Blood Creek

Blood Creek is another one of those movies that was shot for a theatrical release, but wound up being short-changed by the studio. Though in Blood Creek’s case it did get shown in a couple dollar theaters before it’s DVD release, oddly enough. Maybe there was a contract that needed to be fulfilled. But in any case, director Joel Schumacher did a good job with the material, and it’s a well-shot flick. Though the story itself is going to be a little too convoluted for many viewers.

The movie opens with a black and white sequence that shows a German-American family named the Wollners, living on a farm in West Virginia, just a couple years before World War 2 begins. The Wollners play host to a German Officer who came to their farm to study an ancient Viking rune stone, set into the foundation of their farm. The officer, Richard Wirth, plans to use the stone both for the Nazi cause and to obtain immortality.



Cut from there to modern times. A paramedic named Evan Marshall is having trouble moving on with his life after Victor Marshall, his war-hero brother, disappeared two years ago. But then one morning Victor suddenly shows back up in Evan’s bedroom, shaking Evan awake. Victor’s covered in blood and wounds, and the first thing he asks is for Evan to go get their guns. Soon, Evan and Victor travel to the Wollners farmhouse, where Victor has been held all this time. It turns out that Wirth is still alive, and he’s kept the Wollner family frozen in time with black magic, all so that they can help him complete a process to make him immortal. Which, as it so happens, involves torturing random victims over the course of many, many years.

Hope you got all that, because the movie is even more complicated than it might sound.



But to give credit where it’s due, once Blood Creek gets going it never lets up. The Marshall brothers and the Wollner family soon find themselves in a siege situation with Wirth, who has grown pretty damn twisted over the years. And while he can’t get into the house due to protective runes, he can still control dead men and animals, and send them in to attack. So yeah, we’re given the familiar horror tropes of the siege, the torture, and the living dead. But there are some other new ideas in there as well that I won’t spoil here.

I will, however, say how great it was to see a zombie horse crash through a window, bite a character in the shoulder and drag him outside. And then smash back into the house and attack the other characters. I never knew how much I wanted to see that on film until it actually happened, and I thank Joel Schumacher for it.

But of course, it still doesn’t make up for what Joel Schumacher did in Batman Forever. It’s kind of doubtful that anything ever will. Though with Blood Creek, it’s good to watch Schumacher make the attempt.



- Nate