If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

How sad is this?

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Like Lurking Fear, Bleeders is also inspired by Lovecraft's short story The Lurking Fear. Basic premise is taken from Lovecraft, but plot is completely different than both previous movie and original story. Although, this time it's pretty solid. Screenplay I liked a lot, movie not so much. I have no specific objections, it's simply that overall impression is white-livered. Decent entertainment for genre fans.5/10

Nobody's written a review of this for a while, but never mind, so here I go. Got this for £1 second hand in a charity shop. This still represents mediocre value for money. My version was on DVD and has the title 'Hemoglobin' rather than 'Bleeders' or 'The Descendant' as some reviewers here. I've no idea if the different titles have different cuts. The cut I saw was pretty bad. The producers of this must have thought they'd lucked out for a while- the cast's actually quite good (including Rutger Hauer), the location's great- a spooky Canadian Island standing in for New England, and a script by 'Alien' writers Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusset, borrowing heavily from HP Lovecraft. But the end product is naff.Where id it all go wrong? Well, the first rule of making a monster movie is make the bloody monsters scary. The second rule is make the bloody monsters scary. You get the idea. Well I saw these monsters and all I could think was 'I could kick their asses'. I'm not some macho meathead- I'm a 34 year-old nerd, but I could still kick those monsters' asses. They're weird inbred troglodytes descended from a family of 17th century aristocratic dutch perverts. They have messed-up faces and eat pickled corpses. They aren't vampires and can easily be harmed and killed by normal, conventional means such as knives, guns and boat propellers. They have strong arms, but move about by shuffling along on their butts because they DON'T HAVE ANY LEGS. Yep. The 'terrifying' creatures in this movie are all seriously disabled and stalk their victims by walking on their hands and shuffling along on their asses, at a crawling pace. Plus they're deathly afraid of strong light. Their only weapons are small, stubby daggers made out of scraps of bone. The villagers, meanwhile are tooled up with a wide variety of high-powered firearms (that they somehow can't shoot straight) and have access to an endless variety of blades and blunt implements (that they somehow choose not to use). Seriously. If I was in this movie, I'd have just sat in the lighthouse and shot the freaks one by one as they struggled to climb the stairs. Even if I ran out of ammo, I could just throw heavy objects at them. If I ran out of heavy objects, I could still smack them on the head with a big stick as they butt-shuffled slowly towards me. If they broke the big stick, then I could still kick them in the face before they could reach me. they'd have to bite my foot off before they'd even stand a chance. The average 10-year old could beat up a dozen of these with a bit of effort and imagination.In short, these poor creatures are actually considerably less threatening than the average dairy cow. They aren't scary monsters, they're just very sick, profoundly disabled adults. Watching this turkey, I felt more sympathy than fear for these unfortunate individuals. They do not make the grade as antagonists of a monster movie.Sadly, this film isn't quite bad enough to make it an ironic comedy in the vein of 'Plan 9 From Outer Space'- or 'The Room'. It's just a bit rubbish.

Now I won't say this is an excellent Lovecraft adaptation, but I will say this is a decent horror-drama based on a Lovecraft story (called "The Lurking Fear"). The acting was okay, with Rutger Hauer and leading lady Kristin Lehman being among the best of the cast. The story developed at a slow but satisfying pace. There was one jump-scene that actually worked (the arm bursting through the widow's coffin). The mutant inbred-crawlers were creepy (some of them were real amputated people as actors with monstrous make-up). And there's a pretty redundant, but nonetheless steamy and mildly exciting sex-scene near the end. Some children were even killed in this movie! And the ending is slightly sad or tragic or whatever... This film is known in Europe under the title "Hemoblobin", and I honestly don't understand that very low rating it has on here. You guys should try watching some of the real crap out there.

How many movies out there scream "Cheesy," huh? Just looking at those reviews about how fake and how bad this whole movie is makes me want to see this for myself! "Bleeders" is such a notable example of a really bad, really horrible, yet good in the terms of "entertaining, because everything reminds me of 'Manos: The Hands of Fate' and 'Future War'" kind of thing! I also love how, despite the age of this movie, it went straight underground to the point that this movie is long forgotten! If "Mystery Science Theater 3000" were ever to come back, then this is a great film to show on that show! Until then, this is a true 10 star movie and very much so! "Bleeders" - it'll make you "not" go to bed for the rest of your life! Spooky!