BLOOD
OVERALL
BEASTS
BREASTS
Director: Travis B. Miller
Writer: Travis B. Miller
Cast---
Chris Burchette ...  Holden
Cameron Wright ...  Sadie
Adam Anderson ...  Nick
Keith Brown ...  Rolen
Becca Manion ...  Becca
Nicole Amonette ...  Mellisa
Denim Pettite ...  Eric
Cathy Grissom ...  Women w / Dog
Tara Gering ...  Girl on TV
Rory Forinash ...  Guy on TV

Runtime:USA:93 min (director's cut)
BLOODSTAINED ROMANCE (2009)

   What begins as a stalker romance actually turns out to be a character study of Holden, the character
played by a promising Chris Burchette. Set in college, Holden is crazily attracted to a fellow student
named Sadie. Perhaps that she is pretty was enough to make him fall in love, other than that, the
reason for his obsession is not clear. After we meet both characters, we follow their long and twisted
journey until they share the same bed (more on that later).

   Based on the title, we know that there will be blood and that there will be romance. The title is a bit
misleading as I did think it’d be more about an ill-fated romance. It is not. It is really about Holden and his
insanity. We first meet Holden as a completely awkward guy who shows his affection for Sadie by
following her around unnoticeably, of course. Who hasn’t done that?  I love watching awkward people
doing awkward things, which is why I enjoyed watching the beginning of the movie. Ironically, I found
myself growing bored with the movie as soon as Holden becomes more sick and twisted.

   Holden is intent to declare his love for Sadie in his own disturbing way. He is willing to kill whoever in
order for him to be with her. It was predictable whom he was going to kill, and the reasons behind the
first two kills were pretty weak. Both were killed by a knife, so for those gore fans, we do see a good
amount of blood. Later, Holden’s friend is the next target because he found out about Holden’s murders.
The friend almost makes an escape, but that almost doesn’t cut it, and the friend dies by a baseball bat.
The climax builds when he breaks into Sadie’s house. He tortures her housemate by knife when she was
taking shower a la “Psycho.” He tortures the boyfriend by drilling a power tool into his knees.  He ties
Sadie to her bed, and we see flashbacks to an adult movie about bondage that we were shown earlier.
Holden transforms into a violent and macho persona during his kills.

   Through random interspersed scenes, we see that Holden does have a separate persona and is
possibly schizophrenic. We see Holden’s hallucinations of him talking with Sadie, of him killing himself by
a razor, and of him talking with another of his victims. It is cool and unprecedented the extent of Holden’s
insanity, but the execution of these ideas was for the most part, poor. We could account for this by
budget (low-quality digital video and poor sound in some parts) and some sub-par actors. But, what I
think made this movie feel slow and boring was that the movie ran on too long:  some scenes,
particularly the torture scene of Sadie’s boyfriend, went on too long; the unnecessary kills; and
superfluous scenes documenting Holden’s insanity.

   The movie has a promising start, but it was an essentially boring movie that strained to get from plot
point to character study back to plot point. I do feel that Director Travis B. Miller did put a lot of heart
and effort into the film, so I wish it did turn out better. Perhaps with a bigger budget, a better cast, and a
more precise editor, Miller’s next movie will be more entertaining.


                                                                                                             - Shelby Lewis
BLOOD
BloodStained Romance (2009)
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