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SOURCE-Sub Rosa Studios double feature DVD
Near the beginning of this year I found out that a local pawn shop was trying to clear out a huge overstock of DVDs and Blu rays. Normally they were wanting 2 bucks a DVD or 13 for 20 bucks. Blu Rays were 4 bucks each or 5 for 20. But now that they had/have way way too many it is 1 for dvd,or 25 for 20 bucks. Blus are 3 bucks or 8 for 20. Armed with this knowledge I started browsing the 3 shelfs and two tables full of home media formats.
The above pictured DVD was almost skipped over.I saw the back cover first.
And as you can see,sorry for the reflections in the pic,the back cover makes this look like one of the hundreds of double feature horror dvds out there. You know the ones that have two battered VHS rips of Public Domain Horror movies. Movies that pretty much every hardcore horror fan already owns 4 or 6 times on DVD. So I just put the DVD back on the shelf. Then something in my head said "Wait Alone in a Haunted House isn't a PD title I have heard of" I grabbed the dvd read the back and after seeing that Blinded by the Blood was a documentary on the making of a low budget horror film I placed this double feature DVD into the ever growing "buy" pile.
Since I was young and got my first issue of Starlog and Fangoria on the same day,THANK YOU UNCLE MILTON!. I have loved learning about how movies are made. From the filming process to how the FX work is done. Which means I will watch/buy pretty much any documentary on the production of a horror film.
It wasn't until I got home and was dividing my media haul into piles,one pile is for me another is to be resold another is for friends etc,I saw the name Tim Ritter and figured out what I had found was a Sub Rosa Studios release.Sub Rosa Studios has been around for a long time now. They release lots of DTV horror and cult movies.And Killing Spree is by one of the best known directors Sub Rosa Studios has worked with,Tim Ritter.Blinded by the Blood is a making of Killing Spree that Sub Rosa Studios started selling after Killing Spree had become a cult classic of the Shot on Video sub genre. The above picture is the VHS release cover of Blinded by the Blood.
Sure the VHS cover says Hosted by Tim Ritter but we all see who has the biggest pic on the cover. The lovely and uber talented Debbie Rochon. By the time Blinded by the Blood was made Debbie was one of the best known B Movie stars and one of the few Scream Queens of the era who was a true Scream Queen. And not some lady who did one horror movie and then used the Scream Queen tag to bilk lonely geeks at cons out of money.
So the film opens with Debbie walking around in a rural area telling us how we are about to see footage shot during the filming of Killing Spree. And explaining that even with almost no money Tim Ritter managed to make a horror film that became a cult hit world wide.
Blinded by the Blood is a lot like the various making of "insert film title" documentaries Troma has made. Cause Blinded by the Blood doesn't cut out stuff that makes Tim look bad. They don't try to cover up that mistakes happened. Who ever was in charge of editing the final cut of Blinded by the Blood did a good job of just showing us what happened during the filming of Killing Spree. Really in the entire film the only part that is a bit biased is the introduction by Debbie Rochon. And hell she was getting paid by Tim to come talk about his film,and I have heard that Debbie and Tim are close friends. So of course her intro will be a bit biased.
Tim Ritter went on to make quite a few movies. Most of them low budget horror/gore movies. Some of the better known ones are from the Truth or Dare series. I have seen Truth or Dare 1 and 3.
I was pretty impressed by how good the gore FX looked in Killing Spree. Seeing what little they had to work with,money and equipment wise,it is amazing how good the effects look.
Blinded by Blood gets a B.
