Worth: $9.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Xavier Samuel, Morgan Griffin, Tess Fowler
Intro:
...solid but unspectacular fare that will be all too familiar for genre regulars, but still provides a thrill or two.
Crime novelist Vincent’s (Xavier Samuel) first book was a smash hit – and was based in part on the murder, as yet unsolved, of his wife two years previously. Perhaps that’s why he’s having so much trouble making progress on his follow-up book. Worse, he’s being harassed by a private detective (Rob Macpherson), who thinks that he had something to do with his wife’s death, and stalked by a mysterious hooded figure. It’s possible that a retreat to a remote country house with his new girlfriend, Carrie (Morgan Griffin) in tow, might be just the tonic he needs. Then again, this being a fairly rote example of Australian Gothic cinema, that might be just the place for everything to come to a head, complete with ghosts from the past, dark family secrets, and the odd bit of grim murder.
As a thriller, David Pulbrook’s (Last Dance) latest offering is pretty perfunctory. It’s competently directed and realised on what is evidently a fairly limited budget, which accounts for the low number of both characters and locations, but the script isn’t dexterous enough to overcome those handicaps. Bad Blood is heavily predicated on a surprise reveal that we won’t be callous enough to expose here. In the context of the film, it works a treat; the problem is, outside of that surprise, there’s not a lot left, narratively speaking, to keep the viewer engaged. Surprises only work once – there’s not a lot of re-watch value here.
Which doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not worth looking at once. Samuel and Griffin, last seen together in the B&S Ball rom-com Spin Out, both give good performances, with Samuel in particular stretching himself to play the frustrated writer who may or may not be a murderer – and who may or may not be cracking up. For her part, Griffin makes for a good Final Girl – even though, in this scenario, she’s almost the Only Girl – in the film’s last act.
Indeed, putting Griffin at the centre of things might have made Bad Blood a lot more effective as a thriller. Instead, we drift from Vincent’s perspective to Carrie’s as the film progresses and the plot demands, which feels like undisciplined writing. It’s easy to imagine a tighter version of the film with Carrie as our sole POV character, and Vincent by default a more suspect and menacing figure.
Ultimately, your enjoyment of Bad Blood will depend on your generosity as a viewer. It’s solid but unspectacular fare that will be all too familiar for genre regulars, but still provides a thrill or two.