suddenly gets a random killer on the loose with little to no explanation? Well, it's time to feel Deja vu as it looks like director and writer Jason Torey tackles this concept once more in this magnificent piece of indie.

Originally an independent remake of Friday the 13th (but reworked into an original feature after the director found out Platinum Dunes remade that movie in 2009), Blood Was Everywhere (2011) centers around a small Massachusetts town as it suddenly gets an unfortunate visit from a faceless and nameless killer who have made a habit of sneaking into people's houses and murdering anyone he could find there. With this, expect the unexpected as the plot technically lacks a single protagonist or focus group, choosing instead to make its rounds following random townies live their daily lives, all the while our killer makes small appearances, mainly through POV or a simple shot of his shoes, hands or his body on the neck down, skulking around and studying his prey before he comes for the kills.

What I enjoy from this movie is that, even with the unconventional plot flow, it works very well to keep up the tension as we literally have no idea what's going to happen next and we wouldn't know whether to worry or not for some character we're spending time on until it is too late. Just think of this as entering and experiencing a real town, some place you never knew, and then suddenly you're hearing news of an entire family being murdered inside their own home. That feeling of fear and anxiety is something this movie tries to accomplish and the effectiveness of it relies heavily to how well you can take the narrative, as well as how far you could ignore the amateurish acting and delivery from its casts.

Of course, this place the film at a risk of disconnecting itself from its viewers, as a slasher with little casts to support and/or connect to tends to lose its impact. Those who are hoping for a traditional slasher film may be disappointed with its steady pacing and plentiful fillers involving characters going through the mundaneness of their day, which may also meant a lack of solid plotting, but rest assured, there will be blood. The murders are Godsent traditional and bloody without going viscera-mad on us, kinda like your classic 80s sets of murders where things are simple yet messy. Once the killer makes his presence known, expect the faceless mute maniac to do his worse, all in the standards of realism and savagery of a home invasion.

Completed with a budget of fifty grand, Blood Was Everywhere (2011) is a delightfully harrowing movie that shows what true talent and skills can do for homemade horror movies. Unique, tainted and agreeably bloody, best to keep a free mind when watching this and try to forget some of what you already knew about the slasher sub-genre to fully enjoy this gem.

Bodycount:
1 male bludgeoned to death
1 male knifed on the neck
1 female gets a throat cut with a boxcutter
1 male found hacked to death with a hatchet
1 male hacked to death with a hatchet
1 male gets a throat cut offcamera
1 male stabbed on the gut with a knife
1 male knifed to death
1 female knifed on the head
1 female beaten to death offcamera with a baseball bat
1 male had his face beaten with a baseball bat
Total: 11