OVERALL
BLOOD
BEASTS
BREASTS
Aka: Dream Slayer
Directors: Robert Angus & Alan J. Levi
Writers: Frank Avianca & James Fargo
Cast---
Donna Wilkes ... Marion
Richard Jaeckel ... Frank Hauser
Antoinette Bower ... Bea (Marion's Mother)
William Kirby Cullen ... Joey
Dane Clark ... Sheriff Gibbons
Lenny Montana ... Skipper
Frankie Avalon ... Paul Foley
Runtime:89 min
Writers: Frank Avianca & James Fargo
Cast---
Donna Wilkes ... Marion
Richard Jaeckel ... Frank Hauser
Antoinette Bower ... Bea (Marion's Mother)
William Kirby Cullen ... Joey
Dane Clark ... Sheriff Gibbons
Lenny Montana ... Skipper
Frankie Avalon ... Paul Foley
Runtime:89 min
BLOOD SONG (1982)
Some slasher films are made to be studied dissected and praised. Some are made to be forgotten, and
this picture fits in the latter category. If you are scratching your head right now, wondering why you've
never heard of this movie, the reason is that it isn't a very good one. In fact, it is downright ridiculous at
times!
A young boy watches his father blow his own head off after killing his mother and her lover, and
laughably decides to grab a flute and play a ridiculous tune as he stares at the massacre. Needless to
say, the film so does not get off to a good start. A bunch of years later, the boy has grown into a man
and violently escapes from the mental hospital that housed him for most of his life, apparently. The killer
is played by Frankie Avalon (yeah, the same one you're thinking of from all those beach party movies)
and he is as believable a killer as Sammy Davis Jr. would be. He gets mad whenever someone touches
his flute, because his daddy made it for him and it’s very delicate. We then meet Marion, a young
crippled girl with an abusive father. Richard Jaeckel plays the drunk, abusive father, which is a stretch
for him, but he does a nice job with the one-note material. It turns out that Marion and the killer share
the same blood, because during an operation she needed a transfusion and only a patient from the
local mental hospital (guess which one) had the right blood type. They also share an apparent psychic
link.
He hitches a ride with some guy and kills him when the guy makes fun of his flute. He picks up a girl
and kills her after screwing her and finding out that she also hates his flute. Marion runs into him in the
woods while he buries the body and he chases her but she manages to escape with the help of some
albino kids. The killer tracks her down using his wily charms and tries to avoid the police at the same
time. He starts stalking her and she continues to deal with her suspicious, drunk father and a boyfriend
that won't believe her. There is a lot more boring, family bullshit that I will leave out in favor of getting to
the good stuff...or at least the better stuff. The killer breaks into Marion's house and hacks up her dad
with a hatchet. Marion sees this and runs to get help. She loses him in what can only be described as a
logging factory. He plays his flute and she spots him, dumping a barrel of dirty water on him HOME
ALONE-style, that does nothing to slow him down. She pick-axe's him in the stomach, but that doesn't
stop him either, it just "really hurts" him. He finds her hiding in a pipe and she stabs him in the hand with
a fork or something. She escapes and the chase continues.
Meanwhile, the cops get to Marion's house and find the body of her father. They know there is a
maniac on the loose and all the men are put on alert to find Marion and the madman. The killer grabs a
forklift back at the factory to track Marion down faster, and runs down an innocent employee of the
factory who has shown up to check on the machinery. Marion escapes onto a high stack of plywood
pallets, but he uses the forklift to bring her down. She smacks him in the face like wildcat, causing him to
lose control of the forklift which knocks her off. The forklift crashes through a wall and tumbles into the
icy water below. Marion is found and taken to police headquarters. The inexplicable psychic connection
lets her know that the killer has survived and has hitched a ride with Joey, her boyfriend, who is headed
out of town. Later that night, he shows up at her bedside, dressed as a doctor. Joey is presumed dead,
and now so is Marion.
The fact that the killer's hang-ups and psychosis revolve around that stupid flute makes this film a
thousand times stupider than it should have been. Add to that a sappy story about a crippled girl and
some lame love songs and you've got a recipe for disaster. The slow-as-old-people pace doesn't help,
either. The killings are sporadic and so was my interest in this film. This felt like a family drama more
than a kill fest. The last few minutes are when the film actually comes to life, but it’s too little too late. The
whole psychic link thing is wasted and the bloated family story line really bleeds the suspense out of the
movie. This is such a minor entry in the slasher genre that it is almost definitely worth skipping. The
alternate title for this film was "DREAM SLAYER"...go figure. And I'd like to meet the guy who hired
Avalon as Pauly the killer. I'd like to punch that stupid bastard right in the kisser.
-Jose Prendes
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