Blood Vessel

Because this horror film is like a roller coaster, a slow uphill start and over the top at full speed with corners and loops and a heck of a lot of sound and light, until you reach the end, and the only thing thats true is that everybody is dead. its a film that chats till boredom kingdom come, the cast seems not engaged, and the story starts with a flock of ''wrecked people in a raft, their speaking tounges are of great variation and sound as the german sailer would say gebrockent , that are suddenly surprised by a ghostship, a german vessel. they board the ship, and starts to explore the dead, finds the steering wheel chained, the autopiloto of the medieval ages, everybody shouts and snarl at eachother, they hadnt if they knew what was to come after 45 minutes of searching.... well its a film poor on special effects alla' cgi and vfx, they use models, masks and a keg full of makeup to improve the horrors . in the 2nd half they succed pretty good, there are speed, there are zombiism, vampyrism,christianism, satanism, gold,money and other treasures( among them the holy ark) nazism and a lot of shapeshifting that makes the poor souls take the bait and become infected by the ominous creatures that reign this ship. and in the end it goes like all horror movies over the theme small group of people in a cabin or a boat, they dai. well a bad written review from the grumpy old man, its starts at 1, but ends at a 9, i give it a 6 for the efforts done by the mask , makeup and sound departments. its a film where squemishness must be put on hold, otherwise youll dive back in the ocean before the living daylights emenates from the heart of the blood vessel. its a recommend.

When a script is this unoriginal, I can't believe the film got made. It's literally ideas pulled from already made films, which is why it feels like it was made in the 90's. The only thing going for it is the prosthetic FX and the production design. Besides that it's a mess.

"Blood Vessel" would have worked a lot better, if it had played more openly and candidly, to its comedic horror vibe. Its very title sets up a lot of comedic potential, as does its casting, with a rag tag mob made up of Soviet, Australian, British and American characters who board a German ship. It almost sounds like material for a bad Friday night joke, down at the pub. Its basic setting, awkward characterisations and rubbery special effects, would have been brilliantly complemented by a decent injection of dark humour. Regrettably, the script takes a more serious turn for the first half of this flick. The few moments of comedy that are offered up are not enough, in what is a rather disappointing, final product. By no means unwatchable but less than it could have been, had it turned its weaknesses into strengths. 4/10.

I do not watch much modern horrors, as they tend to be very gory and with real bad story lines and/or characters. Especially most vampire movies tend to be so dumb, that when I see "vampire" in a movie description or something similar to a vampire creature in a trailer and I skip the movie. However decided to give this one a try. It is a vampire movie with a Nazi theme, set during the end of World War II. One bad thing to say about the movie is that it is basically a rip-off of "Aliens" (1986) story line. We have a warship, with few war survivors and some monsters to fight and nobody have nowhere else to go. And there is also a little girl with a doll. Sure, they twisted it a bit, so it's not a complete rip-off, but basically this is what it is. With that being said, it does not mean it is not worth watching. The characters are cool, the make-up is real good, special effects and costumes are real good too. On top of that, it is not real scary, but the entire time is feels really entertaining. Honestly I've been enjoying it. It was a nice fresh cup of a fairy-tale with a dark twist. And of course, don't get me wrong, with my "Aliens" comparison, it is very far from Ridley Scott's tale, there is not a pinch of that much suspense or horror, but still - I liked it. I won't reveal spoilers, so you will have something to watch for, but it is a nice movie to watch for the evening.

I really had high hopes for this. I love Nazi horror movies and shelled out $5 to rent this on-demand. Five minutes in, I started having doubts and an hour in, I just wanted it to be over. It starts with some text about how at the end of the war, the Nazis tried to sink allied vessels and kill all survivors. It then cuts to a life raft full of... survivors. Sigh. Said life raft is floating on completely calm and flat water (the North Atlantic should be really rough). The survivors have no exposure damage from sun, salt, and look like they were told to fall asleep by the director. There's a woman, a black guy, an Australian, an even a Russian. LOL yeah, as if a ship would have been carrying one of everything... so bad. The Russian soldier speaks perfect English. Because clearly Russian peasant soldiers are very worldly. He just omits "a" and "an" for extra-dramatic effect. Wow! The black guy mouths off the white guys, because clearly that's what people did back in 1945. I can go on and on, but that's just the first 10 minutes. The dialogue is cringe-worthy and painful. Clearly this isn't a high-budget production, but the vampires look like Mickey Mouse with comically stupid fangs. Don't waste your time. Go watch Dead Snow 2, Shock Waves, our Outpost instead.

Blood Vessel is one of those films you really want to like, but it's constantly trying to upset you in some way. The film looks low-budget, but the production was fine, it was immersive enough and it was obvious that the people who made this film cared. The premise was interesting, and even though the story itself was shallow and eventless, the production design and the Romanian mythology setting were enough to keep me invested up until the anticlimactic ending. Creature designs were great, but the Strigoi themselves were so boring and incredibly non-menacing. They were never scary or dangerous, and they barely even do anything in the film. If you're paying homage to The Thing, and if your creatures can shapeshift - why not play around that, fool the viewer, make us guess. Why make the story so predictable and lifeless. My biggest complaint is the characters though. They are very one-dimensional and mostly either annoying or straight-up obnoxious. They introduced a suspiciously diverse set of characters (in terms of their backgrounds), but besides a couple of good line exchanges, this never really comes into play. There is no one to root for, except for the Soviet guy probably, but again, he's a one-dimensional good-guy hero with no flaws. The woman's character was never a character. Other characters just try to beat each other in being the most unlikeable, but the Faraday character always wins. I didn't really care about the goofs, like the Germans using a British ship, the German soldier locking himself up from inside but later when the Strigoi were locked there they needed to be unlocked from the outside, whatever... I can appreciate the production quality and care put into the film, but it makes me really sad that in a film about a group of survivors I have absolutely no one I can care about.

Not a lot new brought to the table in this slow flick. Its basically "Nosferatu goes to sea" meets "Ghost Ship". It has some pretty decent make-up, but thats about it. Very stereotype characters, and the actors aint going to win any academy awards anytime soon. This movie is, for sure, NOT going to have you check your closet before bedtime.

The offerings of the considerably small niche of horror movies set during a war or another are always welcome in my world, despite most of them being lacklusters - "Blood Vessel", for the most part, is exactly that. Coming from Justin Dix, a special effects aficionado turned writer and director, "Blood Vessel" offers entertainment in the form of 80's best aesthetical traditions, and very little besides that. For extra bonus points, one must take this shlock horror not seriously. It is 1945 and the middle of the ocean. A real ragtag team - including a tough but righteous Russian sniper, a moronic Englishman, an American cook, an Australian soldier, a useless captain, an all-motherly Alyssa Sutherland, and more - are hopelessly drifting on a raft to a certain death, but a chance at survival presents itself in a form of an eerie, silently drifting German minesweeper. As we tag along our indubitably stereotypical team of heroes on the mysterious Nazi ship, the excursion takes us through ~40 minutes of slow building of a shallow story that has frequent issues, before it kicks the gear into ~40 minutes of a tad bit more entertaining horror feast - none of which is scary. Frankly, "Blood Vessel" is almost entirely void of tension, and the turns of the plot are more likely to elicit a dry response rather than a surprising one. One thing that "Blood Vessel" has going for it, is the fact that its maker knows and loves practical special effects. Though a low budget feature and playing out as such, among a little confusing action scenes there are mildly satisfying 80's kind of gore and make-up galore. Set designs are also quite fine, but cinematography's uneven and the original score - a highly typical one, not counting the chanting Nazi occult jingles. However, perhaps the most awesome part of "Blood Vessel" is comedy value. Some of it is intentional, some is not, but either way Teplov (Alex Cooke), Sinclair (Nathan Philipps), and even the villain will make up for some amusement, especially if You're not watching it alone. The lovers of modern shlocks reminiscent of the 80's, and fans of horror movies set in wartimes, such as myself, can try and find some fun in "Blood Vessel", preferably with a friend and a beer. My rating: 4/10.