Sometimes I wonder what's going on in people's heads about movies these days. In 2004, the French made a movie about a cowboy possessed by an evil Indian spirit titled "Blueberry" ("Renegade", US), an appallingly confusing mishmash of CGI drug hallucinations pretending to be "supernatural". That has developed a small cult audience, even though it is wretchedly written and directed and acted.
"Blood Trail" is a small, independent direct to video Western on a similar topic that has virtually no special effects. It is plain in appearance, and the actors play their roles in a plain, no frills, naturalistic style. But the tension starts almost immediately and never lets up.
The possessed cowboy here is both man and evil spirit - completely consistent with Native American mythology - so pretty much everything said about him by any of the characters is correct, which makes him - and the evil he is - rather a black hole sucking in any possible fear we could have of him. Once possessed, we only glimpse his face once or twice - underscoring the fact that he has ceased to himself and become a something other that we do not understand. For that reason, the fact that the movie refuses to tie up its loose ends is actually completely understandable. We know as little about what has happened as we knew at the beginning what would happen.
The plainness of the film is thus important - there should be no cues to the audience how to respond to all this, the film presents its material rather in the manner of a 'docudrama'.
I really liked it, and I am sorry to see it rated so low here at IMDb. I can't believe that a mess like "Blueberry" is preferred to a solid piece of film-making like this.
"Blood Trail" is a small, independent direct to video Western on a similar topic that has virtually no special effects. It is plain in appearance, and the actors play their roles in a plain, no frills, naturalistic style. But the tension starts almost immediately and never lets up.
The possessed cowboy here is both man and evil spirit - completely consistent with Native American mythology - so pretty much everything said about him by any of the characters is correct, which makes him - and the evil he is - rather a black hole sucking in any possible fear we could have of him. Once possessed, we only glimpse his face once or twice - underscoring the fact that he has ceased to himself and become a something other that we do not understand. For that reason, the fact that the movie refuses to tie up its loose ends is actually completely understandable. We know as little about what has happened as we knew at the beginning what would happen.
The plainness of the film is thus important - there should be no cues to the audience how to respond to all this, the film presents its material rather in the manner of a 'docudrama'.
I really liked it, and I am sorry to see it rated so low here at IMDb. I can't believe that a mess like "Blueberry" is preferred to a solid piece of film-making like this.