Bleeders (1997) User Reviews

Interesting idea but poorly executed

[Snake-666 · 4/10 · 16 May 2003]

'Bleeders' is known as 'Hemoglobin' in the UK which I will proceed to refer to this films as.

At the beginning of a film a young couple, Kathleen (played by the gorgeous Kristin Lehmann) and John Strauss (Roy Dupuis) arrive by boat on an island. Shortly after docking John has a kind of seizure and is quickly taken across the island to Dr. Marlowe (the legendary Rutger Hauer). It is here that we learn that John is suffering from some sort of blood disorder and has come to this island in hope of tracing his family and finding a possible cure.

At the same time, while excavating a graveyard to move the bodies due to the highly annoying local business woman using poor quality wood in her coffins it starts to become apparent that there are a number of bodies missing from the coffins.

'Hemoglobin' deals with themes rarely tackled by films in any genre. We have genetic mutations caused by incestuous relationships and also hermaphrodites. Despite only having occasional nudity, there is a strong sexual context to the film, though that seems there more to shock than to titillate.

People tend to slate the acting from this film, but I personally see no problem with it. The problem with the film in my opinion is to do with the extreme lack of useful dialogue and the overall execution of the idea. 'Hemoglobin' is a slow movie, therefore it's quite easy to lose interest, but at the same time when an event happens in the film that is of importance it is quick and often dealt with in a short amount of time. So to fully understand some of what is going on in the movie you really need to pay attention.

The ending was also somewhat of a disappointment and also feeled tacked on. There are so many questions left by the ending that one begins to wonder whether it was worth watching to begin with. Unless perhaps a sequel was planned but due to the negative reactions to the film was scrapped I can't actually see how the ending could have happened the way it did. But despite this there are some rather dramatic parts in the ending, you just need to sift through the rubbish.

The monster costumes are also a bad-point. Some of them look like they were made out of plasticine, and while they are fairly original looking it doesn't detract from the stupidity of how they look and move. But at least they didn't go for CGI, and other than the costumes there are some good make-up effects in 'Hemoglobin' that are actually quite praise worthy.

It's a slow moving movie that many people will find too dull to watch. I personally give it 4/10 and I'd say this film is for serious horror fans who are looking for something different.

Decent but could have been so much better

[udar55 · 5/10 · 29 April 2009]

This is an average horror flick that really should be better than it is. The initial screenplay adapts Lovecraft's "The Lurking Fear" and was by Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett. The film sports a beautiful location (Grand Manan Island, Canada) that maintains that same creepy boating town vibe as their earlier DEAD & BURIED, but gets bogged thanks to flat direction from Peter Svatek. Dupuis, who also has the O'Bannon penned SCREAMERS on his resume (his mom must be proud), looks a tad out of place, more like a TWILIGHT reject with his pale skin, flowing hair and bad fashion sense. Hauer is decent in the film and actually survives. Oddly enough, half of the cast also popped up in THE SWEET HEREAFTER the same year. The film does earn points for having harm come to several children through out. Svatek must have some kind of fetish because he moved on to TV movies like BABY FOR SALE (2004) and STOLEN BABIES, STOLEN LIVES (2008).

Rutger Hauer saves this boring film that tries to be too serious.

[Semih · 3/10 · 19 June 2000]

I rented this film because of Rutger Hauer's name. And that is all I found in it. The biggest fault of this movie was that it tried to be too serious and it tried to make us feel sympathy for this guy who is related to this bunch of mutated in-bred creatures that live underground and feed on humans. (possible spoiler coming up) There was only one scene that I enjoyed and that was when this "bleeder" creature jumps into this living room out of nowhere and starts feeding on the old lady. The creature doesn't have any legs so it uses its arms to get around and the way it moves just looks pretty creepy. But that's about it. The female lead was kinda cute though.

More of a suspense/thriller type movie than a horror film..

[b. koski · 19 July 1999]

I recently rented 'Hemoglobin' (also known as 'Bleeders') expecting the typical A-Pix film -- horrible acting, bad script and annoying children. So, when I got home and popped it in the VCR I was rather surprised to see an interesting not-so-horrorish film.

Sure, it still had the annoyingly fake children that A-Pix are known for, but in the end 'Hemoglobin' was rather interesting. The storyline was quite good -- a young man with blood problems and his wife visit the island on which he was born. This man searches the island to try to find out who his parents were and why he has his problems and ends up running into quite an interesting story. All while this is happening, townsfolk are disappearing or getting scared to death.

I think this film would probably be of interest to anyone who's a fan of the A-Pix style or people interested in the Suspense/Thriller genre. It's not the greatest film that your ever going to see, but it's something worth catching on late night television or if you have a dollar to spare.

Also, take note of one fact pointed out twice in the movie -- the main actress is pregnant. Can anyone smell a sequel?

I feel sorry for the monsters

[Chrisball1981 · 3/10 · 21 November 2016]

Nobody's written a review of this for a while, but never mind, so here I go. Got this for £1 second hand in a charity shop. This still represents mediocre value for money. My version was on DVD and has the title 'Hemoglobin' rather than 'Bleeders' or 'The Descendant' as some reviewers here. I've no idea if the different titles have different cuts. The cut I saw was pretty bad. The producers of this must have thought they'd lucked out for a while- the cast's actually quite good (including Rutger Hauer), the location's great- a spooky Canadian Island standing in for New England, and a script by 'Alien' writers Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusset, borrowing heavily from HP Lovecraft. But the end product is naff.

Where id it all go wrong? Well, the first rule of making a monster movie is make the bloody monsters scary. The second rule is make the bloody monsters scary. You get the idea. Well I saw these monsters and all I could think was 'I could kick their asses'. I'm not some macho meathead- I'm a 34 year-old nerd, but I could still kick those monsters' asses. They're weird inbred troglodytes descended from a family of 17th century aristocratic dutch perverts. They have messed-up faces and eat pickled corpses. They aren't vampires and can easily be harmed and killed by normal, conventional means such as knives, guns and boat propellers. They have strong arms, but move about by shuffling along on their butts because they DON'T HAVE ANY LEGS.

Yep. The 'terrifying' creatures in this movie are all seriously disabled and stalk their victims by walking on their hands and shuffling along on their asses, at a crawling pace. Plus they're deathly afraid of strong light. Their only weapons are small, stubby daggers made out of scraps of bone. The villagers, meanwhile are tooled up with a wide variety of high-powered firearms (that they somehow can't shoot straight) and have access to an endless variety of blades and blunt implements (that they somehow choose not to use).

Seriously. If I was in this movie, I'd have just sat in the lighthouse and shot the freaks one by one as they struggled to climb the stairs. Even if I ran out of ammo, I could just throw heavy objects at them. If I ran out of heavy objects, I could still smack them on the head with a big stick as they butt-shuffled slowly towards me. If they broke the big stick, then I could still kick them in the face before they could reach me. they'd have to bite my foot off before they'd even stand a chance. The average 10-year old could beat up a dozen of these with a bit of effort and imagination.

In short, these poor creatures are actually considerably less threatening than the average dairy cow. They aren't scary monsters, they're just very sick, profoundly disabled adults. Watching this turkey, I felt more sympathy than fear for these unfortunate individuals. They do not make the grade as antagonists of a monster movie.

Sadly, this film isn't quite bad enough to make it an ironic comedy in the vein of 'Plan 9 From Outer Space'- or 'The Room'. It's just a bit rubbish.

Why am I writing this?

[Lukeydude-1 · 2/10 · 25 February 2005]

These days, I tend to get all my movies from Blockbuster video sales. They have piles upon piles of VHS that they'll sell for either very little money or a completely expendable body part. I simply can't get enough.

It was at one of these sales that I found Bleeders. This wasn't the first time I had shopped for cheap movies, and I had already amassed a collection that included some of the all time classics ("Elves," "Jack-O"). I found Bleeders and thought it would fit in nicely with what I already had.

I wasn't so much disappointed as I was completely apathetic. I simply didn't care about Bleeders. I didn't care what happened to the townsfolk. I didn't care what happened to the increasingly ugly John Strauss. I didn't even care what happened to the Bleeders themselves.

Sure, it seems neat in theory. A pale, scrawny, utterly intolerable mainlander named John Strauss comes to a small island community looking for clues to his past. Why? I'm not really sure. Whoever he's looking for is probably just as hideous and obnoxiously dull.

Anyway, he uncovers a deadly secret in the form of the Bleeder beasts, who proceed to terrorize the town blah blah blah blah blah. It really isn't worth it to elaborate. Put simply, a story is told that could have been exciting, but is instead overacted and underproduced. While I wouldn't call it a complete failure, its shortcomings place it somewhere in the middle, where I'm sure it will quickly fade into obscurity.

I didn't turn the movie off early, but I was reading a book while it played. That's the kind of film no one needs to see.

But since I did, I suggest all of you do too. Please.

Family blood lines taken to the dark realms...

[antipas2000 · 5/10 · 26 December 2007]

This film first appeared to me via the television and yes, I watched it. Even found a copy of the DVD too. I think one of the reasons was that it really creep ed me out. I mean...REALLY. And it is not like me to be creep ed out but I was eating a sandwich about half-way through the film. That sandwich did not get finished LOL.

The plot and idea is a shocker (not unheard of) but if it had been taken to even more nasty levels my god, it would have been one hell of a...*shivers*. But it does have its good points and its bad points, as any film.

5/10

Yuck!!!

[sjcjrice · 1/10 · 2 March 2001]

First, a caveat. Rutger Hauer is one of my favorite actors and I usually enjoy sci fi/horror films. This movie, however, is just a mess--poorly written, poorly acted and utterly senseless. (Although the Canadian location is beautiful. I loved the long shots of the island and the lighthouse. Maybe the filmmakers should have made a travelogue.) Unless you have a fetish for really bad movies, stay away from this one.

Horrible

[Echo1978 · 1/10 · 7 August 2001]

I managed to catch this movie after work the other night, having seen it in my local Blockbuster many times, i've come close to renting it, and now, i'm thanking god I never did, or I think I shall have been forced to demand my money back. I was slapped stupid with Rutger Hauer's acceptance of a role in such a horrible film. I am an avid fan of horror, scifi, and "sciency" movies, so just because this falls under the horror category doesn't discourage me from the rest of the category. This plot, (as much as I could follow anyhow) takes place on an island, there's these mutated, inbred, horrible looking creatures that live underground and eat dead human flesh. There's the "as close to normal" as you're going to get alive people living above ground. They start getting eaten, very predictable. However, one of the "normal" (and I stress normal) people, turns out to be inbred and related to the things underground, I think there was some side story about some "blood disease" but this movie honestly didn't hold my attention, or my ability to care long enough to really pay attention. At any rate, this man's wife & pardon me for not having actor/actress names, I didn't take the time out to find out who anyone else was. is pregnant with his baby a scary enough thought, pregnant with the mutant/inbred's baby but knowing that her husband could die from his "disease" NEVER tells him she is. She was a total un-necessary character if you ask me, she served no real meaningful purpose other than to sit there and whine a lot. Well anyhow, what it boils down to "things" come after people, of course there is a storm, no power, etc., but rather than hop on boats <which you assume a great many people who live on an ISLAND would have they stick it out in a lighthouse, this could be seeable if the power had gone out at night, but folks the power was out ALL DAY LONG. I won't even go on about this fiasco any further, but i'll say this: Shame on Rutger Hauer for being in this movie, his role as a DR. serves no real purpose, and if you want campy, horror fun, rent the Evil Dead instead.

For Lovecraft fans

[naglma · 6/10 · 4 February 2007]

Now, it isn't for everybody mind you, not even every die hard horror fans; but if you like freaky monsters under the ground from origins to awful to speak aloud, then not only are you a Lovecraft fan (see Shadow Over Innsmouth), but you'll probably enjoy this movie. Not fully incorporating the Cthulhu Mythos, huge parallels are seen in the backwoods MA people, the fish like monsters and something that came from a long time ago. Surprisingly, unlike the vicious scheiBfare Lovecraft renditions that came out of the eighties, this is surprisingly well done. It has actors and actresses that don't foul up the Lovecraftian nightmare that the director has in store for the audience, and a good plot. My only question was, so what happens next.

it really is BAD

[[ruckle] · 1/10 · 19 December 2000]

One of the worst movies ever. Thing is i dont really know why. I really like horror movies. Low budget is something i dont care about. Actually this movie is better made then many others i really do like. But it just doesn't happen. The movie is so slow and boring. Even the few action sequences when Rutger Hauer is chasing the monsters are slow and boring. The ending isn't quite what i expected, so i guess that's the only good thing to say about it. Don't see it!!!

Pretty good HP Lovecraft movie

[sanguinius2004 · 8/10 · 5 December 2008]

I had to leave a comment on this one because so many people seem to hate it and its a personal favorite of mine. It's based on the Lurking Fear and personally i thought it was one of the best HP Lovecraft based films that I've seen and stays pretty close to the original story. Of course having said that I'm a big fan of both Unnameable films which seem to have been similarly slaughtered and Reanimator (only the first one!) so perhaps I'm more predisposed to these movies than the average guy. I thought Roy Dupuis and Rutger Hauer did a really good job. Maybe the US release title of 'Bleeders', which is pretty awful gives a negative impression to begin with, in the UK this was released a Hemoglobin, not nearly as painful. If you love Lovecraft then you'll probably enjoy this.

Interesting

[54jojo · 6/10 · 12 August 2001]

This movie is a great B movie a lot better than most. It's a horror-mystery that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Aside from the all the blood shed there is also a little bit of a romantic side to the movie.

Makes for a good laugh

[But_not_really · 4/10 · 14 May 2006]

First off all, the story line was horrible, but, because it was made on the island that I live on, and my mom and my aunt were in it, I like it a little more, and have sympathy for it. It has some pretty famous actors in it, and it might have been OKAY if it had a better story line. I mean come on, a girl that could have sex with herself?! thats a little weird. Some of the actors were a little ... odd, but others were pretty good, and pretty famous, and it makes me happy to know that it was filmed where I live. It was kind of odd at one part, when they had a war scene, and this girl got killed with a fork, but it rocked my world. Anyways, the movie makes for a good laugh, so, I think that you should watch it because low quality films rock, and this is CERTAINLY low quality.

How can such a good movie be so bad?

[DexX · 31 March 2003]

Bleeders is, in a single word, baffling. It features a competent cast, including the always fantastic Rutger Hauer, and a bunch of unknowns who provide us with far better performances than we generally have inflicted upon us in low-budget straight-to-video horror. The location is gorgeous - a foggy fishing island somewhere off the eastern coast of Canada. The gore and monster makeup are extremely good, too. Even the script is adequate, containing no really awful dialogue or bizarre character motivations.

Add all these elements together, and you should end up with a solid little low budget horror film. Instead... well, you get Bleeders.

Its main fault is a serious cinematic crime: it is boring. I lay the blame for this unforgiveable flaw at the feet of the director and, to a lesser extent, the composer. The whole film is terribly paced. There is never any sense of urgency or danger throughout. It seems that the director has never seen a horror or thriller film before, as he certainly has no idea how to built suspense or deliver a shock. Scenes dealing with life and death feel identical to those featuring leisurely chats about genealogy. The whole film just feels terribly flat.

The score really doesn't help. It is simply the most boring and pointless movie score I have heard in years. In the first few minutes, I was thinking it was pretty. An hour and a half later, after listening to what seemed to be the same five minutes of music on a loop, I hated it. The music, like the direction, is utterly flat. Character scenes and supposedly scary scenes are all scored the same. Like the director, the composer seemed to have no idea what a horror film score is there for. It certainly isn't supposed to be something pretty to listen to when there's no dialogue.

These two problems are bad enough, but they are compounded by the fact that Bleeders is shot on video. This constant visual reminder of the movie's cheap nature, as well as its inept direction and bland score, make the whole film feel like an episode of some dodgy TV show, destined to be axed after a single season. Only the occasional splashes of gore and explicit sex scenes mark it as being something not made for TV.

It's a terrible waste of talent and potential. Okay, the best bits of the story are stolen from Lovecraft, but it could have been a fun Lovecraft ripoff, as opposed to yet another bad one. What a pity... it really could have been good.

Troll 3: Island of Inbreeding

[Coventry · 5/10 · 27 December 2006]

What? A lousy 2.7 rating out of ten around here? That's at least two whole points to few. I'm not claiming it deserves a rating higher than five, but still "Bleeders" isn't nearly as awful as indicated by this low rating and it actually features a handful of good & fairly original ideas! This movie handles about macabre topics like deformed monsters caused by generations of incestuous relationships and even freaking hermaphrodites, so I'm tempted to honor it with more points just for NOT being another uninspired teen slasher flick or uneventful ghost-story. This low-budgeted B-effort opens with a young couple arriving at a remote island where the atmosphere is clearly ominous and unwelcoming. The man, John Strauss, suffers from a rare blood disease and came to the island to find a cure, as all his ancestors were living there. Along with his loving wife Kathleen and the local doctor (Rutger Hauer), John learns he's the last survivor of the notorious Van Daam family; a line of highborn Dutch perverts who fled their own country after it became illegal to fornicate with each other. The hated family supposedly got extinct now, but they're still living underneath the island in a network of caves and they feed on corpses stolen from the local cemetery. So the plot is a little stupid and quite the opposite of scary, "Bleeders" is still an entertaining flick that often feels like an old-fashioned and cheesy 80's effort. The Van Daam monsters look like little trolls and they don't really do much, apart from munching through corpses and pulling people under the ground. It's really not a bad movie story wise, after all it's adapted from a Lovecraft story by no less than Dan O'Bannon, but the execution is undeniably tacky. Most of the locations and scenery look really ugly and there also is a severe pacing problem. The first half of the film is rather slow, whilst the second & more entertaining half often gets interrupted for pointless reasons, like the completely gratuitous sex sequence for example. The dialogs are laughably inept, Hauer is underused in his role as town's doctor and the climax is too easy to predict as well. Come to think of it…maybe it does deserve the 2.7 rating! Nah, it's good fun when you're in an undemanding mood.

Bled dry

[p-stepien · 2/10 · 7 January 2011]

John Strauss (Roy Dupuis) and his wife Kathleen (Kristin Lehman) journey to a secluded island in search of a long lost heirloom. Sent away to Europe as a baby John had a trust fund which helped raise him, but was never able to discover the origin of the money or his own past for that matter. Finally he and his wife manage to connect the dots to the island, but no one on it recognises the name Strauss. Inflicted with a deadly affliction John is dying and his only hope is to discover the secrets of his past. One of the few on the island who is willing to help him is Dr. Marlowe (played by Rutger Hauer).

This hauntingly bad piece of filmmaking derides it's origin from some Lovecraftian lore, which truthfully has not had a good history of proper on-screen treatment. "Bleeders" is no exception and although Dupuis and especially Rutger Hauer give the script a half-hearted attempt the overall direction of the movie is tragic. The film lacks pacing, basic storytelling abilities, logic and worst of all - horror. Even the farcical dialogue and jumpy script can be forgiven to some point, if the gore is in the right place and the creepy crawlies manage to inflict some fright. Given the monsters look like half-melted outcasts from "The Muppet Show" there isn't even any tongue and cheek ha-has to let you distance yourself from the sheer badness.

In this movie everything seems to be way off and severely amateurish. Were it not for the nudity (including one extremely long sex scene, which is arguably the only watchable sequence in the movie) it could easily pass for a bad TV movie.

Rutger Hauer tumbles down into the acting ghetto with this outing. Almost as if he really did die in "The Hitcher" and since than it is only his decomposing corpse is being employed to boost video sales of zombified E-class garbage. Hopefully 2011 will announce his big comeback, when "Hobo with a Shotgun" and than South African directed "Spoon" hit the screens to offer a much deserved homage to the downtrodden Dutch actor.

It must be noted however, that a couple of extremely interesting ideas pop out during the wanting experience, that do prove the pointless point that the basic plot actually reeked of promise.

Yech.

[erkiberg · 2/10 · 8 June 2005]

Original name for this waste of tape was to be 'Hemoglobin'. Guesse they had to dumb it down. Even though my mom and sister are extras in this thing, I have to say, absolute garbage.

Also, the islanders where it was filmed took some offence to the concept of inbreeding being suggested. Nuff said.

This film serves best as a doorstop.

Actual production looked promising, the film is entirely cliché and seems to have been edited by commit tee.

SFX suffer entirely, the latex puppets looked great in person, I have no idea how they didn't realize they were filming it too dark.

A great movie...to make fun of.

[Lennier-2 · 2/10 · 16 June 2000]

The word dumb does not do justice to this movie. The plot is laughable and the monsters are so silly looking that you can hardly be frightened by them. I watched it with a bunch of friends and we had a blast talking about how stupid it was. If Mystery Science Theater 3000 is ever revived, this one is a prime candidate.

one of the worst movies ever made

[TheEmulator23 · 1/10 · 5 June 2002]

probably one of the worst movies ever made. The acting is fine, but the plotline is terrible. I know if i was an actor i would be embarrassed to put this on my resume. The opening made it sound like it could be good, but the film dragged and it not once made me care about the characters

Borderline minor gem of a dark creature feature

[Bloodwank · 7/10 · 30 January 2011]

Though it came out in what is generally considered a dead time for B cinema Hemoglobin is a film that I have quite a nostalgic interest in. I nearly saw it some 11 odd years ago, I guess it must have been right about the time it first came out and I recall seeing the first couple of minutes and being put off by talk of inbreeding. That sort of thing gave me the willies back in the day, I was a lot more prudish and so as I recall I skipped to another channel and watched Species. Fast forward to yesterday and I finally got around to watching Hemoglobin after all these years. Worth the wait I'm happy to say, plus I probably wouldn't have got a huge amount out of it had I watched it back then, its darker and more adult oriented than the sort of thing I used to groove to and most likely would have been a snooze. The plot deals with the unfortunate John Strauss, cursed by a degenerative and life threatening blood disease, a cure for which he searches on his ancestral island. Unfortunately this is a place of dark shenanigans, notably the aforementioned inbreeding whose repercussions are still present and making trouble. Its gloomy stuff, moving at a measured pace it melds dark drama with creature feature, stirs in disturbing themes and cooks the lot with solid performances and well woven atmosphere. Roy Dupuis summons appropriate sickly desperation as John, convincingly driven to far places, while Kristin Lehman handles the role of his wife with a nice feel of love and support. Genre fans will be most pleased by the inclusion of Rutger Hauer though, having a blast as an alcoholic ex doctor nonetheless able to rise to the occasion in times of need, a rundown but definitely not out performance that's gladdening to see given his occasionally rather forgettable work in other b pictures of the era. Other performers do well enough, no one really shines but they work well with the wet and dreary location. A solid if unremarkable script from genre legends Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusset (with Charles Adair) keeps the film serious minded and interesting whilst throwing out some fun character quirks, things get a bit sketchy towards the end though with character behaviour stretching beyond the characterisation and wavering tone. Mostly its solid work though and the bleak edge works well, aided by fine monster effects. The beasts are shown to just the right extent and look impressively grim, every bit the foetal distortions brought to monstrous birth that they are supposed to be and their attacks are tightly edited and intense, occasionally even bloody. Sadly the direction here isn't terribly dynamic, Peter Svatek can maintain a dark atmosphere but not much in the way of tension so the film suffers in the final block, he also fatally shies away from what could have been a fantastic bit of grotesquery, this was a film that needed real balls and they are sadly lacking, so what should have been a terrific climax falls a bit flat. Inevitably this brings into sharper relief other problems with the film, lulls in pacing, plot holes and the like, but I prefer not to dwell on them. Basically I had a fine time with this one for the most part, more unsettling than expected and well worth the wait. Inessential if you don't have much time for creature features or this era of horror in general, but otherwise I'd say its pretty well worth checking out...

Dreadfully misguided direction and post production

[RogerBorg · 3/10 · 31 May 2006]

I get the impression that the director or editor was trying for a sub-cinema verite feel here. Surely you can't get to direct a multi-million dollar film without knowing some basic tension and shock devices; their complete absence here must - surely must - be deliberate.

Whatever they were trying to do, they failed abysmally. There is a certain creepiness about the premise and denouement, but the journey is a real yawn-fest. The creatures are really just pathetic rather than a threat. Cripples armed with garden implements versus hale people with guns isn't really a fair fight, unless the victims insist on being phenomenally stupid. People literally stand around screaming as the creatures... waddle... slowly... towards them, apparently forgetting that they have a gun in their hand! As others reviewers have noted, the sex scene is a complete disjoint, and really out of place. It just highlights what a muddled mess the whole endeavour is.

Excellent Saturday night entertainment.

[oprotnes · 8/10 · 13 January 2005]

This is really an _adaptation_ as far as the lovecraft story is concerned, but in my opinion a rather good one. (at least if you've watched some of the other films 'based on' H.P Lovecraft stories.) It is loosely based on "The Lurking Fear" by H.P Lovecraft, and explores some cool and horrible ideas about inbreeding and other goodies.

The movie in itself features mostly good acting, and a really cool storyline. The effects aren't bad, and there's lots of blood and other goo. I truly recommend this to lovecraft fans, or just horror fans, out there. Don't go by the ratings on this one. Even if it won't scare you, some scenes are a bit on the creepy side (mostly just funny and/or cool).

Not a "HOLY CRAP THIS IS AN EXCELLENT MOVIE"-movie, but if you like B-flicks with monsters, blood and gore, this is one for you!

Mutant Blood

[Vomitron_G · 6/10 · 21 January 2010]

Now I won't say this is an excellent Lovecraft adaptation, but I will say this is a decent horror-drama based on a Lovecraft story (called "The Lurking Fear"). The acting was okay, with Rutger Hauer and leading lady Kristin Lehman being among the best of the cast. The story developed at a slow but satisfying pace. There was one jump-scene that actually worked (the arm bursting through the widow's coffin). The mutant inbred-crawlers were creepy (some of them were real amputated people as actors with monstrous make-up). And there's a pretty redundant, but nonetheless steamy and mildly exciting sex-scene near the end. Some children were even killed in this movie! And the ending is slightly sad or tragic or whatever... This film is known in Europe under the title "Hemoblobin", and I honestly don't understand that very low rating it has on here. You guys should try watching some of the real crap out there.

Awesomely bad.

[Necrotard · 5/10 · 18 September 2007]

My friend and I love to rent awful, gruesome, horror films, then sit and make fun of how bad they are (while enjoying the gore). So far, this film has been the most enjoyable for us. The little gnome dudes are funny themselves… and watching them kill is hilarious… Then the characters are so lame and the concept of the gnome's origin is kind of goofy too. There is some gore and some nice images in here, but the concept, acting, and characters just make this film incredibly cheesy… I mean really, how many movies feature a doctor who looks at a corpse that was mangled in a boat's propeller and says "Hm… I'd have to say death by severe mutilation."… WE WERE IN TEARS AT THAT LINE. That was the funniest thing we'd ever heard! Now, whenever somebody gets diced up pretty bad in a film, we have to make reference to it by quoting that line.

I gave this movie a 5 out of 10 because it really is awful but I found it incredibly entertaining… in a "Mystery Science Theater 3000" kind of way.

(And if you're having trouble finding it, the DVD was released under the title "Hemoglobin".)