BLOODLINE

Sandra is playing in the woods with her twin sister Giulia, but a serial killer known as the Surgeon surprises the two girls and kills Giulia, taking her body away. Fifteen years later, Sandra has become a reporter and is sent by the agency she works for to do the backstage for a hardcore film. The villa where the film will be shot is located in the same place where Giulia was killed, and for this reason Sandra is initially reluctant to accept the job. Marco, the colleague who is supposed to accompany Sandra on the set, manages to convince her, but already on the first night strange things start happening in the woods surrounding the villa: the Surgeon seems to be back in action! Something is moving on the front of Italian horror. It has been a few years since the national underground has produced small genre titles that in some cases really hit the mark, and "Bloodline" is one of these cases. It is an independent production, but the results suggest otherwise, showing us a horror that is perhaps a bit nostalgic, bringing to mind the cult films of the '80s in which, narratively speaking, anything can really happen. The strength and at the same time the limit of "Bloodline" is precisely the script, a hodgepodge written by eight hands (to which we add a couple more hands, those of the expert Antonio Tentori, for a first draft) that mixes everything and more, themes and characters dear to at least 40 years of international horror. Ghosts, serial killers, zombies, murderous families…"Bloodline" has this and more and brings to the screen a divertissement that works, a mishmash of ideas that entertains and amuses also thanks to the right fusion between horror and irony. At the same time, at the end of the viewing not everything appears clearest to the viewer and it is noticed perhaps that one zombie less and a few more reasoned passages would have certainly benefited the compactness of the film. The figure of the Surgeon, an imposing serial killer who tears out the hearts of his victims while they are still alive, is one of those that strikes; a successful attempt to create an all-Italian boogeyman with its own mythology and specific modus operandi, a sort of Dr. Phibes with the physique of Jason Voorhees. Surely well-hit in its simplicity is also the characterization of the main characters ranging from the beautiful and sensitive (not to mention sensitive, given the relationship "beyond life" with her twin sister) Sandra, played by a good Francesca Faiella ("Al buio"), to the supporting actor Marco Benevento, i.e. the capable guy who is immediately understood to be infatuated with the protagonist. To them are added the somewhat crazy director who wants to make porn a form of art and who has the citationistic name of Klaus Kinki (Paolo Ricci, in his debut), the muscular porn star and hard film producer Tony (Virgilio Olivari, also producer and screenwriter of "Bloodline") and his female counterpart (Valentina Del Rio), to which are added a series of sympathetic supporting characters, among whom stands out the porn actor debuting from Romanian nationality (played by a convincing Bruno Valente), to whom are entrusted the funniest lines of the film. Also part of the cast is Francesco Malcom, a real hard film actor turned horror (he will also be in the zombie movie "Eaters"), somewhat in line with a trend that in recent years wants to associate the two genres, showing us, for example, Jenna Jameson in "Zombie Strippers!", Sasha Grey in "Smash Cut" and Roberta Gemma in "House of Flesh Mannequins" and "Bloody Sin". Perhaps what is missing in "Bloodline" is the desire to really dare, to add those exploitative components that characterized certain genre cinema here explicitly brought to mind. Because it is true that we are talking metafilmicamente about hardcore films, but in fact in "Bloodline" the erotic component that was often present in certain operations is completely missing; or it is true that there are zombies and serial killers with a mania for surgery, but there is very little blood. In short, the fun is there but for a connoisseur of horror from the '80s – to which the film is comparable – a bit of that sex & gore that one would expect is missing. Thumbs up for everything concerning the technical aspect, from the dynamic direction of Edo Tagliavini, here in his debut in a feature film, to the video clip-like editing that gives the images a lot of rhythm, up to the photography of Marina Kissopoulos. We also note that the film's music is composed, among others, by Claudio Simonetti, and the special effects were made by Sergio Stivaletti and his team. So "Bloodline" convinces, a definitely imperfect but fun and well-made product, capable of also competing in the international market. A good debut for Tagliavini and another piece that is added to the mosaic of the rebirth of Italian horror cinema.