Nightmare in Blood 2004 Horror Movie Review

I took a chance on purchasing this title, and I’m glad I did! Based on the movie description and reviews, you would think that this movie was just some poorly scripted, acted, and produced indie project of film students; but, it actually deserves to be remembered a existential cult favorite in the same genre as Jean Rollin’s Two Orphan Vampires, Nude Vampire, or Fiance of Dracula, or Jess Fanco’s vampire-werewolf-frankenstein movies. Nightmare in Blood is that good, if you are into adult horror fantasy! By the end of the dvd, you will wind up regarding this movie as a serious statement and morality play on the evil extant in the world, anti-censorship, and appeal for the freedom of the imagination.


There is a defining scene in the movie, quite memorable, in which Malaki, the vampire, justifies his existence to the film critic by explaining that evil existed in the world long before the horror novel and comic book, and the characters in them; this evil is recorded in human history, made real by real people, and is as old as humanity itself. Its the point at which this movie not only congeals into a bonafide horror film, but becomes shakespearian through Malaki’s monologue!


The end of the movie is as effective as Malaki’s monolgue, with the professor who organized the horror convention delivering a bomb of warning to a audience of kids masked as their favorite movie characters: there is no line between reality and make-believe. To paraphrase, monsters are real, and they walk among us. The moral being that it pays to believe, believing may save you someday!


This movie is a lively and wonderful mix of comic relief and dramatic play, as well as a welcome romance with the the 70s, and cinema in general. Thouroughly entertaining is the character of the comic book store owner, a seeming comic version of Jesus or John the Baptist, that presages the deaf quadrapelegic psuedo-prophet in John Gulager’s Feast III - but with a Polanskiesque tailoring! Nightmare in Blood is a gem, and you will be pleased to add this one to your dvd library.