Life Blood

Life Blood is a movie that feels defensively half-assed. I get a real vibe of, “your criticisms can’t hurt me because I wasn’t even trying anyway” from most of the film. Which is a shame, because I don’t hate all of the ideas in Life Blood. But geez, the execution was shit.

The film begins in a deeply unbelievable depiction of the 1970’s. Lesbian couple Rhea and Brooke seem to be living as openly queer. But just because homophobia doesn’t exist in this fake 1970’s doesn’t mean sexism is gone. Brooke kills a man who was abusing a young actress. While fleeing the scene, their car crashes. Some sort of angel with visible nipples appears unto Rhea. She offers Rhea power and eternal life in exchange for Rhea to rid the world of bad people. Rhea pleads for Brooke’s life and the titty angel relents. Sure, Brooke can also be reborn as some sort of vigilante creature. But there’s a price. 40 years later, Rhea and Brooke awaken. It turns out the price the titty angel spoke of was a craving for human flesh.

If I saw the bones of this plot in most other contexts, I’d be excited. There is an idea here! It’s cool that Rhea and Brooke are already a lesbian couple. And I loved Rhea pleading with the angel out of her love for Brooke. And then they get turned into some sort of vengeful vampires! This all sounds like an indie LGBTQ narrative podcast I’d be in love with. Life Blood at least initially manages to stand out because its plot set-up is unique. Yeah, technically the movie is still a lazy, sexy vampire lady film. But there was some fresh ideas in the beginning that I was excited to see possibly be explored.

That hope didn’t last long. All that semi-interesting set up is all in favour of a deeply conventional movie. Much of the film is Rhea and Brooke holed up at a rest stop, occasionally killing people and arguing about the ethics of eating people. I don’t really see Rhea’s problem to be honest. She didn’t seem to have any objection from resurrecting as some sort of vigilante creature. The “price” is that she gets her girlfriend too and they just have to eat what they kill? That just sounds convenient. But even their arguments aren’t consistent. Brooke is all-in on being a vampire. Until she isn’t and she’s mad that her life was stolen from her.

As if character consistency matters to Life Blood. The primary purpose of this movie is to look at sexy women. And that overrides everything. I can’t really think of a personality trait either Brooke or Rhea really have. They’re just hot. This is also the kind of movie where Brooke’s been reborn 40 years later with perfect eyeliner. But at no point in the film does she ever acquire a bra. Life Blood is a movie that keeps stopping the plot dead to ogle some women. It’s really annoying. We could’ve had both, Life Blood! The women are hot! But they could be hot while being part of an interesting story.

Maybe I need to retire the idea that there’s a good movie in here somewhere. Because that’s just a polite way of saying that the movie that exists isn’t good. And I don’t think Life Blood deserves my politeness. They had an actual idea. But instead of developing that idea, they got distracted by objectifying women. And their movie is significantly worse for it.

Overall rating: 3.7/10

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