Blood Car (2007)
Directed by: Alex Orr
Written by: Adam Pinney, Alex Orr, Hugh Braselton
Starring: Anna Chlumsky, Katie Rowlett, Mike Brune
Blood Car (2007)
Written and directed by Alex Orr
Co-written by Hugh Braselton and Adam Pinney
In two weeks from now, fuel prices increase to an extortionate amount that ordinary folk are unable to run their cars, truckers can no longer afford to drive their lorries and thus all cars are abandoned on the streets and in ‘car graveyards’. Kindergarten teacher Archie Andrews is determined to create a fuel out of wheatgrass juice to power the engine in his make-shift laboratory in his apartment, but has little success. After accidentally cutting himself, blood drips into his experiment flask containing the wheatgrass and miraculously the engine roars into action. Convinced it’s a combination of the two ingredients, Archie continues to buy wheatgrass juice off lust-stricken Lorraine at the Veg-Table. However, Archie soon discovers that blood and blood alone is the key ingredient in making his motor engine purr. Soon he’s driving around the neighbourhood with onlookers gawping at his vehicle. Women flash and act sexually suggestively towards him, assuming he’s rich and dying for a ride in his car. Therein lies the problem. To run his car, he needs fuel…blood, but when animal carcasses fail to power is vehicle, he turns to the little old woman who’s just died and throws her into his home-made multi chopper in the boot, slicing her remains and liquidify her body to fuel his machine. With an unlimited fuel source in a high-priced oil society, Archie becomes hot property with the ladies and the FBI. How long can he continue before being found out?
Blood Car is a low budget, but hilarious black comedy horror from Alex Orr. Whilst the film is predictable, the pick-up lines Alfie spouts in order for his passengers to look in the trunk are inspired to say the least. The humour in this film has a British quality to it, being rather subtle in places and incredibly dark. No-one is safe from Archie, not even a pretty Blonde or a war veteran cripple. Anyone can be seen as fuel for Archie’s car… well, anyone except the kids he teaches at the local primary school, but they aren’t exactly off the hook either. There’s quite a bit of sexual activity in the film, most of which isn’t shown but definitely implied. Women are bonking their partners, or men they’ve just picked up, in abandoned cars in the car graveyards and Lorraine sketches her fantasies of performing fellatio on Archie. More indepth sexuality is introduced when Archie becomes involved with meat stall owner Denise, who even goes to length of giving Archie a golden shower. For me, the sexual aspect of the movie felt out of place, as it didn’t need to be referred to or implied in it’s many varied ways as it was.
The quality of the performances in Blood Car aren’t outstanding, but the film doesn’t necessarily require this. Mike Brune is perfectly adequate for vegan school teacher Archie, with his best performance given when luring victims into his shredder trunk of doom. Anna Chlumsky eagers to please Archie as doe-eyed vegan nerd Lorraine, who sits out her days at the Veg-Table, who I presume her best customer, Archie, is also her only customer. Man-eater Denise is played by Katie Rowlett, who appears to have ‘meat’ on the brain, as well as ‘two veg’. Supporting characters consist of a big burly car jacker who instructs Archie to drive into a gas station as they run low on fuel. Archie convinces the thug that he has more fuel in the trunk and waits for the moment to strike as the thug foolishly opens the car boot. Other supporting cast are a bit more goofy, such as the FBI agents. Whilst it is a comedy, some of the lines spoken by the FBI seemed a bit pointless and their characters could have been sharpened up a little to give an actual fear of being caught. Certain scenes with the FBI, however, bring some of the most shocking moments to Blood Car.
If you enjoy your horror over the top with a barrel of laughs, then Blood Car is worth a watch. It’s by no means as good a film as Some Guy Who Kills People, but it never tries to be anything more than it is. It’s blood-thrirsty, funny and shocking. What more could you want?
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