Blood
Rage (Aka,
Shadow Woods / Slasher) is an American Slasher film produced in 1987. Written
by Bruce
Rubin and
directed by John Grissmer, its undertones
are very reminiscent of the campy “Friday The 13th” series and Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” with one
homicidal son yearning for mother’s sympathy with a quick snap of his sanity.
The film starts out in a crowded night at the local drive-in theater in 1974 in
Jacksonville, Florida. For a fun night for many quickly turns into a blood
soaked drive-in, when a single mother, Maddy Simmons (Louise Lasser) , takes her two young identical
twin boys Todd (Mark
Soper) and Terry
(Mark Soper) with her while on
a date. The couple takes their night
further as Ms. Simmons assumes the twins are asleep in the backseat, and as
things get heated up in the front seat, the boys mischievously sneak out the back door without notice. Terry
mysteriously finds and picks up an axe.
Peering into the next car, a couple takes their drive-in experience
further and when discoved being watched by the twins, curses the boys to leave
them alone. Enraged, Terry brutally attacks the couple. As the crowds
gather after the shouts and screams, Terry quickly and hesitantly rubs the
blood of his first victims on Todd’s face who had nothing to do with the
murders and ditches the axe. In a dark twist, Todd claims that Terry was the
one who murdered the couple and is quickly sent to a long term psychiatric
hospital, leaving Todd as “The good child” knowing what he really did that dark
night. Fast forward nearly a decade
later, it is Thanksgiving in Jacksonville, and the twisted Todd has kept his
hands clean, now focused on convincing his innocence, life begins a new turn of
events for him. Terry has been locked up
in a catatonic state with little to no memory of that night except that he was
framed by his twin brother. We are
shortly introduced with Terry’s psychotherapist Dr. Berman (Marianne Kanter), and she admits that she knows
Terry is not capable of such a crime and is determined to break Todd’s secret. She rises to the top of
Terry’s kill list. Ms. Simmons is now about to get married and this comes as unsettling
news for Todd. To make things more
difficult, Todd’s brother, Terry has escaped his psychiatric hospital.
Unworried, but a still very damaged Todd snaps further into his psychosis
making sure Terry doesn’t expose his dark secret of that unfortunate night.
Todd begins to pretend to be Terry, tricking his unfortunate victims, as the
body count rises and his rage for blood is heightened in search of Terry. He
begins to kill anyone and everyone who gets in his way. Blood Rage is a great
psychological slasher film with plenty of gore and unique murder scenes. The
film also features a cameo appearance by Ted Raimi as a condom salesman in the beginning. It’s one
of the many eighties horror films you must add to your watch list. Now
available exclusively as a Special Edition from Arrow Films, it comes packed full with 3 Discs, Blu-Ray/DVD & a DVD bonus
disc which features three different versions of the film including the uncut
and composite version.
