Blood Rage

Get a group of horror fans together around Thanksgiving and one of them will eventually say, “It’s not cranberry sauce.” This will elicit a chorus of similar replies and knowing smiles all around.

For those not in the know, the phrase originates with this film, a low-budget affair shot in 1983 but shelved until 1987 when it was released theatrically—minus much of its explicit gore—as Nightmare at Shadow Woods.

The story, set primarily in a Jacksonville, Florida apartment complex, sees Mark Soper play Terry, whose twin brother Todd—institutionalized since childhood for a brutal hatchet murder—escapes and returns to the family’s garden apartment home on Thanksgiving night. This causes Terry—who actually committed the murder—to embark on a killing rampage.

The line comes from a scene where Soper, as Terry, stands before a mirror after murdering several folks with a hatchet. Covered in gore, he touches the blood on his clothes then tastes it, remarking, “It’s not cranberry sauce.”

It’s indeed a memorable scene, in a surprisingly memorable film chock full of dichotomies. The execution careens between impressive and embarrassing. It reuses the same locations, but they feel authentic. The camera work feels tepid in its static setups but never amateurish as the exterior night photography maximizes shadows while the interior shots retain a claustrophobic sense of confinement. The violence shocks but the interstitial scenes vacillate between underwritten and awkward. The production design is non-existent, but the practical effects impress with vivid amputations, stabbings, and ample blood.

Soper’s dual-role performance transcends the material. He convinces as both the charming Terry and the awkward, terrified Todd, and he shines when Terry goes full-crazy, mixing equal parts charm and menace in moments like the aforementioned cranberry sauce line. He’s all but winking at the camera in these scenes, and seems to be having a great time with the part.

Meanwhile Louise Lasser, as Soper’s mother, seems to phone it in over a bad connection. She recites her lines as if reading them from cue cards, and emotes as if playing to the back rows of a cavernous theater. That said, director John Grissmer turns lemons into lemonade, leveraging her performance as deadpan humor, including a memorable moment where he inexplicably cuts to her sitting on the floor in front of her open refrigerator eating leftovers.

I can’t argue Blood Rage is a good movie, but I enjoyed it. If you’re a fan of low-budget, independent 1980s slashers, you’re in for a treat.