Overrated

Excellent but underrated film

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Off the bat, Lousie Lasser makes this movie. She plays the emotionally destroyed mother of twin sons who are severely screwed up. If you know anything about her history (and an infamous SNL incident that labeled her too crazy for showbiz), you know that the pain in her performance is real.She elevates what, on its own, is a gory and clever slasher film that is above-average for its special effects and brilliant plot twist. De Palma pioneered this premise in "Sisters" (and someone probably inspired him), but I've never seen it used with slashers and its a PERFECT fit. The film is cheap and limited, but the story and crew are fantastic. Its shot and scored well. Besides some story lulls, its a good ride. And the ending is the cherry on top: brutal, poetic and satisfying. Quite ahead of the time in its cynical 80s humor.This is a horror gem.

Being a sucker for old posters and VHS-covers, I have to start by stating that the cover image displayed here on the website does not correspond with the actual movie. The image is that of another movie named "Blood Rage", although that one is a misogynic exploitation/thriller from the year 1979 and directed by Joseph Zito; creator of "The Prowler and "Friday the 13th The Final Chapter". If you're interested, the most frequently seen poster for this "Blood Rage" features a Rambo knife with the reflection of a terrified and screaming woman in it. But anyways, on with the actual review… This obscure and initially shelved (between 1983 and 1987) '80s slasher may have an incredibly dumb storyline and may feature some of the most absurd plot-twists in cinematic history, but it's inarguably entertaining and delivers just what the target audience for this type of movies craves the most: extreme gore and gratuitous nudity! With sickening murder sequences and reasonably well-crafted make-up effects like these, I'm actually even surprised that the film wasn't released in 1983, as there definitely must have been a market for it. Who cares if the script is retarded when blooded machetes are fiercely swinging and chopped off heads are joyously rolling, right? Somewhere in the seventies, during a night out at the drive-in with their mother and her latest lover, the twin brothers Todd and Terry decide to go for a little walk between the cars and look at couples having sex. For no apparent reason, Terry hacks up a guy's face and then quickly puts the ax in the hands of his brother who is just standing there looking stupid. Todd spends the next ten years in a mental asylum (although his mother refers to it as a "special school"), until he suddenly decides on Thanksgiving Day that it is time to escape and tell the world that he's innocent. When Terry learns that his brother is loose, he starts butchering the entire neighborhood in order to uphold the idea that Todd is a maniac. So, before you ask: yes, we are supposed to believe that Todd never bothered to deny that he was the killer for ten long years, or that Terry is perfectly able to control his maniacal tendencies the entire time but then slaughters all his friends and relatives without any moral constraints. The film also never undertakes any attempts to build up suspense or mystery, what with the identity of the killer revealed straight from the beginning and it doesn't feature that typical "which one of the twin brother is this?" sub plot. Instead, there are a lot of dumb dialogs and quotes, for example Terry who keeps repeating "it's not cranberry sauce" whenever there's blood on his shirt, and an incredibly over- the-top hysterical performance of Louise Lasser. The body count is high and the murders are nice & nasty, with plenty of machete action and severed body parts flying around everywhere. Director John Grissmer didn't do a lot of film work apart from this one. He made the good but obscure and underrated plastic surgery thriller "Scalpel" (a.k.a. "False Face") and wrote the early 70s psycho- thriller "The House that Cried Murder". By the way, the latter is playing at the drive-in theater during the opening sequence of "Blood Rage".

Made in 1983 but not released until 1987 until the title of Nightmare at Shadow Woods, Blood Rage is one of many forgotten slashers given a limited cinema run, only to be cut of a lot of its gore and released in various butchered versions on home video. Also like a lot of slashers, Blood Rage is terribly acted, badly written and features a plodding narrative in which we get to witness lots of boobs and blood- spraying. It's also an evil twin movie, beginning with two young identical siblings, Todd and Terry, escaping their car at a drive-in while their mum gets it on with a man in the front seat. Terry inexplicably hacks a young, dry-humping couple to death, wipes the blood on Todd, and blames his shell-shocked brother for the crime.Todd is locked away in a mental asylum, and years later, the grown up Terry (Mark Soper) is preparing for a Thanksgiving meal with his smothering mother Maddy (Louise Lasser), her new beau Brad (William Fuller) and his girlfriend Karen (Julie Gordon). They learn of Todd's escape and are soon joined by Dr. Berman (Marianne Kanter) and her assistant Jackie (Douglas Weiser) from the institute. Terry, seeing an opportunity to release his suppressed homicidal tendencies and frame Todd even more convincingly, embarks on a killing spree, stalking the estate and the surrounding wooded area with machete in hand, using his clean-cut mommy's-boy image to divert any attention from him.There's a clear oedipal theme running throughout Blood Rage, similar to but not to the same extent as fellow obscure horror (and video nasty) Night Warning (1982), but this is not explored with any care or intelligence. Decent slasher movies are extremely difficult to come by, and this is no exception. The horror is particularly gory, and alarmingly frequent, especially in the early stages. The make- up and effects (by Oscar winner Ed French) are also quite decent, but in between these moments are the same stretched-out chase scenes and clunky dialogue seen in a thousand films of its ilk. Soper is equally terrible as Todd as he is as Terry, but special mention must go to Lasser (who actually had a half-decent career), whose frankly bizarre performance is so awful that it may cause your ears to bleed. A true Thanksgiving turkey.

This flick is a special one. It's hard to find the full uncut version, it's only available on VHS so forget the DVD versions available. Even as they have the alternative title. All I can tell about this movie is that the storyline is ridiculous. After 10 minutes it's clear who's the actually killer. But what makes the movie worth searching is the amount of gory killings. If you have the DVD then all the gory moments are gone. On the VHS they are intact and worth watching. The acting itself is not that bad at all. The movie never had that much of promotion, but it is one to have in your collection if you still collect VHS. And as I have seen the other movie Blood Rage be sure to catch the correct one. The blood reign is in this one, not in the other one. So you know what to do....start searching. Oh yeah, and try to catch the movie they are showing at the Drive In, it's from the same writer....