Blood and bore
Capable cast can’t overcome Blood Hunters’ standard and cheap story, special effects
In the annals of horror history, humans have been overrun by zombies, werewolves, aliens, ghosts and even a tire with psychokinetic powers. But seldom have the protagonists had to deal with as much dialogue and exposition as in Blood Hunters, the newest horror from Toronto’s Tricia Lee (Clean Break, Silent Retreat).
From the moment single mom Ellie (Lara Gilchrist) wakes up in hospital, not a scene goes by without some character rattling on about means, motives or monsters. (The fact the monsters are barely scary enough to warrant talking about is a separate problem.)
Ellie has a vague memory of a drug overdose, and more clear recollections of her son, Hunter (no relation to the film’s title), to whom she wants to return. She has no memory of having been impregnated, however, but wakes up with a very full belly. Clearly, this is more than just
28 days later ...
Ellie has a lot of questions, but all the hospital staff are dead. She manages to find fellow patient Henry (Benjamin Arthur), a medical worker with a secret agenda (Torri Higginson)
and a priest (horror regular Julian Richings) with an even more secret agenda — or it would be if he didn’t keep going on about it.
What follows is a pretty standard trapped-in-a-bunker story. The hospital is deep underground with a single exit that’s blocked by an impenetrable gate. The monsters — actors in bodysuits, they resemble nothing so much as really aggressive panhandling mimes — have a taste for blood and a fear of bright lights.
The actors do their best to invest Corey Brown’s headlong script with sympathy and a little gravitas, but sometimes it’s all they can do to draw breath. Special effects are spotty; a creature C-section scene notably cuts between the pregnant belly and the actor’s face, but never shows both at the same time. In Blood Hunters, talk isn’t the only thing that’s cheap.