Best bad quote: "You can't kill me; I'm a cop! What the fuck you gonna do with body?"
I steeled myself for this one. I mean, come on. Just look at that cover up there. And the title. Seriously, it looks terrible. I expected to be miserable five minutes in. But, ten minutes in, Blood Gnome had kept me waiting. The movie had yet to descend into a sarlacc of suck. And, I kept waiting for the moment when my palm would meet my forehead in Picard-ian disbelief. I kept waiting for Blood Gnome to commence with the pain. But, as we took our journey through what looked like a colonoscopy image tunnel to where the credits finally rolled, I knew. It didn't suck. Hallelujah! It didn't suck!
Blood Gnome is a micro-budgeted film that works with its limitations, not outside or against them. A lot of micro-budget films have serious issues with sound and video quality that often render them virtually unwatchable. Though here it's painfully noticeable that you are watching a movie made with a tiny budget, the sound and video quality are excellent. The director/writer, John Lechago, succeeded in creating a polished finished product with very few imperfections.
Our hero is Daniel, a mumbly, awkward Bill Pullman look-alike. Though he may not seem like hero material, I found his absolute dorkiness rather charming. Having recently been put back to work after a stint in a mental hospital, Daniel accidentally captures a Ghoulie-looking Blood Gnome on his very sensitive infrared camera at two murder crime scenes involving BDSM. Knowing no one would believe him if he tried to explain without proof, Daniel decides to learn more about the BDSM angle of the murder while waiting for some special film for his camera. He calls gorgeous Divinity, whom he met at the scene of the first murder, to help him understand the BDSM world.
Meanwhile, we already know the villain from scene one. Elandra, Divinty's mistress, keeps a tentacled thing in a box, a thing that's possibly just a giant vagina with a bad case of dentata. This thing births the Blood Gnomes from its toothy vagina and Elandra extracts from the squealing puppets a potent substance that she sells to the BDSM community. The Blood Gnomes target those who take the drugs and engage in bloodsports in order to feed themselves and their mother. I assume. We don't actually see them really eat anything, just lots of hacking and slashing. But, I'll let that slide, because the Blood Gnome puppets are pretty cool. And creepy.
After the Blood Gnomes set Daniel up for failure at work by removing the film that allows him to see them before taking pictures at a crime scene, Daniel starts to spiral into insanity. His insanity is justified, however, as the Blood Gnomes are taunting him and just waiting for him to fall asleep so they can kill him. This sets up one of the most hilarious scenes in the movie, the first fight scene between the Blood Gnomes and Daniel. The Blood Gnomes threaten Daniel via Generic Instant Messenger (under the screen name blood_gnome) and he retaliates by stomping some heads. Literally. He even goes as far as to bash one in its non-existent balls. It's a great scene, full of plenty of intentional and unintentional hilarity. Soon after comes the final showdown, where doofy Daniel must not only destroy the Blood Gnomes, their mother and Elandra, but he must also save his love interest, Divinity.
The movie's biggest strength is probably its directing. As I've said, director/writer John Lechago works hard to make sure we get, at the very least, a watchable product- which is more than I can say for other low budget films I've reviewed. (Yeah, Skeleton Key 2, that means you.) Scenes with dialogue are always filmed up close to the actors' faces in order to compensate for, most likely, lack of proper audio equipment. The filming locations are small, as well- tiny rooms, usually- and thus the director focuses close on the actor in the scene. This gives the film a bit of a claustrophobic feel that I think ends up working to its advantage.
The writing is fairly tight as well. There is never an attempt to explain the Blood Gnomes' origins, and that ends up working as well. Any story we got would probably come off as insubstantial, idiotic, or both. All we need to know about the Blood Gnomes is already present in the film. The story is a fairly simple slasher. But, you know, with invisible killer gnomes who target the subset of the BDSM community involved in bloodplay.
If you are willing to give Blood Gnome a chance, I promise you will have a good time. Despite the ridiculous sounding premise, the film is fairly solid. And campy. We mustn't forget that camp is often what makes B-movies so fun.
Rating: 5 out of 5 Baby Blood Gnomes
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