Blooded - Review

I didn’t really know what to expect from ‘Blooded’, which Wikipedia describes as a ‘horror/thriller’.

It’s a film about a group of hunters who are kidnapped by animal rights activists after they kill a deer in remote Scotland. The film becomes a game of cat and mouse as the hunters become the hunted across the region’s bogs and mountains.

The film was in the style of a documentary reconstructing events of the kidnapping. Form the storytelling point of view this allowed for interview snippets throughout, which meant that background could be fed in carefully. I was unsure whether this style of storytelling would work. I don’t think it would in a lot of situations, but I think it was right for ‘Blooded’.

Given the half ‘horror’ tag and the ‘15’ rating I expected a little more blood and violence which didn’t fully materialise.  That doesn’t prevent the film being a very worthy and thought provoking thriller though.  The tension is maintained throughout and there were enough twists to keep me hooked.  The characters and the situations were very well thought through, rounding those involved.  There was also a good amount of conflict and backstory within the kidnapped group without this being overdone.

One very well done element was that the story turned around the obvious plot, making the deer hunters rather than the activists the group that gained viewer sympathy.  That is where I think ‘Blooded’ really excelled – I saw the hunting argument from a side that often gets a bad press and I was made to think about the issue well after the film finished.

In summary, a watch that was both gripping and thought-provoking.