BLOOD DRIVE
Automotive thrills, chills and spills await you in this new TV show. Wait… spills? Cleaner to aisle nine, please.
When episode five of Blood Drive features a sex virus, with crowds of the infected shagging themselves to death in oceans of semen, you’re left wondering if the series has climaxed early. And if you think that pun’s bad, wait until you see the show. Sarcasm, you have officially been replaced as the lowest form of wit.
Not that this is necessarily a bad thing in the case of Blood Drive, because the show is unashamedly grindhouse, revelling in the lurid tropes of the genre. Where once movies could be so bad they were fun, these days producers will happily make deliberately bad shows and films under the guise of “homage” or “parody”. Does this make them critique-proof? After all, what’s the point in highlighting cheesy dialogue and corny plots when these are the show’s raison d’etre? Instead you have to ask, “Is the show inventive enough to prevent it becoming the same gags every week?” So far, Blood Drive seems to be succeeding.
Blood Drive is basically Death Race 2000 with vampire cars (they use blood for fuel) competing in a scuzzy From Dusk Till Dawninfluenced near-future dystopia – nearly every episode has scenes that look like they’re taking place in the Titty Twister. America has been rent asunder by a frackinginduced earthquake (you get the feeling the creators chose fracking not for political reasons but because it sounds like “fucking”). An Evil Mega Corporation called Heart is in control of everything. And Blood Drive, created and compered by the odious Julian Slink (a goth ringmaster who looks like he’s escaped from Gotham), is about to go from underground cult to prime-time entertainment.
It revels in the lurid tropes of the grindhouse genre
Strait-laced cop Arthur Bailey (Alan Ritchson) is press-ganged into partnering with Grace d’Argento (Christina Ochoa) when he stumbles across the illegal races; he’s fitted with a chip that means his brain will explode if a) he strays too far from Grace or b) they come last in a race. Competitors include Fat Elvis; a squabbling middle-aged couple; and a posh Brit, the Gentleman. Meanwhile, Arthur’s cop buddy Christopher (Thomas Dominique) is imprisoned by Heart and subjected to pervy torture porn by a sex-crazed AI, Aki, whose hammer drill jerk-off technique will leave all men wincing.
Over the first five episodes the series manages to keep the OTT sex and gore amusingly fresh and inventive. Cannibalism, STDs, incest, psychedelic drugs and asylums all provide grist to the mill. The show also has fun with faux ads, comedy disclaimers and meta gags. The stand-out character by far is Slink, who quickly becomes the main source of satire; there’s a whole subplot in episode three about the network’s ideas for “mainstreaming” Blood Drive that must be based on the showrunner’s own experiences.
But can the series sustain the fun? Already by episode five an arc involving Heart and Grace’s lost sister is becoming central, and it’s not interesting. And while Arthur and Grace are fun in short doses, they’re not particularly engaging in terms of carrying a series. The torture porn goes on for too long, suggesting the show may continue to rely on such unsubtle padding techniques. And for a series about motor racing, the auto action is far from fast or furious.
Blood Drive is hardly finelytuned, then, but it’s accelerating off the starting grid nicely. Dave Golder