‘Blood Dried Hands’ Review: Light on Horror, Heavy on Melodrama
Whenever I start a low-budget indie slasher with a runtime of well over 90 minutes, I approach the picture with trepidation. Most stalk-and-slash pictures don’t need more than an hour and a half to get the job done. A lengthy runtime often indicates the existence of superfluous filler that should have been left on the proverbial cutting room floor. In Jason Vandygriff’s Blood Dried Hands, the writer/director draws out the proceedings with unnecessary subplots that never pay dividends. Additionally, the picture is absent of any significant scares and dabbles in too many different genres to feel cohesive.
Blood Dried Hands plays out like this:
The film follows Sgt. Investigator Edi Sharp (Micha Marie Stevens) attempting to apprehend a suspected serial killer (Chance Gibbs) preying on young women in a small Texas town. As she draws closer to solving the case, Edi drifts further away from the family who loves her.
That plot crunch does little to betray just how fragmented the film is. The flick is part police procedural, part slasher, and part family drama. Yet it doesn’t execute effectively in any of those respective genres. Making matters worse, a series of supporting characters with absolutely no bearing on the plot pop up with regular frequency, complicating what should have otherwise been a straightforward storyline. Case in point: Edi pays multiple visits to an incarcerated killer who has nearly nothing to do with the string of murders she’s trying to solve. There’s no justification for that piece of the story. Its only identifiable reason for being is to grind the pacing to a screeching halt.
The film is overstuffed for no good reason.
The picture has a myriad of other issues. Scenes needlessly extend well beyond the point of monotony, adding nothing to the narrative in the process. Condensing some of the over-long sequences would have gone a long way toward securing greater audience investment, as well as improving the film’s pacing. With a runtime just under two hours, Blood Dried Hands crawls along at a terribly deliberate pace.
Further complicating matters, several of the key players are miscast. For instance, Edi doesn’t look or act the part of a police officer. She doesn’t display the body language or the mannerisms of a homicide detective. Making matters worse, her dialogue makes her sound like she has no clue what she’s talking about. A seasoned investigator knows how to profile a perp and can draw conclusions about what drives them based on their actions. Sharp’s investigative process involves making pop culture references and acting dumbfounded. It’s as if the criminal mind is perplexing to her. It’s challenging to invest in a character who can’t believably execute the basic functions of their job.
Blood Dried Hands seems to have a fundamental misunderstanding of how law enforcement works.
In another challenging exchange, Edi immediately assumes there must be a connection when she learns of the presence of bleach at two seemingly unrelated crime scenes. To her credit, the cases are related. But no detective worth their salt would jump straight to that conclusion based solely on the presence of bleach. Lots of people use bleach in the commission of crimes. Honing in on that like the cases are undeniably connected reads like a screenwriter’s impression of how law enforcement works. But it doesn’t do much to establish credibility with anyone who has seen even a couple of episodes of Law & Order.
Vandygriff’s script tries to add depth to the core characters by taking us inside their minds. But none of them have a proper arc. Edi is estranged from her family because she ignores her feelings and runs away from what makes her uncomfortable. But the closest she comes to any kind of resolution is admitting that she’s still sad about a devastating miscarriage. She doesn’t make any outward indication that she’s learned from the error of her ways. Nor does she demonstrate that she’s evolved. She just continues to pursue the killer. We are subjected to multiple conversations spotlighting her lack of emotional maturity, but there is never a moment where that piece of her arc pays dividends. It’s superfluous, adding precious minutes to an already overstuffed runtime.
The final insult is that this horror movie is far too light on scares. There are a couple of gruesome kills. But we know the killer’s identity all along. So, it’s carnage absent of any real atmosphere. I wish Vandygriff had focused more on tension-building tactics and less on character development that ultimately leads nowhere.
All in all, Blood Dried Hands is all filler and no killer. It’s slow, overstuffed, and appears tonally confused. If you are curious to seek the film out, you can find it on Prime Video now.
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‘Blood Dried Hands'
Summary
Pacing problems and a muddled narrative make ‘Blood Dried Hands’ a bore to endure.
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