The debut feature from Albatross Films, Blood Oath is an indie slasher flick with high ambitions. Under the direction of David Buchert and a script that takes pieces of 80's slashers and blends them with a smidge of Evil Dead and a little bit Texas Chain Saw Massacre, this turns out to be an enjoyable little flick that's more entertaining and well done than a lot of current indie flicks tend to be.

It all starts in an oh-so-typical way as a couple drives out to the middle of nowhere to make out. Things are getting serious until the guy's ex-girlfriend calls and interrupts them (to which I say, "dude, how can you resist Tiffany Shepis' ample bosom?"). It's about to get worse for them, though, when it turns out a rag wearing nutcase sporting a scythe-like machete shows-up. He's quickly decapitated (an iffy effect that looks like cheap CG, which is weird since the rest of the movie uses practical ones) and, after fighting the killer off by hitting them with car keys, she's sliced across the stomach.

Cue title sequence. It's the first sign that the makers of Blood Oath really wanted to make their movie look good. Showing the inside of our killer's decrepit home, the credits are blended into the action on-screen (with names disappearing behind flowing curtains or being wiped off a bloody blade) and actually gives you something pretty cool to watch instead of boring black-on-white titles.

We're then introduced to two couples who are spending the weekend in the woods. There's Kevin (James Reynolds), his girlfriend Lisa (Natalie Hart) and the newly dating Beverly (Katie Vaughan) and Charlie (Roger Horn), who it turns out are the ex-beaus of the two we saw get killed in the opening scene.

Kevin tells the spooky story of the Krupp family - who supposedly made a deal with a witch to have children that ended with a car accident that killed them as well as split-up their newly born twins, one of which was deformed in the crash and may still be living in a cabin somewhere in the woods. Thinking it'd be fun to try and hunt down this cabin (which they don't believe exists anyway), the four set out to look for it little realizing that the story is true and our murderous twin is, in fact, stalking them (and knocking off a seemingly random group of fellow campers - one of which gets their face smushed on a tree and another who is B-movie stalwart Tina Krause, making a cameo).

It all leads to a finale set within the legendary cabin and it's here that Blood Oath really starts to hum. A competently done slasher flick up until this point, once the makers start taking their cues from Texas Chain Saw (by using some imagery from Tobe Hooper's classic including a slamming door, some decomposed corpses, and mad dash through the trees by Beverly) and kick around Horn's character a little bit is when the movie truly becomes twisted and worthwhile. It would've been great if the entire thing could've had this tone, but then it might've been a bit much to sit through.

Despite having the obligatory cameo appearances (Shepis and Krause) and characters that are somewhat hard to root for because they're so thinly developed, Albatross have made a better than average indie flick that offers enough bloodletting and winks at classic horror (the campfire tale references Sleepaway Camp and Happy Birthday To Me among others) to please us horror fans. And director Buchert even gets decent performances from his amateur cast with Hart doing a great job playing the tortured victim in the last fifteen minutes.

Visit the Official Website for more info. (Chris Hartley, 2/17/07)

Directed By: David Buchert.
Written By: David Meier Smith.

Starring: Natalie Hart, Roger Horn, James Reynolds, Katie Vaughan.