[usr 2.5]
Nine blood-soaked, ass-kicking tales of action and horror.
Brought to you by RLJE entertainment, comes a new collection of nine different shorts broadly addressing the categories of (you guessed it) blood, sweat, and terrors. A bizarre mix of fight sequences, minute horror, and gruesome low budget effects, there’s a bizarre sense of pride behind this project. The scrappy quality of each of these shorts gave me a small sense of pride to see the inventiveness of each short, although the quality overall varies greatly. It’s a trippy adventure meant for a very specific audience.
From the get-go, we’re treated to a horrific, action-focused, contextless story. In fact, that’s probably the common denominator: there exists little to no backstory on any of these. That’s just as well since the focus of these films resides on the action sequences. Different directors pull fighting off to different degrees, but once you climb past the heavy-handed dream sequences of the first two shorts it veers away from horror.
I had no idea such a thing existed, to be honest. I wobbled back and forth watching it because I found some of the shorts to be meaningless and not stylistic enough to really merit my continued attention. At moments I wanted to back out but I powered through the rougher shorts and found some gems. My list of gems (that I recall properly): “Flow,” “Express Delivery,” “Turncoat,” and “Empire of Dirt.” The best thing about this anthology is the challenge in these filmmakers to make their budget work. I consider it a celebration of cheap filmmaking as these action directors wax and wane in their attempts to strut their stuff. Overall, it’s a mixed bag but I ultimately felt this was a very niche material we can enjoy but will fall upon many deaf ears. Celebrate it as a triumph of ingenuity and potentially enjoy this insane fist-focused ride.
Available on VOD, Digital & DVD November 6th
