Blood Rage

Director - John Grissmer (False Face)
Starring - Louise Lasser (Frankenhooker), Mark Soper (Graveyard Shift II), and Marianne Kanter (Devil's Angels)
Release Date - 1987
Genre - Horror
Tagline - "This Thanksgiving it's not cranberry cause"
Format - Bluray (Personal Collection) (screener)

Rating (out of 5):

     Horror is and always will be my favorite genre.  I love em all for the most part from zombies, to comedies, and even the ones made for children.  They all offer up something different and unique while others simply bore me like giallo and Italian cannibal flicks.  However, what truly makes me happy is an 80s slasher that I have never seen before.  Lucky, for me there is hundreds out there that have never been release or had a limited VHS release and is sitting on a shelf somewhere until an agreement can be met.  One film that I was sent recently to review from Arrow Video was the 1987 slasher flick Blood Rage aka Nightmare at Shadow Woods.  Arrow has yet to let me down with a release so I was very excited to check this one out.  Thanks Arrow and MVD for sending this one my way.

     The film begins sometimes in the 70s with a single mother and her date attending a drive-in movie while her twin boys are asleep in the back.  When the couple starts making out, the kids seize the opportunity and sneak out.  They look around the property and find a hatchet and then find another couple making out.  They open the door and one of them hacks a young man up while his girlfriend watches.  He then covers his silent brother in blood and starts screaming pinning the murder on him.  We then jump forward some time and both boys are now grown up.  One lives with his mother while the other is locked away.  However, the good son that is locked away escapes and the news reaches his mother and the bad brother.  The bad brother uses this to his advantage going on a bloody rampage until the good brother can step in.
     There is nothing better than sitting down with an extra cheese pizza, a cold Blue Moon, and an 80s slasher.  I love the style, the kills, the casts.  I love everything about them.  I love even more when I find an obscure slasher that I had never seen before.  Blood Rage really impressed me and the Arrow release was even more impressive.  The acting in this one is definitely some of the better acting I have seen in a slasher from this time.  The cast works well with each other and are consistent throughout.  They all work well but the film's obvious star is Mark Soper who flawlessly plays a duel role in the film as the adult twins.  He is easily very convincing as the egotistical brother that has a blood lust.  He then flips the switch and breaks the viewer's heart as the mistreated brother that was locked away for a crime the other did.  He was amazing and easily one of the highlights of the film.  The story for this one is your typical slasher flick but with a bit of a twist.  That twist is obviously the twin angle which played out very well.  This is a simply slasher that was very effective and worked very well.  Finally, the film has several amazing kills that are fun, gory, and full of great practical effects.  These kills were amazing and really brought the film on home as an outstanding slasher.  Overall, Blood Rage is one of the better slashers to come out of the 80s and easily one of the most underrated.  The only way to watch this film if on Arrow's blu.  Watch it as soon as possible.