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Blood on the Highway (2008)

Blood on
the Highway

When it comes to low budget horror, vampire movies are one of the most popular themes.  The quality of these films runs from horrible to awesome, so you never really know what you're getting into with an independent vampire ,movie.  That's why I was pleasantly surprised when Blood on the Highway turned out to be a very well made and entertaining movie created by people with a good sense of humor.  Blood on the Highway was written by Blair Rowan and Chris Gardner and Directed by Blair Rowan and Barak Epstein.  The movie stars Deva George as Bone the tough-guy jerk, Nate Rubin as Sam the wimpy boyfriend, and Sarah Michelle Gellar look-alike, Robin Gierhart as Carrie the amazingly hot, bitchy girlfriend.  The trio is on their way to the Mr. Fire festival when Sam gets carsick and pukes on the map forcing the group to exit the highway and get lost.  While trying to find their way back to the highway, they end up in the small town of Fate, Texas shortly after the grand opening of Consumart, a vampire corporation that moves their stores into small towns and sucks them dry until eventually everyone either shops at Consumart or works for Consumart.  Resulting escapades are bloody, humorous and include a couple of amusing cameos by Tom Towles (Lt. George Wydell in House of 1,000 corpses and Devil's Rejects) and Nicholas Brendon ( Xander Harris in Buffy the Vampire Slayer television series).

Probably one of the most impressive achievements of the Blood on the Highway is the inclusion of humor that's actually very funny.  So often, low budget movies try to throw in humor, but the jokes just don't work.  This movie is simply filled with quotable dialog making absolutely no attempt at political correctness; "So we're trapped in this town?" "Trapped like Jews in an attic." and "I thought you said he was black." "Well, he's so proficient with a firearm that we just assumed..."  I was also happy that within the first five minutes, the movie is rocking with the sounds of Calabrese, the world's greatest horror rock band!  This may not be a selling point for anyone else, but for me it instantly adds points to the final score.  In addition, there are several other good songs on the soundtrack.

Overall, the movie has a very professional look.  Unlike many independent films that my friends can't stand to watch, Blood on the Highway is at least as good as most of the made for TV style films that you would see on cable.  The quality of the filming, shot composition and audio are all very impressive considering the low budget.  The acting is significantly better than average for this kind of movie.  The special effects are good.  The quantity of blood and gore is impressive.  There is one gratuitous scene with nudity, but unfortunately, Robin Gierhart does not appear nude in the film and I think that's really my only complaint.  I would recommend Blood on the Highway to any fans of the horror-comedy genre.  You can find out more about the film on their website here:

bloodonthehighway.com

Gore-o-meter rating: 5 out of 5 (Lots of blood and gore through most of the movie)

Skin-o-meter: 1 out of 5 (one scene of a random fully nude hot chick trying to escape vampires)