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Film: Here for Blood
Year: 2022
Director: Daniel Turres
Writer: James Roberts
Starring: Shawn Roberts, Maya Misaljevic and Joelle Farrow
Review:
This was a movie that I saw streaming on Screambox. I added it to a list of 2024 films that I would check out when there wasn’t a new release at the theater. Something that helped here was that I heard Duncan from The Podcast Under the Stairs say he liked this as he got to see it at a film festival for 2023. This is getting its wide release in the United States for this year, so I made it a featured review on Journey with a Cinephile. I've also now given it a second watch to solidify my thoughts.
Synopsis: when his girlfriend is swamped with college exams, a pro-wrestler agrees to cover her well-paying babysitting job. What starts off as an easy night, quickly spirals into bloody chaos when a murderous cult comes to abduct the child.
We start this off with a cold open of a young woman running. She lets herself into a house that she shares with a roommate. The runner calls out to her friend but doesn’t get an answer. She hears the shower running. She goes into the bathroom to find she's been murdered. The attacker goes after her next.
This then shifts over to a group of college students. Phoebe (Joelle Farrow) is working multiple jobs to make ends meet while trying to figure out time to study. She is with Mike (Kelly Penner) and his girlfriend, Christine (Samantha Helt). They’re shocked she took a babysitting job the night before an important exam. Together, they come up with an idea to have Phoebe’s boyfriend, Tom O’Bannon, to replace her with watching the kid.
What is funny here is that he’s a professional wrestler. He works the independent circuit and he isn’t paid much. He comes home to Phoebe and she pitches the idea. He is concerned, for good reason, that it might look weird. She convinces him it is fine and he reluctantly agrees to help.
He then goes to the house. There’s a funny interaction with the child’s stepfather, Gill (Michael Terriault), that is in line with Tom’s thoughts. Then he meets the mother. Her name is Barb (Tara Spencer-Nairn). Together they give him the lay of the land of what he needs to know to take care of Grace. She is playing video games when he arrives and we see that she is calm. It should be an easy job until Phoebe shows up. Tom is even given the money upfront, which includes enough to get pizza with the tip.
Things go smoothly at first. That is until Tom hears a noise upstairs. He checks on Grace, but it wasn’t her and she didn’t hear anything, having headphones on. Tom soon meets a couple of guys. One is named Bernie (Jesse Buck) and Tom disarms him with a stove burner. The other is Spinhead (Marqus Bobesich). These two aren’t alone. There is a much bigger plot and it seems to involve the two women from the start who were attacked. We also learn there are other missing girls. Tom thinks they’re sex perverts, but they have a much larger plan than that.
That is where I’ll leave my recap and introduction to the story. Where I want to start is that this is a fun movie. One thing that made me leery was seeing that this was a comedy/horror film according to the Internet Movie Database. If you know my tastes, then you know that I’m not always the biggest fan as they normally use too much of the former without enough of latter. I think that this one gets it right. Comedy mostly comes from things that characters say or do, but it isn’t over the top. It is there to alleviate tension or to point out the absurdity of things which tends to work better for me.
Now that I’ve set that up, let me delve a bit more into what we’re getting here. I love that we have this large guy who is a wrestler in Tom. It is interesting because coming in, I recognized the name of our lead. I just didn’t know where. I’ll be honest, I did look it up ahead of watching this and realized that he was in the X-Men film from the 2000s and was in the Resident Evil movies as Albert Wesker. He has bulked up and was perfect for this role. What is interesting is that he has a good look for the character and brings the physicality that is needed, especially because there are guys like him that he fights later in the movie. This worked for me.
I’m going to shift to filmmaking here, because I need to stick with what I’ve already laid out. This movie plays with the fact that Tom is a wrestler. He is dropping elbows on villains and using other moves like the clothesline. That adds to the comedy. I also think that it makes sense when he’s fighting that he’s strong, so he isn’t easily overpowered. It isn’t until supernatural things start to happen that he gets overmatched. There are also other villains like Loverboy (Channing Decker) and Meat (Marc-André Boulanger) who are his size like I said. That makes things more difficult for him. The action scenes are shot well. This movie flirts with being over the top with violence and I loved that. This went practical with the effects where they could. Another plus in its favor. There is blood spray that goes on a beat too long for comedy, but I didn’t mind that. There is CGI, but that is there to enhance things. I could tell it was done with computers. It doesn’t ruin anything though. I was positive about all of this.
Then going back to the story, I’m not going to spoil things. What I will say is that we have a cult after the babysitters. They’re needed for a ritual. I’m there for that as I’m a fan. We also see that what they're doing can enhance the strength of those that believe. This also could be considered cosmic as the cult is worshipping elder gods. They don’t necessarily explain who they are by name, but I don’t need that. This works in its favor.
I don’t think there is anything else that I need to go into for the story, so I’ll finish with acting. I’ve already said that Roberts was great in this lead role. I love that he points out that being a babysitting could look weird. This is poking fun at society and how things look. Even Gill asks if he’s a weirdo. How Roberts manages the comedy worked well in my opinion as well. Misaljevic was solid as Grace. I like that she’s not annoying and things that get revealed make her confused. She managed it well. Farrow is attractive and good as the one that gets Tom into the mess. It is better for those involved as I don’t know if things play out without him. Spencer-Nairn and Therriault are good as the parents. Penner and Helt are as well as Phoebe’s friends. They also help add to the body count for people here. Bobesich, Buck and the others who are in the cult were solid there. They all have a different look and mask which I’m a fan of. We even got a cameo by Dee Snider voicing a character. What I’ll say to end this section is that the acting here was good across the board.
In conclusion, I had a blast with this movie. The combination of horror and comedy works well in my opinion. There are good elements here of combing home invasion with slasher and even a cult doing rituals to Lovecraftian style gods. The acting is solid here across the board. Roberts leads the way there with Misaljevic helping him as being in the house from the start. I thought this was well-made. The practical effects are great along with the cinematography to showcase them. They framed this well to hide the seams as needed. It was a fun movie. This is a shut off your brain and just go with it, especially for gore fans.
My Rating: 7 out of 10