zandertowne Review of It's in the Blood

It's in the Blood (2012)

Basically an Arty Student Film that Somehow Scored Lance Henriksen

[5/10 · 17 November 2019]

It's not confusing, it's just so laden with obvious symbolism and deliberate ambiguity (like all too many faux "intellectual" student films) that it sloshes about struggling for "depth" and "deeper meaning" while never really delivering either. Out of focus shots and repetitious edits might mask some no-budget deficiencies but this film HAD a budget - they just didn't know what to do with it. Except hire Lance Henriksen. This is literally a case where it's worth watching just for the man's performance. It's a shame they didn't have a more focused script to be worthy of his involvement. Instead we have a twenty-minute arty student film stretched ponderously out to eighty minutes (yet feels a lot longer) when the same premise, intelligently presented (and grounded by Mr. Henriksen) could have made an excellent film at twice the length. The father and lost son dynamic; the horrifying incident in their past; the injury in the woods and, yes, even the threat of "something else in the woods" as a metaphor, all of these could have successfully been presented in a coherent fashion - even realistically as in Deliverance - instead of obscured by the art-house/third-year film student approach that makes this film far less than what it could have been. It's not that the film is simply bad - it isn't - it's just another example of "with a little more effort it could have been so much better." And then it might have been the showcase Lance Henriksen has long deserved.