Could have been SO good but... black and white?  Really?

"Blood Soaked" could have been a great cult film, if not for an incomprehensible directing decision. 

After an expository introduction, we are introduced to Piper (Heather Wilder) arriving at college with her mother. Piper meets one of the RA's, Ashley (Rachel Corona) and despite the fact that Piper has a boyfriend back home, there is attraction. Finally, during a road trip in the desert, Piper and Ashley give in the nature, share a kiss, and begin to talk about possibly being a couple.

But that's about the end of the good times for our heroines -- enter psychotic sisters Sadie (Laina Grendle) and Katie (Hayley Derryberry) who brutally (and I do mean brutally) attack them. Things go from bad to worse as we end up back at the sisters house -- turns out the sisters are not just psychotic, they are also Nazis and have created a bunch of zombies. 

Story-wise, "Blood Soaked" does almost everything right. The lead actresses are great in their roles, the story is nasty and never lets up and the story moves in ways that were unpredictable. However, there is a big problem. Just when the sisters attack, the movie -- for absolutely no reason at all -- changes from bright color to bleary, blurry black and white and stays there the rest of the film. There's no good reason for that --- maybe they saved money by not printing in color? Unfortunately, at the same time they stopped paying for color, they also apparently stopped paying for lighting, because not only is the last 2/3 of the film in black and white, it's so poorly lit that at times there just seems to be a series of gray things on the screen. This is especially bad in scenes where seeing what is happening is important -- for example, Piper is attempting a "MacGyver-style" trick on a phone, but it is impossible to see what she is going. It makes the movie virtually unwatchable. I have no idea what could have possessed the director to do this.

Also, as an aside, in addition to not paying for lighting, he apparently also stopped paying for a tripod. Because at times he flings the camera up and down and side to side... you think found footage films will make you queasy? You ain't seen nothing yet.

But all that would have been forgiven is if weren't for the decision to jettison color in favor of poorly lit fuzzy black and white. If the movie stayed in the crisp, clear color of the first third of the film, this would be an 8 or 9 for me. Now, at best a 5 and it kills me to say this because the story and acting is SO GOOD. I have to assume that the black and white was done in post-editing and can be undone. Maybe the director will read these comments and re-release the film in its original color. We can only hope.

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Blood Soaked

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