'Blood Gnome' Review | shameface.com

Ever wonder what happens to those nice folks that just couldn't make it in the adult film industry? Neither did we, but we unwittingly stumbled upon the answer when we picked up Blood Gnome for $3.99 at Albertson's. The label promised the disk had been "previously viewed", but there wasn't a scratch or speck of dust on it, so we suspect nobody ever rented it. The disc itself warned us that this was a "screening copy only", strange for a rental disk from a grocery store. The volume label also seemed out of place. The disc is labeled "Blood Gnome Live". There's nothing live about it; in fact the movie deals mostly with death.

The story revolves around a Crime Scene Investigator named Daniel who is investigating a series of murders among sexual deviants. When I say "investigator" I mean photographer, and when I say "sexual deviants" I mean people who get turned on by cutting each other up with knives.

Daniel stumbles across the truth behind this series of bizarre murders through the "night shot" mode of his Sony camcorder. The highly sensitive Infared mode allows him to see creatures not visible to the naked eye (as well as peeking through women's clothing). Now, this is troubling because Daniel just got out of a mental hospital, so everyone naturally assumes that he's starting to crack when he investigates the creatures further. Daniel also decides to investigate the BDSM community. He meets up with a "specialist" in the field named Divinity. Divinity shows Daniel the ropes and the two soon fall in love.

Meanwhile, the "Blood Gnomes" continue to kill in order to feed their mother, which the filmmakers dubbed the "monster vagina". The gnomes can't be seen for some reason, and are controlled by Divinity's mistress Elandra, played by a very manly stuntwoman. Thankfully, the stuntwoman is about the only woman in this film that doesn't get naked at some point. Granted, many of them are dead and covered in fake blood, but they're still naked. Towards the end of this film, a number of porn stars even show up for no apparent reason.

The whole erotic thriller thing may have worked if the movie were the least bit erotic - or thrilling. Blood Gnome is neither, and frankly comes off as a bit disturbing. One scene in particular that had us scratching our heads featured two characters that had no connection to the movie whatsoever. In this scene, a semi-nude woman dressed as a butcher tears open a brown paper bag, revealing a semi-nude man with spiked hair, a pig snout, and an apple in his mouth. The woman proceeds to cut "pigboy" as though he were a piece of meat, to the apparent sexual satisfaction of both parties. There are many other scenes like this throughout the movie, though most aren't quite that weird.

The movie also screams "amateur" at every opportunity. The Director's commentary pointed out a whole range of mistakes that we missed the first time around because we were busy laughing at the mistakes we did catch. In one scene, the camera pans across an "empty" room, and for a second or two you can clearly see a member of the crew sitting in a chair. In another you can see the reflection of a microphone off a glass door. There's also a drug dealer that seems to be selling bottled mountain spring water. No really. He approaches a young man and asks him if he wants to buy some drugs, the man accepts the offer and reaches into the back seat for some cash.We are shown the drug dealer's face for a few seconds, and then the interior of the car once again, but the buyer now has a bottle of water between his legs that wasn't there before. Just say no to Aquafina, kids.

The visual effects are also in line with the movie's low-budget student film style. The "Blood Gnomes" would have trouble scaring a 90 year old grandma in a dark alley on a moonless night. At times they even look rather appetizing, as they are covered in what looks like barbecue sauce. They may have been a little bit scary if they'd been shown in the dark and remained stationary, but the filmmakers felt the need to entangle them in mildly elaborate fight sequences in which they move about a well-lit room.

Continuity isn't this film's strong point either. Characters seem to show up and leave, and then show up again without being given so much as a name. It confused the hell out of me to see the same actor as a cop, gay biker, gay biker cop, and then confused victim all in the same movie. Maybe it was all the same character, but Blood Gnome really lets you try and figure that one out for yourself. You also can't really tell who's a porn star, who's a stuntperson, and who's failing their community college Drama course since they all have the same level of poor acting skills.

So, the acting sucks, the plot is ridiculous, the monsters look like they crawled out of a bucket of KFC, and a bunch of unattractive women get naked and die. I should probably say something nice about this movie, as the director seemed like an eager young student looking for his first big break. Let's see.......um.....the disc art was halfway decent. Yes, that's the best I can do. Blood Gnome is just good enough to avoid being placed among the "classic" bottom of the barrel bad films like Plan 9 From Outer Space, Eegah!, and Manos: The Hands of Fate, but that doesn't keep it from wasting 87 minutes of your life. The bottom line:

Stats & Info
Rating: Rated R for Strong Sexual Content, Violence/Gore and Language
Rarity: Uncommon
Genre: Horror
Released: 2003
Country of Origin: USA
Video: Color; Fullscreen (1.33:1)
Audio: English (Stereo)
Plot: Creatures from another dimension kill sexual deviants to feed their mother.
How Bad Is It? - Bad acting, Terrible Special Effects, weird sexually driven plot, stupid cops, ugly mistresses, mistake after mistake after mistake, and a gothic magician thrown in for the hell of it.