Blood Car (2007)
Reviewed by D.W. Bostaph
Starring Mike Brune, Anna Chlumsky, Katie Rowlett
Directed by Alex Orr
This world is fucked. Global warming is going to cook us all. Drug resistant bacteria and viruses are going to kill us. Animal species are disappearing from the planet at an alarming rate. The village idiot now runs the whole country, and the rest of the world hates us for it. Our food is tainted with shit, our toys are coated with lead, and gasoline prices have become so high that it costs us an arm and a leg each time we fill ‘er up.
Arm and a leg? You don’t say?
What would you do if you lived in a world where cars did run on such a commodity? Would you have the stomach to do what it took to survive? Getting to work would mean killing. Going shopping would require murder. A date would be to die for.
Taking a note from Jonathan Swift, the forces behind Blood Car use subtle satire and deftly nuanced humor to drive their point across like a sledgehammer to the crotch. Writers Hugh Breselton, Alex Orr, and Adam Pinney have envisioned a world where gas is over 30 bucks a gallon, and nobody drives because of it. This brings us to Archie Andrews. Vegan, idealistic, Archie wants to save mankind by creating an engine that runs off of wheatgrass juice. Working in the simplest, do-it-yerself lab in his home, Archie has not had much success.
Archie has to make runs to the local market to secure more wheatgrass juice. The market consists of two booths. One is full of veggie stuff, and Anna Chlumsky. The other is labeled “MEAT”, and is run by a local stuck on herself whore. Chlumsky plays Lorraine, who is infatuated with Archie, surrounded by vegetables, and very good at sketches of fellatio. Archie, too infatuated with his cause, is oblivious to Lorraine. Archie is, however, oddly attracted to the meat treat, Denise, but she considers herself too good to be bothered with the geeky likes of Archie.
The rest of the story is eerily similar to Little Shop of Horrors; Archie cuts himself making the wheatgrass engine. The addition of the blood makes the thing work and before you know it Archie has hooked up the blood engine (complete with giant blender in the trunk) to his car, and soon he’s on the road. He swings by the marketplace and the most amazing thing happens: the meat whore is all about him. One whiff of sex later and Archie is all but lost.
Car runs out of blood, bitch ditches Archie and Government goons arrive to just act stupid. The rest of the film is Archie the ultra-left-wing-eco-enviro-vegan-nutball’s inner turmoil between his convictions and his erection. Yes, my fiends, Blood Car is all about the lengths to which men will go to in order to be granted permission to revisit a woman’s love tunnel.
Director Alex Orr plays Blood Car as a series of sophomoric sight gags. This movie is rude and crude. Unlike Jonathan Swift, the narrative within Blood Car does not carry any real social message. The film is just too zany to be taken seriously, and when you understand that, then you have the keys to enjoying Blood Car. I had a great time just watching and enjoying the film. None of it really makes sense, and most of the jokes work, or at least the sight gags catch you off guard.
Orr and crew shock us a few times with depravity and black humor, but don’t expect Blood Car to be a blood bath. The effects are pretty simple, and the film is frugal with its guts and grue. The title is a bit of a misnomer, for Blood Car is just not all that bloody at all. There is a hell of a lot more tits and ass to be had in the backseat of this baby. I may be the only guy on the planet who thinks this, but Anna Chlumski is kinda geek hot. There I said it. Movin’ on.
Speaking of Ms. Chlumski, the former My Girl star does a serviceable job in her role, as does the rest of the cast. There’s little to be said in critiquing Blood Car because it is just so silly that paying any real critical attention to it seems even more likewise. I just found myself having a blast watching the film. There is nothing really special about it, and maybe that is Blood Car’s biggest sin. Maybe if they had just done a bit more with it. Tightened it up here or there, and spent a bit more time developing the look of the film, it would have been a genre classic.
Blood Car is not the best movie in the world. The idea is there, the execution is mediocre, but the sheer whiz-bang of it all just won me over. It will not please or appeal to everyone. All I can say is that it was a bloody good time. More of a curio than a classic, but fun nonetheless.
3 1/2 out of 5
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