Woodyanders Review of Blood Song

Blood Song (1982)

Cool early 80's psycho horror flick starring 50's teen idol Frankie Avalon as a crazed killer

[8/10 · 14 June 2006]

50's teen idol Frankie Avalon gives a surprisingly solid, credible and even fairly creepy performance as Paul, a crazed, murderous flute-playing mental patient who develops a psychic link with sweet gimpy teenage girl Marion (appealingly played by the adorable Donna Wilkes of "Jaws 2" and "Angel" fame) after his blood is used for an operation she undergoes. Pauls escapes from the asylum, steals a van, and drives cross country so he can meet Marion in person, bumping off a few folks along the way. Monty Turner's gratingly redundant droning synthesizer score tends to be more annoying than effective, but fortunately Alan J. Levi's able direction, Steve Posey's polished cinematography, some witty dialogue ("I've got a hangover that would make King Kong climb a wall"), a decent amount of gore, and the uniformly fine acting from an interesting cast are all up to par. A radically cast against type Avalon in particular has a field day with his juicy homicidal fruitcake part: Frankie plants a hatchet in a guy's face, strangles a hot young lady after making love to her, and, best of all, vigorously engages in a strenuous mano-a-mano no-holds-barred physical confrontation with veteran tough guy actor Richard Jaeckel (who's excellent as usual as Marion's stern, cranky, overbearing dad). Lenny Montana, the hit-man who winds up sleeping with the fishes in "The Godfather," served as a co-producer, co-wrote the script and pops up in a small supporting role as an amiable tugboat skipper. A fun little fright flick.