My Little Cheer-gina

Varsity Blood Review

Varsity Blood

There have been plenty of indie filmmakers who have tried to recapture the glory days of slasher films, over the past couple of years. Some have been rather successful, creating entertaining little flicks with the little resources they’ve had, and some have barely hit the mark. Although it had all of the necessary elements, Jake Helgren’s Varsity Blood was one of the films that couldn’t quite nail the sub-genre.

Synopsis:
A pack of small town jocks and cheerleaders with a dark secret head out to a remote farmhouse for a raucous Halloween pasture party, only to find themselves up for slaughter by someone dressed as their high school mascot, an Indian warrior wielding a lethal fighting axe and a bow and arrow.

Varsity Blood had all of the genre tropes in tact — a masked killer, a diverse cast of young actors, a creepy back story, and a Halloween night setting. Unfortunately, films that have all of the proper setup can still turn out pretty bad.

The acting in this film was awful. I found all of the characters more annoying than anything else and I couldn’t understand the point of a lot of the scenes. This group of teens were supposed to be friends, but all they did was argue the entire time they were together. None of them seemed to like each other at all, so what the hell was the point of them partying together?

None of the actors were very believable and the story wasn’t very good, but there are some good things that can be said about this film. I did like the killer’s theme and outfit, and anyone who is a fan of films like Slaughter High or the newer slasher, Don’t Go to the Reunion, can appreciate the high school setting and feel of the film. I think having the killer dressed as the school’s mascot was a great idea and the get-up was a perfect fit for a slasher movie.

Another positive note on the film was the use of practical effects. I would have liked to have longer on-screen time for the gore scenes, and would have liked more kills in general, but the few times we did see blood, were pretty impressive. There was one scene where I noticed use of CGI (believe it or not, the only CG used in the film was for a gunshot), but everything else seemed like it was done traditionally and that is always a plus in my book.

If you’re a slasher fan and support independent horror, give this film a shot. It is a rather short film and you may enjoy it a bit more than I did. Varsity Blood is now available on DVD from RLJ and Image Entertainment.

I give this movie 2 escaped mental patients out of 5.

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