Bloodtype Online

    It seems that 80's style horror is making something of a comeback of late. Whether this is down to the amount of remakes of flicks from this era, a desire to see the kind of stuff that some of us grew up watching or a combination of these I can't say for sure. Fact of the matter is though that it is damned popular right now, and that's just dandy with me as that is when I myself started watching horror movies. This brings me around to Brett Piper's Drainiac, which not only seems to be a loveletter to some of the cheesier flicks from the 80's, it also looks like the fecker was made in the 80's! Don't get me wrong though, as I say this in a genuinely good way. Drainiac reeks of the decade that fashion forgot, and more so than that it was a bloody good blast to boot. 

    After a short pre-credit sequence in which a homeless guy gets slimed up by some sort of slime, funnily enough, the focus of the story turns to Julie, who suffers from dodgy bad dreams and an even dodgier father. Her father has a penchant for buying crappy old houses in the hope of doing them up and selling them for a profit, and this weekend he is taking Julie with him to help on his latest acquisition. Of course, Julie is as happy as a pig with no shit about this, but she goes along anyway. It isn't until she gets there though that her father informs her that he has to bugger off into town to take care of some business, thus leaving Julie to do all the work. Never fear though, as her group of incredibly annoying friends soon show up to help, or hinder depending on your point of view, her cleaning. 

    This being a cheesy horror flick though you know that things aren't going to be straight forward, and they aren't, as the plumbing in this house appears to have a mind, and slimy-ass body, of its own. So before you can say Bob's your uncle we have tentacles, self-cleaning toilets and all sorts of other shenanigans going on. 

    It's all incredibly daft, especially towards the latter stages, but by crikey it is a blast. There's no real rhyme or reason to what is going on, you just have to sort of accept it, but that is just the style of movie it is. There's no grand proclamation to grandness, it just is what it is, and that's a dumb cheesy, and slimy for all accounts, B-movie. There's a perfunctory cast, who for the most part need a damned good punching in the laughing gear, who make stupid comments and stupid decisions whilst still finding time to flash a bit of flesh, in the case of Julie anyway. There's also cliches galore, but what does lift this movie up is the old school style special effects. There's no ropey looking CGI here, just good old fashioned hands-on blood, slime and trickey photography. Granted there is the odd moment that looks like a crappy acid flashback crossed with a Blondie video, for the most part though it is great to watch. 

    Now, I never saw the original cut of Drainiac, so to make any comparisons between this newly jazzed up 2008 version and the old version would be a little unfair. I will say though that the quality of this edition of the movie does bely its limited budget; it does look pretty good for the most part, and fans of this kind of movie will lap it up. 

    Overall I'll say that if you like glossy well polished horror flicks that give you all the answers, make perfect sense and have no soul you'll no doubt hate this. If, however, you dig the kind of movie where you can tell that there is a lot of passion behind it and is there for the fun of it I recommend you check out this demonic little movie; dumb but quite a bit of fun. 

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- Jude Felton