Blood Vessel (2019)

Derivative, formulaic that often feels like pastiche.  Watchable enough until the monster rears its unconvincing head.  Then all hope (of fear) is lost.

It is mostly a coincidence I'm writing this up in the immediate aftermath of Ghost Ship.  There I may have revealed a somewhat erotic fixation on ships, rust and torches and the diligent peruser of this blog (if such a thing exists) might understandably conclude watching Blood vessel - which is on a ship and where torches are used - might be evidence of a further attempt to sate these deviant desires.  I claim innocence, but expect no-one to believe me.

"I am making it off this boat alive!"  And he does.

(Luckily, it seems, I can say whatever I like here and no-one will ever know, as - other than a weird anomaly with The Sadness readership numbers have not, shall we say, blown the roof off the fucking joint.)

Anyway, Blood Vessel.  I found it trawling through the nether regions of Shudder, and admit that once I found it I couldn't not watch it.  It's got - on the surface - a lot of things going for it.  It has a boat.  And Nazis.  And vampires are pretty obviously alluded to in the title.

Long story short: a bunch of Mismatched Survivors (is there any other sort?) are drifting about the (flat as a millpond) Atlantic Ocean after their ship gets torpedoed during World War 2; they don't think too much when a Nazi ship is sighted.  Better a quick death from a bullet than a lingering one from thirst or exposure.  But the ship seems abandoned, though there are curious hints that there have been some sinister goings-on - the lifeboats have been rendered useless, there are a couple of grotesque corpses, the wheel is chained and the engines set to overload and explode.

The script is, as the young 'uns say these days, basic.  Characters are introduced without any subtly - and the mix of characters seems gratuitously bizarre.  We've got a sniveling Englishman who is only out for himself, a stalwart Aussie, a craven American and a stalwart one who takes no shit, and a cut glass accented English rose of a nurse.  And a Russian, for some reason.  The actors are actually pretty good in their roles, but the dialogue never rises above the level of barely adequate, and often struggles to hit that bar.

Is it a rule that all ships are suffused with Hellish red light, or is it just because this is an Evil Nazi Ghost Ship?

Where the film is at its best is in the early stages, as the crew explore the ship and gradually start to realise something terrible has happened.  If this is familiar, its because it is pretty much what I said about Ghost Ship - a film that is explicitly referred to by one of the character (okay, not the actual film, but he does mention ghost ships, which may either be a bit of shameless lampshade hanging or an attempt to put us on the wrong scent.)  Darkness, confined spaces, bursts of steam and so on ... even the most cack handed film maker would struggle to not manufacture some sort of tension.

Turns out we are in familiar territory, with the Nazis trying to raise dark powers to aid their fight against the allies.  Why they chucked these dark powers on a ship and set sail across the Atlantic isn't clear, but I am sure it all made perfect sense to someone in Berlin at the time.

There is some fun to be had spotting the shameless references to other films - obviously Ghost Ship is a immediate source, not just because of the explicit reference, or the trying to work out what happened to everyone, but the discovery of some gold ingots. Aliens is echoed as the empty boat is like the abandoned base - and there is a weird little girl with a weird little doll, though she ain't no Newt.

They mostly come at night.  Mostly.

The Thing gets a few nods - the corpse of the Nazi captain seems reminiscent of the luckless Colin in The Thing and the Big Bad has shapeshifting abilities and can contaminate and take over humans.  And, of course, Nosferatu, with the abandoned vessel with the lashed wheel and the coffin in the hold, from which the Big Bad emerges a bit like Orlock rising from his coffin.

But it is when the Big Bad appears the film suffers a fatal wound; see, he just isn't scary.  He's ridiculous.

Asmodeus?  Is that you?  I LOVED you in Revealer.  Not.

I am all for 'real' special effects but they have to look more convincing than a guy in a mask.  And when he wakes his girlfriend up, she's even more ludicrous - hissing and sneering and doing nothing useful.  It's an injury the film never manages to recover from, though there are a few moments - the fate of Mya is pretty dramatic, and the discovery of the fate of the crew leads to a nicely done set piece.

It's curious how something formulaic as Carnage Park can be done with such gusto as to seem fresh and enjouyable, and a film like  Blood Vessel - which is no more or less original than carnage Park, and arguably no less technically adept.  But Carnage Park seemed to buy into its concept and the conventions 200% and carries it off with verve and brio; where as Blood Vessel seems to be largely going through the motions and doesn't give give its actors enough to work with to raise this above the level of the ho-hum.

Star Rating: *