Bloodtype Online

    Using the Internet or Reality TV as a backdrop to a horror film is something that has been done to varying degrees of success. Movies such as Wrong Turn 2 and My Little Eye utilised these themes exceptionally well, whereas something like Halloween: Ressurection just induced a flood of tears, such was the effect of that incredibly poor installment of the saga of Michael Myers. So, I really didn't know quite what to expect from Death on Demand, I guess that I was expecting the worst, I hadn't heard of it prior to receiving it, and quite frankly that is a bad omen in my opinion. However, being the trooper I am I gave it a go. 

    In Death on Demand a budding entrenpeneur has the wacky idea of broadcasting a live webcast from the house of a deceased murderer. The murderer in question, Sean McIntyre, was a mountaineer who after freaking out and killing his party on an expedition, returns home only to kill his family before hanging himself. 

    Can you see where this is going yet? 

    For the said webcast six individuals, or three couples, have been gathered to spend the night at the aforementioned house. Here they will been given clues, in a sort of treasure hunt, that will in turn guide them to the key and ultimately the exit from the house. The couples in question consist of one in which the girl is a wannabe psychic and her boyfriend is a football team dropout, another consists of a football player with problems in the sack and his beleagured bimbo of a girlfriend, and the final team of a semi Goth girl and an invited pornstar, whom I might add has an added cash incentive for everyone she gets down and dirty with. No really likeable characters here. At all. Not to worry though, this is a slasher flick, with supernatural overtones, anyway, so maybe we'll get a few decent deaths. 

    Oh, did I forget to mention that the entire local college campus, which consists of about ten students is watching? Well I did now, and apparently even though the couples particapting in this show can't escape the rather bland looking house, some of the students do mangae to find an open window which would be quite easy to escape through. 

    So the game commences, and before you can shout "holy shit, is that a psychotic mountaineer?" the murders begin. And, to the filmmakers credit they are for the most part quite gruesome, with all manner of innards being thrown around. I will say that there was a quite nice choice of weaponary involved which results in some quite cool death scenes. This is really about as good as it gets though, as aside from the murders and a few other fairly decent effects, there isn't an awful lot going for this movie. 

    Now, I can appreciate that it is a fairly low budget movie, but, apart from the characters being bloody annnoying, the acting was pretty dire throughout. If it was intended that the cast completely overact, or underact depending on your point of view, then it was lost on me. The only member of the cast that really stood out was Jerry Broome, who played McIntyre, and that was just because he played the part of the killer with a certain amount of conviction. 

    Death on Demand is a slasher flick, so I wasn't expecting anything too taxing on the old brain. I would have liked a little tension to have been built up, and not a case of who is going to get it next, ok lets send them to a place where it is obvious they are going to die, but no one will here the screams in this seemingly sound proof house. 

    This movie is predictable, has terribly inept acting and an ending that just defies belief in its execution. It does contain some cool deaths and nice looking gore though, so if gore alone is your thing you might enjoy it, but I doubt it. 

**

-Jude Felton