My quick rating – 5.1/10. Being a fan of tennis in general, I obviously had to see what happens when someone decides the sport needs a horror makeover. Bloody Tennis wastes absolutely no time answering that question. The Shudder logo appears, followed by a bloody-faced woman on a tennis court during a night session getting absolutely drilled by a ball machine. Someone casually strolls over to drag her away, and off we go. Apparently, that’s just how tennis academy problems are handled.

Sophie (Sandra Guldberg Kampp) is dropped off at an elite tennis academy somewhere in Southern Europe, where she meets the other girls, an ornery old coach and the woman running the place, who immediately makes it clear that Sophie is approximately three seconds away from being told to fuck off. Her first assignment is basically win or go home, which seems like a slightly extreme version of the usual “work hard and believe in yourself” sporting philosophy.

The girls are subjected to some pretty damn evil hazing. There is some mysterious red shit everyone is drinking that immediately gags Sophie, and despite the movie’s willingness to explain plenty of other bizarre things, I don’t recall ever finding out what the hell that stuff actually was. I’ll go out on a limb and say some sort of blood smoothie.

They also confiscate everyone’s cellphones when they arrive, which is reasonable enough for an isolated academy full of sociopaths. Then someone has to physically carry a corded telephone out to the tennis courts. That’s when you know these people are serious about isolation. Forget putting the Wi-Fi password on the welcome pamphlet. These weirdos have gone full 1987.

Unfortunately, Sophie isn’t exactly easy to root for either. The one girl, Heidi (Helena Zengel), who doesn’t treat her like garbage from the moment she arrives, gets treated like garbage by Sophie anyway. It makes the protagonist’s journey somewhat difficult to get behind when I was occasionally thinking, “Well, maybe the evil tennis academy has a point.”

If you’re expecting a conventional slasher where someone methodically hunts down tennis players, Bloody Tennis isn’t really that movie. It’s considerably stranger, with a distinctly European feel courtesy of its German production. The final match in particular had me wondering exactly what the hell I was watching. The practical effects, however, look bloody good, with the movie putting its gruesome moments together without relying on digital effects.

I was also never entirely sure what the obsession with leeches was about. I understand that professional athletes have to be hungry for success, but I’m fairly certain the tennis circuit isn’t actually this dog-eat-dog. Or, in this case, person-eat-person.

Underneath all the blood and bodily fluids, Bloody Tennis is really a cynical look at the lengths parents and coaches will go to manufacture the next sporting superstar. It’s a dark bit of social satire about toxic sporting culture and the ridiculous pressure placed on young athletes to succeed.

The movie takes its horror seriously enough, but there’s still a horror-comedy lurking underneath it all. Whether intentionally or because watching a bunch of psychopaths run a tennis academy is inherently farking funny. It isn’t quite the bloody tennis massacre I was hoping for, but at least nobody can accuse it of playing a safe baseline game.

I just wish somebody had explained the red drink.