Movie Review: Blood Craft (2019)

March 27, 2019

Written by DanXIII

Daniel XIII; the result of an arcane ritual involving a King Diamond album, a box of Count Chocula, and a copy of Swank magazine, is a screenwriter, director, producer, actor, artist, and reviewer of fright flicks…Who hates ya baby?

Ol’ Grace (Madeleine Wade), your friendly neighborhood sex worker, heads back to her hometown after the passing of her pappy, Minister Hall (Dave Sheridan). Now you may think Hall was a peaceful, man o’ God sort, but he was anything but…in fact the dude was a full-on sadistic son of a bitch. Once there, Grace reunites with her equally damaged sister, Serena (Augie Duke)…and the duo start reminiscing about what a shit-heel Hall was. So, what do these sibs do to heal the wounds of the past? Why resurrect their abusive paternal unit via their legacy of witchcraft then torture his ass but good…as one does!

I’m gonna level with you up front boils n’ ghouls; Blood Craft kinda hit me harder than I though it would. I was definitely expecting some straight up horror biz/E.C. Comics style action from this pic…and I definitely got that for sure…but there’s an undercurrent of incest and abuse that can definitely play on the viewer, and adds a level of gravitas and psychological terror not often found in fright flicks of this kind.

Adding to that is the heavy toll the preternatural revenge takes on Grace…it’s not a straight up “just desserts” via ‘majik’ kind of affair, and Director/Co-Writer (along with Madeleine Wade) James Cullen Bressack has to be applauded for adding such weight to material that is basic “Spookshow 101” at it’s core…and to spice things up there’s some solid twists and turns presented along the way to spice up the preternatural proceedings.

Enhancing the overall experience; Blood Craft is beautifully lensed (courtesy of Cinematographer Nik Shaw) which adds a level of polish and aesthetics to the picture…what I’m trying to say is; they brought a sense of visual beauty to some very ugly material and made the whole thing extremely palatable!

On the negative side, the story for this one does a lil’ hopping around on the time line which can often kill the momentum a tad, as is the case here. It’s a delicate balancing act to keep the pace consistent, but while the flick takes a hit the story remains interesting and disturbing throughout.

If you are looking for a tale of witchcraft with some very real (and unpleasant) human cruelty than give Blood Craft a go; it’s well made and full of enough supernatural shenanigans to satisfy horror hounds!

 

 

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