Starring: Nick Ashton, Neil McDermott, Oliver Boot
So meta I had to have a lie down afterwards. Blooded is a documentary about the kidnapping and torment of five friends in the Scottish highlands. It employs the talking heads of the victims themselves as well as dramatised re-enactments of the events at hand. Except they're all actors and none of it ever happened. Since the film doesn't tell you this, you can pass Blooded off as a real documentary and use it to confuse stupid people. Mind you, the guy from Eastenders (McDermott) is in it, so be prepared to bullshit some more. "Oh yeah, didn't you know? This actually happened to him before he joined Eastenders."
Blooded tells the story of five friends holidaying in Scotland. They're there to shoot some deer, drink some booze and propose to their ladyfriends. Some pissed off anti-hunting activists have other ideas though. The friends are kidnapped from their beds and transported deep into the Scottish wilderness, barefoot and nearly naked. And then the hunt begins. Blooded is not a true story, but Morrissey (Morrissey Smith, not Maynard) wishes that it was.
Although he may not be too happy about how sympathetically the victims are painted here. Sure, they're a very pro-hunting lot (the movie is in reference to the aftermath of the UK fox hunting ban in 2002) but you're meant to root for their survival. The activists, meanwhile, are too faceless and angry for their voice to be heard. As Lucas (Ashton/McDermott) refuses to bow to vegetarian sanctimoniousness, you certainly won't be cheering on his captors. I'm no fan of fox hunting, but I'm even less of a fan of bollocks extremism. By turning Lucas and co into the victims, the activists' message becomes lost.
The film is presented very cleverly, but saps the story of its tension or thrills -a big problem when you're selling yourself as a thriller. Four of the five characters are talking in retrospect as interviewees - so we as an audience know that at least four out of five characters are going to survive their ordeal. There's an initial hoot to seeing them wake up almost naked in the freezing cold Scottish wilderness, but this dissipates rather quickly. Blooded very effectively mimics the feel of watching a documentary in that I was bored after half an hour.
Now if you'll excuse me, all that talk of hunting and Morrissey Smith has left me starving for some Kentucky Fried Shit.
LOL thanx for the mention.
ReplyDeleteI guess I have to watch it now :)