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2006 - 73m.

After debuting with the eccentric I'll Bury You Tomorrow, writer-director Alan Rowe Kelly returns with The Blood Shed and even though he's decided to tread amongst the tried-and-true sub-genre of "psychotic hillbilly family" his script's satirical bent and outrageousness pairs perfectly with a great cast who attack their roles with aplomb. This makes it a highly entertaining 73 minutes and, while it does degenerate into sometimes hard-to-swallow chaos in the finale, it packs in enough morbid laughs and competent gore to make it recommended viewing.

This is the tale of the Buillon clan and the first image to pop on our screen is of girl-in-a-grown-woman's-body Beeftina (our good director in drag wearing a Sunday dress) as she pulls along a dead squirrel tied to a makeshift cart. Seems that the Bullion's have a reputation around town of being the local in-breds who are partly retarded and live in a run-down shack in the middle of the woods. Let's just say you've never met a family quite like them - this is possibly the winningest cast of redneck psychos to populate this type of film and is much better realized than the ones in such outright garbage as Skinned Deep.

We get to meet the rest of the clan when her brothers, Hubcap (Mike Lane) and Butternut (Joshua Nelson), show-up to help their sister deal with a young bully who's been calling their sister names and has thrown her trusty pet "Flapjack" into the stream. As they're a clan who love to play games they decide to use said bully for a nice game of "Tug 'O War" with bloody results.

Upon returning home they have to hide the body from their parental unit, Papa Elvis (Terry M. West) with the help of their cousin, the pig-tailed Sno Cakes (Susan Adriensen). Papa rules over the house with an iron fist and the rest of The Blood Shed is completely over-the-top as the family attempts to cover up the murder, go squirrel skeet shooting, rip the testicles off the local sheriff with a wrench, take a side-trip to a modelling agency recruitment because it's Beeftina's dream to be a model (only for them to take the people involved with it hostage when things go wrong), and have one of the most f*cked-up birthday parties ever committed to film.

When it comes to indie movies, I've pretty much seen them all, and that's why I truly appreciate what Kelly's been trying to do with his movies. This isn't your typical cheaply done vampire or slasher movie that litters the independent horror landscape, this is a movie that balances a great tone with top notch acting and stylish direction. Kelly really does show a talent for setting up some interesting shots here and keeps the camera moving throughout, this works even better when you pair it with production design that is all about the small details (I like how even the most insignificant seeming thing, such as the fact Butternut is wearing an orange Prison jumpsuit, blends perfectly with the feel of everything else) and the fact that Kelly's script succeeds at blending dark humour with stomach-churning violence.

Of the cast, non-mainstream horror fans are most likely to recognize West as he has become a pretty well established actor, writer, and director of such genre fare as Blood For The Muse and Flesh For The Beast. He turns in a solid, perverse performance as the clan leader, but he has plentiful competition from his co-stars as Kelly nails the "woman-child" aspect on the nose while Lane and Nelson have, what looks like, a great time playing off each other as the none-too-smart male siblings. And we can't forget Adriensen's contribution as she makes her character a mix of lisping idiot and slutty sexpot.

If you're looking for an offbeat, off-the-beaten track way to spend an evening then you owe it to yourself to pick-up a copy of The Blood Shed. I know I can't wait to see what Kelly can come up with next and, after seeing this, perhaps you won't be able to either. (Chris Hartley, 1/30/08)

Directed By: Alan Rowe Kelly.
Written By: Alan Rowe Kelly.

Starring: Alan Rowe Kelly, Terry M. West, Joshua Nelson, Mike Lane.


DVD INFORMATION
Heretic - October 30, 2007

Picture Ratio: 1.77:1 Widescreen.

Picture Quality: As with most of Heretic's discs this looks perfectly acceptable for an indie flick. It is a tiny bit fuzzy at times but it sports decent clarity throughout and doesn't suffer from any grain or compression issues, that I noticed anyway.

Extras: The pickings here are fairly slender but they aren't too bad. We get a trailer, nine minutes of behind-the-scenes footage (listed under "trailers" for some reason), throwaway filmographies, and a fairly entertaining group commentary track with Kelly, co-stars Herry Murdoch and Katherine O'Sullivan, DP Bart Mastronardi, and composer Tom Burns. Visit Heretic Films for more info.