Movie Review 'Dry Blood'

Dry Blood stars Clint Carney as Brian Barnes, a drug addict desperately hoping to get clean. After waking up in his car in some lonely Los Angeles alley, with no idea what he did in the preceding days, Brian decides he wants to quit. So, Brian calls a friend to be his sponsor and join him as he dries out a cabin he owns on a remote, California mountainside.

The cabin belongs to Brian and his ex-wife, and they generally don't go there; instead, they rent it to skiers during the winter. This makes the cabin a good place to find peace and quiet, but also an eerily empty and lonely space. Brian arrives at the cabin and immediately passes out from his most recent drug trip, seemingly, finally having run out of drug-fueled steam.

On his first day in this small mountainside town, Brian runs afoul of the local sheriff, played by the film's director, Kelton Jones. The cop is more than a bit of a creep. He tracks Brian around town, clocks that Brian is a recovering addict, and assumes that Brian is going to be trouble. The cop's bizarre behavior is well-played as part of the plot, which has Brian's paranoia growing day-by-day, while we are left to wonder if the paranoia is just that or if it is amped up by his drug use.

The film is quite good at using Brian's drug use as a misdirection for the real story. The real story is quite twisted, violent, and disturbing. Jayme Valentine plays Anna, Brian's friend and sponsor—and possible ex-girlfriend? We aren't sure about their past relationship and that ambiguity gives an extra bit of tension to their relationship.

For a first-time feature director, Kelton Jones does a fine job of establishing an ambiguous yet compelling tone. There are some especially creepy ghosts in Dry Blood and as the movie progresses the story of Brian's attempt to get sober becomes the story of how these ghosts became ghosts.

I say ghosts, but they are mostly hallucinations as only Brian can see them. We are left to wonder if he's being haunted or if these hallucinations are part of Brian's withdrawal from his drug use. We're not even sure if Brian is experiencing withdrawal because he keeps finding drugs around to take such as his main drug of choice, cocaine.

The practical makeup effects that bring these ghosts to life are really impressive for such a low-budget flick. One of the ghosts, a young, headless girl has a terrific scene where her severed head falls from her shoulders and rolls in front of Brian. I also liked the look of a faceless ghost who slowly approaches Brian with a knife.

Clint Carney stars in Dry Blood and also wrote the screenplay. Carney is pretty terrific in Dry Blood. His performance messes with your perception nearly as much as the script. You believe he's the good guy, but then there are the drugs and the deep confusion over reality and drug-fueled mania. Is he a killer is he harmlessly delusional because of drugs? Carney mixes up his performance well enough that the confusion contributes to the horror.

Dry Blood isn't a spectacular movie, but as a low-budget, B-grade, direct-to-video horror flick, you could do a lot worse. Fans of low-budget horror will enjoy the ever-shifting reality of Clint as the least trustworthy narrator imaginable, and the gore elements will fill in the rest of the fun. Dry Blood is worth checking for genre fans.