Blood Car

Do you worry about the price of fuel? If the price continues to rise, only the richest dudes will drive cars. Cars will regain their rightful place as ‘babe’ wagons. In this eco-friendly age where wheatgrass is the new cool, clean-cut kindergarten nerd Archie hangs up his teacher hat and goes home to work on a new invention – an car powered by the green slime itself.

Archie stops for supplies at the vegan store where a prim and proper bespectacled girl sells him wheatgrass while sketching artistic pornography (“your cum tastes like tofu”) under the counter. Across the yard at the meat stall is a more predatory chick whose intentions are more openly high-octane kinky sex. As they compete for his affection, Archie accidentally discovers that blood added to wheatgrass makes the engine work a treat. He even dispenses with the wheatgrass.

Archie is a vegan, so killing small animals causes him great emotional anguish. Even more when they won’t stay still. But having bagged a few quadrupeds there is even more anguish when he realises the car wants human blood or nothing.

Blood Car is a crisply-made, ultra low-budget movie that has been compared to the Troma films or those of Russ Meyer and John Waters. Low-tech special effects, bouncing bosoms, and hilariously tongue-in-cheek. For the first hour, I was spellbound by its audacity, the thumbing at convention, and never knowing where it was going next. The sight of Archie on a bike, wielding an axe and chasing two FBI men, reminded me of the luckless cyclist hero-nerd from Peter Jackson’s early movie, Braindead. But then it struck me. Blood Car was made by talented people who knew their trash movies. And good lighting. And good cinematography. But it was also a mish-mash of many styles. It lacks consistency. Acting is, at best, caricature. And for all the gore, sex and violence it still lacks bite. Political satire here entertains rather than protests. Blood Car’s limits are tamely within those defined by the Meyer and Waters it emulates. It has no real axe to grind against Hollywood as does Troma. It reeks of clever students showing off.

But although I was ultimately disappointed, I was still entertained for more than an hour. It was the low-brainer I needed after an overly-serious and slightly soul-destroying morning. Like the girl who flashes her tits at Archie to get a lift, and is then lured into the boot to see the puppies, I had been happily hooked. It would sound mean to say I’d been had. Even if it’s true. And, like me, I bet you want to look in the boot...