There’s great virtue in knowing what you’re about, and that goes for people as well as movies. That virtue is on display in co-writer/director Gabriel Bernini and co-writer Alexandra Jade’s Blood Barn, which delivers self-assured throwback horror fare. The story sees seven summer camp counselors head to an old barn to party down one last weekend before summer ends, only to run afoul of something supernatural that looks to make it their last weekend, period.
True to genre form, you have grown adults playing teens: There are the goofy manchildren Paul (Felipe Di Poi Tamargo) and Scott (Pierce Campion), jock bro Eric (Samuel Lanier), curly-haired sensitive guy Simon (Simon Paris), attractive it-girls Amanda (Bambina) and Rachel (Chloe Cherry), and finally shy Josie (Lena Redford), whose family’s barn it is. While the rest see the run-down barn as a place to party it up, Josie is haunted by traumatic childhood memories.
“…seven camp counselors head to an old barn for one last party before summer ends…”
At one point, while exploring the place, Scott and Paul stumble upon some old VHS tapes of B-movie horror flicks, and Blood Barn is a tribute to these bargain bin pleasures lost to time. It has stiff performances, canned line readings, stereotypical characters, bloody carnage, homey practical effects, people pulling all kinds of terrified faces as their bodies are mutilated, and a raucous soundtrack to go with all the screams.
Blood Barn isn’t a fresh take or evolution of the form. It’s an homage. It doesn’t aspire to be anything else, and it doesn’t aspire to be more, so all of this is part of the gag. Movies like this sink or swim on the confidence with which they carry themselves, and thankfully, Bernini has plenty. Blessed with great execution and plenty of sly winks, it’s a horror-comedy that wants you to laugh at it as much as laugh with it before it tries to gross you out, then freak you out. You know exactly what to expect from Blood Barn and the good news is that it doesn’t let you down and offers a gory-and-glorious grindhouse experience.
At times, Blood Barn will run at you with its pants around its ankles, eyes bugging and tongue lolling out of its mouth; then it’ll come at you with a knife between its teeth instead. It makes this short-and-sweet 80s horror throwback a wild ride with its inspirations clear and aspirations equally so. This isn’t some modern classic, but if anyone wants a whiff of that late-night channel-hopping, fuzzy VHS sucker-punching chaos, Blood Barn opens its doors to you.
"…a gory-and-glorious grindhouse experience."
