BLOOD SONG (1982)

BLOOD SONG (1982)

Tagline: When he whistles this tune ... The time for killing begins

(Horror, Thriller, Beauty School Dropout) [R]

Are you in here? You're not supposed to be playing that flute!

In this one, Paul Foley ends up in a mental institution because he saw his father kill his mother, then commit suicide. He escapes when he is much other and starts killing everyone that ridicules his flute playing and seems to be specifically after Marian who got a blood transfusion from him while he was in the institution. To make matters worse Marion is recovering from a crash her father got her into that left her without the use of her legs. 

First off, this is actually a pretty solid slasher flick. It does feel cheaply made, but it’s effectively eerie and shockingly the deranged killer is once teen heartthrob, Frankie Avalon of Frankie and Annette fame is actually pretty freakin sinister in this. 

Acting wise aside from Frankie Avalon, Donna Wilkes crushes her role as Marion. She kind of has a psychic connection with the killer in this due to the blood transfusion. Donna was no stranger to horror as a bit of a scream queen back then and is still acting as of today. Donna appears in GROTESQUE, SCHIZOID, and JAWS 2 as well as this movie. She also did a few horror movies recently. We also get a decent performance out of Dane Clark as Sheriff Gibbons which makes sense, because he was in over 150 movies and TV productions. I also thought Antoinette Bower was okay as Bea. 

The pace is pretty fast because after the opening scene it doesn’t take long at all before a run-in with Paul and his flute meant you were almost certainly dead meat. The score is eerie, but to be honest, Paul’s flute playing would make me want to punch him in the nuts. I mean, it’s annoying and I am pretty patient dude but yeah, right in the…. Anyway, one thing I didn’t love about this movie is that a lot of it is in the dark and when you don’t have good lighting and it’s the 80’s it’s hard to edit enough to fix those issues. Having said that, it does add a bit to the dread I guess? 

We don’t have any gore really in this and that’s fine because the overall mood is still solid. I think where this movie kind of dropped the ball is in the title department. I don’t think they intended to make a franchise out of this hiring Frankie as the killer, but if it was shot with even near the skill FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 3 was the same year, it might have gotten more notoriety at the time. It also probably wasn't the best idea to give this guy a flute in the first place. I think the title “BLOOD SONG” is fine, but maybe this guy finds jukeboxes and plays a certain song before his kills instead? Even something really obscure like that would have worked better. 

This movie was also known as “DREAM SLAYER” which only makes slightly more sense than “BLOOD SONG” because Marion has nightmares about the killer. I have to give this thing a 4 out of 7. Just seeing a really “out there” choice for the actor to play the killer is worth checking this out. I do wish there were some better copies out there, the overall quality even on DVD is pretty poor. This is a movie I would put in a Horror-O-Thon line-up.

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