My quick rating – 1.2/10. Every now and then, a movie comes along that challenges the very definition of the word “movie”. Blood Rush not only challenges it – it straight-up denies it, spits on it, and then trips over itself while trying to run away. Clocking in at 64 minutes, this thing barely qualifies as a long TikTok, which is honestly why I picked it. Short runtime? Check. Troma distributed? Check. A promising mask tied to a serial killer named Bryan? Well… technically check. But once the film starts, it becomes painfully clear that Bryan isn’t the only killer here. The sound quality is murdering every single scene with reckless abandon.
I could hear the audio issues immediately. I imagine the sound editors threw their hands up and said, “Let them suffer.” And suffer we do. The acting quickly joins the party, matching the sound in a synchronized swan dive straight into the abyss. At one point, the camera quality changes between shots so drastically that I’m convinced someone’s phone died and they just grabbed whatever else was lying around. Less than ten minutes in, and they’re already reusing footage – shocking not because it’s lazy, but because none of the girls were even topless yet. Rookie mistake for a film this desperate.
The wind hitting the microphone during the pool scene deserves its own IMDb credit. And there’s this “tension” sound effect they put on loop. A droning, soul-eroding hum that plays for twenty straight minutes. By the time it stopped, I was more relieved than any of the actresses.
Someone appears to be filming the girls, but whether it’s explained or simply lost to the audio void is anyone’s guess. Eventually, it looks like they’re shooting some kind of movie-within-the-movie, but the staged masked-attacker sequence is so pathetic it wouldn’t pass as role-play even for people with very forgiving fetishes. Writer/director/actor Jamie Grefe, the triple threat no one asked for, helms the project and also plays Bryan, presumably the masked dude stumbling through scenes like he’s late for a dentist appointment.
The victims all get exhausted in the same sad little room, and not a single one fights like an actual human being. When the final girl tries the same exit doors that everyone else rattled uselessly, they accidentally just… open. That’s the biggest plot twist in the entire film, why they didn’t reshoot the scene.
Let’s talk horror fundamentals: Plot. Blood. Boobs. Even the worst films manage ONE of these. Blood Rush scores a flawless zero. The “kills” are choreographed with all the realism of middle-school improv. There isn’t a drop of blood, even during gut stabbings performed with the knife turned sideways like Jamie Grefe has never seen a sharp object before. In his final stabbing, we literally watch the knife stop six inches from the cop, who politely climbs onto the bed to get “killed” too.
Normally, I spare actors’ names when they’re trapped in disasters like this (you are welcome to the 4 lovely ladies), but Grefe earns his eternal spotlight. Troma, I love you – you’ve lifted indie cinema for fifty years – but this one should’ve been caught by your spam filter. If ever there was an example of “not every movie needs to be distributed,” this is IT. And seeing the Cinema Epoch logo at the start explains a lot. Their last turkey was Red Static Rising. Looks like they’ve cooked up another.
