Rose Blood: A Friday the 13th Fan Film

 Hello again, readers of the Rotten and I realize I have not written anything since February but alas, this blog does not pay me at all. You can understand how why I would continue with freelance writing that actually pays the bills. With a slight lull between assignments, I was asked to take a peek at a fan film that has had serious buzz about it. A continuation of Part VII: The New Blood. For those of you following at a distance, envision an undead, mongoloid hillbilly with a hockey mask fetish and you'll be right with the rest of us Voorhees fans. This is Rose Blood: A Friday the 13^th Fan Film. 

 

Got yer nose!..or throat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Remember kids, this is a semi-professional film with no studio backing and solely raised money for such via Indiegogo.com. Harken with me to the Way Back Machine as 13 months after the events of Part VII occurred, Jason was dosed in flames and Tina's dead father (yup, never dragged the lake for his body) pulls Voorhees down in the depths rather nicely, Tina and Nick barely escaped with their lives. 

Flashback Tina (Jessica Hottman of And The All Blew Away, Shadow of a Doubt, Rose Blood: A Friday the 13^th Fan Film, The Perfect Find and Facade) was captured and brought to the newly completed Crystal Lake Research Facility (previously mentioned and outright thrashed by Voorhees in Jason X). Apparently Uncle Sam needs psionic warriors to keep freedom reigning...probably attack the Russians with espers(extra sensory projectors), feeding them false info or assassination via stroke. Hey! It's 1989 and they're spending money like crazy of defense and offense, so why not on bio-weapons?

Your cotton jammies itchy too?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All this falls under the purview of General Brackbower (actor/writer/director Peter Anthony of Vengeance, Red Swan, Reflections: Project Chameleon, Rose Blood and Z Dead End) and Dr. Sykes (David E. McMahon of NS404: Provenance, I Am Going to Kill Someone This Friday, Seeing Evil, 10/31 Part 2, Sharp Candy, Obsidian, Teacher Shortage and 13 Slays Til X-Mas).

Flash forward to 30 years later at the Hodder Mental Institute, Tina (Lar Park-Lincoln of Friday the 13^th Part VII: The New Blood, Knots Landing, Beverly Hills, 90210, From the Dark, Gravestoned, Sky Sharks and 13 Fanboy) is trying to not use her powers, to not be extraordinary but to be one of the good norms. Minor problem there is her former psychiatrist Dr. Crews (Terry Kiser of From a Whisper to a Scream, The Return of the Six-Million-Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman, Murder, She Wrote, Friday the 13^th Part VII: The New Blood, Weekend at Bernie's, Chameleons, Side Out, Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman and Walker, Texas Ranger) seems to be haunting her. We know he's haunting her because Jason diced him like a set of spare ribs.  Well...the MPAA neutered several scenes in Part VII so not sure if it was quite the spare ribs treatment, but the point is Tina is having a bit of a time with the dead.

This mask is pretty durable.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Flashback Tina (Jessica Hottman) is being pushed harder and harder by Dr. Sykes than even Dr. Crews did but it's more subtle and yes he attempts to be her Yoda. Sith choke him Tina. She's been held there to "get better" for over a year, not even allowed to go to her late mother's funeral. Jason still remains in the lake, for now at least but how long with that last? Sykes passes the buck, claiming he'll have to check with the military. Spineless jack rabbit.

Trying to boost her abilities at the behest of one of the many Jason victims and characters with a stake in it, Creighton Duke (Jequient Broaden of Rose Blood: A Friday the 13^th Fan Film and Slasher Scotty), a character from Part 9:Jason Goes to Hell and it was never fully explained but the fans believed he was related to camp counselor Sissy from Part 6, but for some reason Jason Goes to Hell never went out of its way to explain that. Time constrains, budget balancing, body hopping entity Jason. It was a garbled mess. Maybe this is where Duke learned to dish out information one broken finger at a time.  His phone conversation made it sound like scholarship boxer Julius from Part 8 was his son. DUN DUN DUN!!

Getting away from the story for now, let's talk production value. The main story is all based (no pun intended) in the facility so less issue with sets. The flashbacks feel 80s from the chosen music, posters, clothes and dialogue. This is some actual research. As a child from the 80s I would have to plow through at least 15 popular TV series and hit the flicks for lingo and comments so it would feel genuine and this does. Camera work, lighting and sound all in the green, baby! Only thing needed now is a slight grain to 35mm film stock and we're watching an 80s film.

what do you mean Nick's fighting vampires with another girl?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But enough of the raving on excellent camera work and great sound quality, let's get back to our main character Rose (Sanae Loutsis of The Black String, Beloved Beast, Vengeance, The Parish, Rose Blood: A Friday the 13^th Fan Film and Friday the 13^th Vengeance 2: Bloodlines) who power levels rival that of Tina's and apparently, she too has a psychic link to the world's most pissed off goalie from the dead.

Military knuckle knobs apparently subscribe to the Steele and Captain Rhodes behavior protocol via Day of the Dead. Yes, they're assholes if that wasn't clear enough.  64 minutes into the film as all this back story and subplots make way before we see our slasher in act 3 and brother this fella ratchets up the gore and tension.  Understand that I am very partial to both C.J. Graham of Jason Lives and Kane Hodder of 7,8,9 and Jason X, so when I say Jason Brooks delivers, I'm not fooling around.  Height wise he is imposing, he adopted that odd head tilt Hodder always did and gore is being served.

Jason (Jason Brooks of You Don't Get Out, Experiment TC-9585, Happy Trails, Vengeance, Up All Night, Zombiegeddon and Watchdogs) is making mincemeat out of the military and doing that teleportation around the compound like the good old days. (I'm serious, the game got it right. The dude ports like Nightcrawler and then turns people into death pinatas)

Just for clarification, these kids are being held against their will as wards of the state. NO ONE even knows where they are, who they are with or if they are even alive. All for a black ops mission to capture the undead, mongoloid, murderous hillbilly. Which this brilliant general will turn into a series of bio-weapons. Look I know the Bush administration, coming off of Reagan allowed for many operations but you're telling me the Pentagon approved of this?

The dynamic of Rose and Tina is well connected from the performances. They're almost sisters in a way, given Tina is very maternal with her and has a near big sister/foster mom vibe looking out for Rose and the bond is growing fast.  Make no mistake, these two steal this movie.

This most obscure Friday the 13^th reference was Dr. Sykes talking about his sister is probably marrying FBI Mahoney and the only Mahoney I remember is during the gun down sting operation in Jason Goes to Hell and he was assigned to quote "Clean that shit up."by the agent in charge, Abernathy.  About had a mild stroke remembering that scene.   Last time I saw Jason Goes to Hell was when I reviewed it.

So what do we have? Impressive cast, solid story linking previous titles of the franchise and a decent set of story arcs and subplots giving this credence to be among the originals. Professional crew managing some difficult shooting in the space they were allotted but damn if they didn't pull it off.

For a moment, I did wonder why Jennifer Banko (Friday the 13^th Part 7: A New Blood, Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III, Nowhere Man, Barb Wire, Cheerleader Camp: To the Death and 13 Fanboy) wasn't called in to play to reprise Young Tina, annnnd then it dawned on me that she might have some difficulty passing herself off as a teen. Curves will do that.

 

 

Can you imagine how bad this undead dude smells?