Bloody Murder

Bloody Murder
DVD released by Artisan Entertainment
Directed by	Ralph E. Portillo
Produced by	Jamie Elliott Ralph E. Portillo
Screenplay by	John R. Stevenson
Starring	Justin Martin Michael Stone Jessica Morris Christelle Ford Peter Guillemette Patrick Cavenaugh
Music by	Steven M. Stern
Cinematography	Keith Holland
Edited by	Carlos Puente
Production company	Hemisphere Entertainment
Distributed by	Mainline Releasing New City Releasing Artisan Entertainment
Release dates	August 12, 2000 (2000-08-12) (United States)
Running time	88 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

Bloody Murder (also known as Scream Bloody Murder) is a 2000 American horror film directed by Ralph E. Portillo, and written by John R. Stevenson. It was followed by a 2003 sequel entitled Bloody Murder 2: Closing Camp, and a 2006 spin-off entitled The Graveyard.

Plot

A group of teenage friends travel to Camp Placid Pines to be camp counselors for the summer, Julie (Jessica Morris), Dean (Michael Stone), Whitney (Tracy Pacheco), Jason (Justin Martin) and Tobe (Patrick Cavanaugh). Upon arrival, they meet their boss Patrick (Peter Guillemette), another counselor named Drew (Christelle Ford), who is teamed up as a co-counselor with Julie, and a few other counselors. The teenagers get to work, bringing in food, cleaning, etc. Julie gets a warning from the groundskeeper, Henry, who claims there is danger in these woods. Julie questions Patrick about it, and he brushes it off, saying that Henry is crazy. Late that night, the group sits around a campfire and decides to play a game of "Bloody Murder". One person is "It" and the rest of the group try to find "It" and whoever finds "It" must scream Bloody Murder and then everyone must run back to base before "It" can tag them. Everyone joins in, with Jason being it, and Jason and Dean play a prank on one of the counselors Brad (Dave Smigelski). After the game, Dean witnesses Jason (who is Julie's boyfriend) making out with Whitney. We later see Jason getting dressed and is confronted by a figure...

The next morning, Julie begins asking her fellow counselors about the whereabouts of Jason. Dean tells Julie that Jason said something about "taking off for a few days", but Julie still grows worried. The following night, the counselors gather in the mess hall for a movie, and Whitney goes to grab some food from the kitchen and is stabbed to death by a man in a hockey mask. The next day, the counselors inform Patrick that Jason and Whitney have gone missing, and they call the Sheriff who interrogates the group. Everyone suspects Dean, because he is Whitney's ex-boyfriend and he has been acting suspiciously. Dean is not provided with an alibi, so he is taken in for questioning. Julie encounters Henry again who tells her about her dad and a name of Nelson. She emails her Dad about it. Brad is killed next by the masked murderer and he goes missing, and Dean is off the hook for now.

Julie gets an email reply from her dad, and he claims he doesn't remember a man named Nelson. Jason is suspected next, considering he had a past with Brad. Julie is attacked by the hockey-masked killer in the woods and she flees to the road, where tire. She hurries back to camp, trying not to act scared, and Dean is killed by the murderer. Back at the camp, Julie finds a photo of her dad at the camp, with a kid named Nelson Hammond. She searches him, and discovers that Nelson Hammond was almost killed in an accident involving the game "Bloody Murder". He then came back a few years later and killed one of the counselors that caused the prank and was sent to a mental institution. That night, Julie is attack again by a man and he chases her to the mess hall and she locks him in the freezer. But the man is just Jason, who actually did take off, worried that Dean would tell about him cheating on Julie with Whitney, and he was worried because the police were after him. Jason is taken in by the police.

The body count ups as another counselor, Doug is finished off. Julie's father arrives after hearing about the police, and Drew and Julie's father walk to the lake, as Julie retreats to her cabin to gather some things. There, she deduces the killer is Drew when she sees that Drew's father was Bill Anderson, the man that Nelson Hammond killed for revenge and that Drew is out for revenge. She races to the missing, and she accuses Drew. But she is proven wrong when the killer appears and attacks them. Drew is knocked out and Julie flees. Julie runs into Patrick, and then Patrick reveals he is the killer. He is really Nelson Hammond and is seeking revenge for his accident that the other counselors caused. He attacks Julie with an axe, and chases her through the woods. She runs to the camp, and the other counselors, the police, Patrick and Julie gather. Patrick tries to make it seem, Julie hit her head and is delusional. But only Tobe believes Julie, and threatens to shoot Patrick, but finds out he has no bullets. Patrick swings at Julie, just as a shot rings out, hitting Patrick's arm and it is revealed that Drew fired the shot. Patrick is taken in, Julie's father is safe, and Julie starts having a love interest in Tobe. Once Sheriff Williams arrives at the police station with Patrick, he questions why he killed Doug, having nothing to do with Patrick's scheme. Patrick then tells Sheriff Williams that he didn't kill Doug, and it must have been Trevor Moorehouse, hinting that the real Trevor is still out there.

Later, Julie and Jamie say their goodbyes and Julie breaks up with Jason in order to be with Tobe, angering Jason. As Jason is walking home alone, Trevor Moorehouse appears behind bushes wielding a chainsaw, and Jason screams in terror, before the screen cuts out.

Cast

• Jessica Morris as Julie McConnell
• Peter Guillemette as Patrick/Nelson Hammond
• Patrick Cavanaugh as Tobe
• Crystalle Ford as Drew Zemke/Patricia Zemke
• Michael Stone as Dean
• Justin Ross Martin as Jason Hathaway
• Tracy Pacheco as Whitney Chambers
• Lindsey Leigh as Jamie
• David Smigelski as Brad Thompson
• William Winter as Doug
• Michael Prohaska as Sheriff Williams
• Jerry Richards as Tommy McConnell
• Bobby Stuart as Henry

Reception

Buzz McClain of AllMovie condemned the film as "infuriatingly boring" and gave it 1/5.^[1] A 1 was also awarded by John Fallon of Arrow in the Head, who wrote, "Movies like this make you realize just how good Friday the 13th and Scream are. It tries to blend both together but fails for three reasons: It has no heart, it has no brain and it has no balls. This flick is not even fun in a bad way",^[2] and Devon Bertsch of Digital Retribution, who wrote, "The plotting can get so bad it's almost gibberish. The acting is atrocious. There are BAD fade-outs and just general fades, and poor editing for continuity and the things that need a quick pace. Too many theories as to what happened are presented visually, like some bizarre homage to the ending of Clue, or even Wayne's World. It's all bad, and the great tragedy is that it's not even funny, dammit!"^[3]

The film garnered further 1's from G. Noel Gross of DVD Talk, who referred to Bloody Murder as "less a horror movie, but more an inane whodunit with the production values of an after school special with a couple dirty words mixed in",^[4] and Robert Pardi of TV Guide, who dismissed Bloody Murder as a "generic Friday the 13th rip-off" that "is the very model of anonymous filmmaking".^[5] In a review for DVD Verdict, Patrick Naugle lambasted the film, writing, "I don't even know where to begin to talk about this movie. It's terrible. It goes beyond terrible. At least cheesy, cruddy films such as the ones Roger Corman made were enjoyable to watch for their high camp value. Bloody Murder doesn't even have that going for it".^[6]

References

External links

• Bloody Murder at the Internet Movie Database