Bloodtype Online

      While I noticed the film wasn’t as technically flawed, I knew I was not going to have a great time with this film. First of all this film being remade is a huge spoiler being that I expected the twist ending to fit the title and the “joke” in the original film. Also I was instantly introduced to the shallowest characters that a horror movie could possibly create. The film opens up at a debutant ball at Desiree and Blaine Southern inherited mansion. What the audience is in for in some high school level nonsense amongst the more “fortunate”. Desiree is established as the organizer and bitch of the coming out party that she threw for fellow socialite Torrance (Scout Taylor-Compton “Halloween”). The party was just a front so Desiree could play a nasty but witless prank on Milan, the girl she is in an ultimately pointless competition with. Desiree’s brother Blaine takes part in her prank as he gets Milan into bed with him. It seems like an unfair prank as Milan seems drowsy from rape pills. The audience is never shown the pills slipped into Milan’s drink. 

      The group of spoiled losers end up capturing the sexual encounter on tape. Milan stands up embarrassed while still groggy. Instead of bitching them out she begins to have a seizure and falls over a balcony. That segment of the movie remains the most interesting part of the movie. The stunt looks satisfyingly real but the whole set up was bullshit and filled with unlikable characters that are unbelievably one dimensional. Some folks in the horror crowd mention that its fun to hate characters because their future deaths will be more enjoyable. I rather relate to characters on some level whether it be the situation there in or their personalities. All I got was ballroom theatrics, late 90’s style horror characters and the most disappointing amount of gore for a film that used an 80’s horror movies name in order to draw interest. I admittedly have not seen the original in my life because the ending was spoiled to me by reviews. So I decided to give this bloodless mess of a predictable movie a chance.

    I want to go into the characters and who turned in a decent performance but that is difficult for me. The group consists of a camera obsessed nerd who fancied Milan, a Senator , his beauty queen wife and the twangy columinst I mentioned before. A lot of the film bounces between the group placing blame on one another while Torrance is on a set filming a horror film. Desiree eventually goes to the set because she believed the Milan lookalike killer went to the set. The film is just a series of events with no humor or passable human emotion. If a bunch of empty and bland characters keep you involved that is on you. If you haven't seen the original "April Fool's Day" I imagine this film will make you say "Ohhhhh" for a split second and then you'll move on and realize how uninteresting this film was as it delivered on no level of fun or torment. This is the horror genre and when a film gets mentioned with the likes of "Valentine", "Dracula 2000" and "Hide and Seek" that means its a piece of shit.

      One year later each of the important debutants of the party receive a letter by a vengeful friend of Milan. The letter warns the guilty member of the group to admit to the  crime. This all has to do with a girl falling over a balcony without being pushed. Blame it on the sleepy sex pills. Who slipped them? It’s nearly obvious or 50/50 but the killer in this movie decides to knock of plenty of other people in boring fashion. “I Know What You Did Last Summer” is the style of horror film this is but this film is nearly unwatchable and it all has to do with story. One has to be skeptical when seeing that The Butcher Brothers screenplay got the boot in order for Michael Wigart to get his screenplay debut. The writing of this film is garbage as its unoriginal and non confrontational garbage that gives horror a bad name. Sure I like some unoriginal flicks that might have some gore and I also like some character horror movies that are light on blood. “Cry Wolf” came out a couple of years ago and it is essentially a film that copied off of the original April Fool’s Day and it is just as sloppy but I didn’t expect the end gag. This film had the balls to use the exact ending. 

      One by one the characters get knocked off in some lame drowning from the inability to swim style scenes. The homosexual gossip columnist of the group gets fooled by a stuffed dog being placed in a swimming pool. He then jumps in the pool saves the stuffed dog and then drowns. That’s fucking hardcore! It could all be a joke hence the title. 

      The cover art is bad, the script is terrible, the actors aren’t necessarily bad as their just required to be pretty and there is no charm to this film. I never felt empathy for anyone, there was no tension and I was never scared. There wasn’t one cheap jump scare attempt and the only time any of the characters showed any intensity was during the “look who the killer is” Scooby Doo ending.  The movie was easy to sit through as it didn’t look like junk visually but the screenplay was awful. Who gives a fuck about rich young people involved in a scandal? Middle aged soap opera viewers might but not me. I guess the film was about rich people getting there’s but the film abandons that being a redeeming value with the unnecessary bullshit ending. 

       I wanted to see about six gory deaths and the violence never was displayed and that is easily understandable being that this film was both a joke literally and figuratively. Watching a German scat video would be more interesting than watching rich people shit on each other. A neck slice and a gunshot is the reddest stuff you’ll see and it just wasn’t fun enough. What kind of audience was this made for? Don’t ever watch this movie. Couple nice looking chicks but that’s it. I’ll never watch it again. 

1/2 * 

-Russ Rutter