Bloody Murder (2000) — Triskaidekafiles

BLOODY MURDER

WRITER: Screenplay by John R. Stevenson

DIRECTOR: Ralph Portillo

STARRING: Jessica Morris as Julie
Peter Guillemette as Patrick
Patrick Cavenaugh as Tobe
Christelle Ford as Drew
Michael Stone as Dean
Justin Martin as Jason
Tracy Pacheco as Whitney
Lindsey Leigh as Jamie
Dave Smigelski as Brad
Michael Prohaska as Sheriff Williams
William Winter as Doug
Jerry Richards as Tom McConnell

QUICK CUT: A group of teens get together to fix up a summer camp, and learn a lot about their parents along the way.

THE MORGUE

Julie - A bubbly, friendly girl who loves the internet, and her dad, and her friends, and is so sorry she got mixed up in all this.

Drew - Julie’s bunkmate, and instant best friend. She’s dealing with some trauma in her past, and sometimes takes it out on others. But ah, I’m sure that means nothing!

Tobe - The guy who is sweet on Julie, and he’s a bit creepy and pushy about it. He also loves pranking. There’s always one in these movies, huh?

Jason - Julie’s current boyfriend, tends to hold a grudge, and totally not a summer camp killer.

Patrick - The man in charge, the lead counselor, and the kids’ boss for the summer. He runs a tight ship, and does his best to make sure the work gets done.

Trevor Moorehouse - Sir not appearing in this film.

Say it five times in the mirror, and Murder comes to get you.

TRISK ANALYSIS: Welcome back, Triskelions! We kick off the month with some more camp slashers, and this one is ALSO from 2000. This has kinda been the year for camp slashers for me, which makes sense, but it was not intentional. Let's see how this one stacks up to Camp Blood.

The movie opens up with Bill Anderson and his wife driving down a quiet wooded backroad, until the car runs out of gas. Bill shuffles off with the gas can to hopefully find a station not too far back.

Unfortunately, he runs into local urban legend, Trevor Voorhees...er, Moorehouse, who slices him up with a chainsaw.

HEY BILL DO YOU WANNA CHECK OUT MY NEW CHAINSAW AND HOCKEY MASK??

We jump some 20ish years to the present of 2000, with a group of kids heading to Camp Placid Pines so they can spend their summer as counselors there. The whole group is nitpicking the urban legend, much like I'm about to do to their movie.

They get to the camp and meet Patrick, the head counselor, and we introduce everyone in the usual clunky way. But get used to everyone's name being announced, because this movie is gonna do it A LOT.

Julie is our main character, and she gets paired off with Drew to bunk with. On the way back to the cabins, Jules gets accosted by the local Harbinger, warning her ominously that "Nelson has come back for revenge." …Okie dokie, thanks!

Night falls, and Julie sends her dad an e-mail. And lemme tell you, this depiction of late 90s internet usage is *adorable*. Movies were still tryin to figure out how to use it, and convey information (Still are, some might say) and this movie tries having the screen read in an awkward voiceover that sounds like it was recorded from the next room over.

There's some noise outside, and Julie gets scared by a man in a hockey mask...but it's just Tobe playing a prank. She goes from yelling at him to "Sure I'll come to the lake! :D" real fast.

Everyone gathers around the fire, and to have some fun, they decide to play Bloody Murder, which is their own variant of hide and seek.

After Jason pranks a rival counselor, they end the fun and games, with Julie being angry at her boyfriend. He promises to apologise in the morning, but unfortunately he goes missing overnight.

Making your character named Jason go missing as a red herring is very on the nose for a camp slasher movie. But, I do like playing into expectations.

They spend some time establishing Dean as a jealous ex boyfriend of Whitney. He catches her making out with his best friend, so more red herrings.

Later, it's time for movie night, and Whitney sneaks off to get something to eat. Sadly, she won’t get her snacks, as she runs into the killer.

Patrick actually calls in the cops this time, the sheriff questions the kids, and we find out precisely what level of film nerd Tobe is. He knows precisely how long the movie they watched is, the exact scene someone stepped away from the movie and when it ended. Oh the autism is strong with this one.

The cops take Dean away for further questioning, and all of this is really bothering Julie. She's dealing with the recentish death of her mom, and now all her friends are disappearing! So, she heads up to the solitude of the lake to think.

Drew joins her, and has her own tragic backstory to share, about her father dying at the start of the movie. This allows the roomies to bond and totally not be gay about Julie saying Drew's toes are beautiful in a totally hetero way.

"Hey, do you mind if I trauma dump my tragic backstory that will in no way have a bearing on the plot?" "OKAY! :D"

Julie runs into the Harbinger again, who tells her to ask her father what happened to Nelson. So she shoots off another voiced mail.

She soon gets a reply back, but her dad doesn't remember anyone named Nelson. Just a case of mistaken identity, I guess!

Meanwhile, the movie remembers it's a slasher film, and has another of the counselors get killed, this time it's Brad getting marked in the back on the archery range.

With that disappearance though, it clears Dean of the other disappearances, and the sheriff brings him back. The cop vows to find Jason and bring him to justice. Because obviously it's a summer camp so the killer has to be Jason and HEY.

The self awareness is cute, and not quite as in your face as certain other slasher franchises can make it.

Drew invites Julie down to the lake to join her for a swim, in a totally hetero way. On her way down though, she gets followed by the man in the hockey mask and overalls.

She sees the stalker and runs for it, flagging down Dean as he tries to leave. The sudden stop causes him to get a flat, so she hikes back to camp, while he fixes it and gets murdered.

If I had a nickel for every time this year I saw someone use a garden rake to kill someone...well, I'd have two nickels.

Julie finds the Harbinger's cabin, and after judging his living arrangements, sneaks inside and finds a photograph of her dad and Nelson and other campers. Once she's back at camp, she calls dad to try and figure out what's going on.

Dad doesn't pick up, so she does her own research on the internet. Fortunately, using search back then didn't suck, and she finds out Nelson was a student who died playing Bloody Murder. And then she gets recommended videos on alt right conspiracy theories.

Julie heads down to the office to try and use the phone there, since the one in her room is now no longer working. On her way there, she gets jumped by someone, who is eventually revealed to be Jason himself who has been hiding out since Dean threatened him to stay away or he’d tell Julie he saw Jason with Whitney. This is not helping your alibi, my friend.

So she calls the cops on him, and they drag him away. The sheriff declares that should be the end of trouble in Camp Placid Pines. And dude, lol, not with thirty minutes left to go, it aint'.

When Julie wakes up the next day, things get back to normal and everyone works to get the obstacle course set up, because nothing is wrong, and the camp is TOTALLY opening up soon.

Tobe uses the opportunity to hit on Julie, who he has been horning over the whole movie, and, dude. Not the time. Besides, she has Drew. Read the room.

After the rope Julie was climbing is sabotaged, the movie sneaks in another bit of murder to keep the body count rolling, using a lawn dart. There is a reason these were recalled, you know.

Drew helps patch up Julie after her fall, and she tells Drew how great it's been to be friends over the summer, just a couple of gals being pals.

Julie's dad arrives, and she introduces him to the new bestie, Drew. Patrick asks Julie for a bit of help, and she rushes back to her cabin to grab something, while Drew gets to show her future father in law around.

While in her cabin, Julie puts a few things together, and figures out that Drew must be the one responsible for all the weird happenings going around. She rushes down to the lake, believing her father to be in danger.

She runs into Tobe and tells him to call the cops, and everyone scrambles around to make it seem like things are happening.

The movie goes OUT OF IT'S WAY to make Drew seem sinister, as she sends Julie's dad to the end of the dock for the view, and someone pushes him in the lake.

I guess you could say that Julie..*drew* the wrong conclusion.

As Julie confronts Drew, she tries to explain how mistaken Julie is, and the real killer sneaks up behind Julie. So...we can still be besties, right??

There's a bit of a chase, and Julie runs into Patrick, who reveals...HE is the killer, he is the one who has been killing all these people.

But most importantly of all...he's not Patrick. He's actually Nelson!

Daddy Ex Machina appears to save the day, and Julie runs off. Neltrick gives chase some more, and they end up back at camp. Julie tries to explain to everyone what is going on, but it all sounds a bit mad.

Fortunately, Drew shows up with a gun, and wings Nelson. But it's enough to slow him down for the cops to wander back around to this part of camp and take care of things.

They collect the bodies, rush the injured off to the hospital, and one of the other minor counselors asks Julie, see you next summer? Oh fuuUUUUCK no.

As we wrap things up, Tobe hits on Julie some more and dude, she is with Drew!! ...Sadly, not really, she actually is hooking up with Tobe. Which, considering his behaviour all movie long, is SUPER icky.

Oh, and Nelson reveals he isn't responsible for all the deaths, so there's someone else out there. And that someone kills Jason. Which...I kinda like that "Jason" is the last kill in a very clearly Friday the 13th inspired movie.

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: Not bad, a little soft, but about the norm for a late 90s direct to video release.

Audio: Good enough.

Sound Bite: “Your toes are beautiful."

Body Count: I feel like it’s lacking, but it’s an okay amount, at least.

1 - After two and a half minutes, Bill gets chainsawed in the dick by Trevor Moorehouse.
2 - Whitney gets knifed in the pantry.
3 - Brad gets marked with some arrows
4 - The killer slits Dean’s neck
5 - Doug gets a lawn dart to the chest
6 - Some dude named Patrick is hanging dead in the trees
7 - Jason gets killed by Trevor Moorehouse

Best Corpse: I really do like the lawn dart kill. It’s an iconic dangerous toy, and the flying dodgeballs are a nice whimsical touch.

Blood Type - D+: There’s a little bit of blood, but not too much. The movie plays things very PG. Most of the blood is in the prank against Brad.

Sex Appeal: Speaking of PG…

Drink Up! Every time someone says someone’s na…NO DO NOT DO THIS IT WILL KILL YOU.

Movie Review: This movie was okay the first time I watched it, but it has grown on me the more I’ve seen it. It has a very slow plot for the first third, but it still has a lot of fun moments. At some point, the constant name checking goes past annoying and becomes ridiculously sublime. It’s better produced than other low budget indie slashers of the time - looking at you Camp Blood - that the slowness giving you a chance to care about these largely likable characters, is a benefit. The acting isn’t going to win any awards, but it’s pretty good for a low budget flick. I am not joking one bit about the chemistry between Julie and Drew. They shoulda been queer. And the actor playing fake Patrick mostly does a serviceable job, but once the reveal hits, he has a blast, and there is a way he delivers the line, “You have me confused with someone named PatrICK” that will live forever in my head. So it’s a slow movie, but there’s a well crafted good time here. Three out of five dodgeballs.

Entertainment Value: Every time I watch this, I seem to forget just HOW MUCH they name check characters. I know I’ve hammered this point, but it really is ridiculous. There is a quaint charm to this movie, that’s part nostalgia, part seeing a genuine attempt at a slasher, and just some creative use of resources. Three out of five e-mails.