Evan (Sean William Scott) is a full-time guidance counsellor at a local high school. He’s also a family man with a new baby boy. But Evan has a mysterious past, particularly regarding his childhood. At the same time, Evan may seem like a family man helping out young teenagers. Evan is actually a serial killer. When students tell him about their awful parents (abusive, etc), Evan goes out in the middle of the night and conducts murders to help his students with their bad situations. These murders are normally gruesome and violent, as Evan considers this as revenge and fair.
Actor Sean William Scott (best known for his crude roles in the American Pie franchise) gives a very surprising performance here. Not only is this the first time the actor has been a lead in a horror film, but I feel his overall performance was rather solid and positive.
The film’s style is also fun. A funky synth soundtrack was enjoyable, but the director has also used some creativity when it comes to certain shots, such as the use of split-screen. Little moments like these were exciting to see and were a nice compliment to the horror genre.
As for the horror and gore aspect, Bloodline is rather gruesome (hence the R18+ rating). While some horror fans may enjoy the gruesome and violent moments, I felt like it was too much, and the violence was forced during certain scenes. I’m not just talking about blood and guts, but I even felt there was an unnecessary amount of nudity, which, again, all felt very forced. These moments of extra gore and nudity weren’t required for the scenes to be tense and didn’t have a deeper impact on the overall film.
Bloodline as a story does have interesting 1st and 3rd acts thanks to some unexpected twists along the way. The 2nd act, however, is slow and rather repetitive as we witness Evan hunting down people and following the general routine murders or torture. Plot twists were enjoyable, but part of me found them somewhat expected.
Overall, I love seeing actor Sean William Scott in this horror genre, and I hope to see more of him in films like this in the future. He was a great element to this film, along with the film’s look, tone, filming style and even the soundtrack, which all worked together. What holds this film back are the forced elements, such as the amount of gore and nudity, which went too far, in my opinion. 2nd act is also rather slow, and the film begins to have a somewhat repetitive vibe.
5.7/10
19th March 2020
Written by Peter Walkden
WALKDEN ENTERTAINMENT
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