Cheerleaders, Jocks, the classic, the cliche, the ones voted most likely to die at the hands of a vicious psychopath. Varsity Blood is a hard film to describe as an experience. It does not decide if it wants to be an homage to the genre or just a straight faced contemporary example. There is little to no intentional comedy in this, so it's not a parody. I don't know.
It's not pandering, i know that for sure. Varsity Blood has little to no self-awareness and for me, that was a definite plus. The characters are also very stock for the slasher sub-genre, having sex, being dicks, making stupid decisions. The whole film can be considered quite stock really. Straightforward. This is my preferred mode when it comes to slashers, but with this approach there is no middle ground whatsoever. Unless it is embarrassingly awful or exceptionally executed, it's gonna get lost in the crowd. This unfortunately happens to Varsity Blood.
I lay the blame on the writer/director Jake Helgren as he is a TV movie journeyman and did not even have the desire to make a film that had any real quirks to it. He's good with actors it seems. Though very green, this cast display a professional level of charisma and chemistry. But where he places the camera and what he shoots in front of it, most notably a number of night scenes that I found to be too under lit, gives the film a very average feel. Not even the well executed kills get that much of a rise out of me. The atmosphere is just so tepid. Mediocre. End of story.
In conclusion, Varsity Blood is an unremarkable slasher film that has little personality and has only minimal cheerleader, or jock, oriented titillation. I can't in any right mind recommend this to anybody because it just that uninspired.
It's not pandering, i know that for sure. Varsity Blood has little to no self-awareness and for me, that was a definite plus. The characters are also very stock for the slasher sub-genre, having sex, being dicks, making stupid decisions. The whole film can be considered quite stock really. Straightforward. This is my preferred mode when it comes to slashers, but with this approach there is no middle ground whatsoever. Unless it is embarrassingly awful or exceptionally executed, it's gonna get lost in the crowd. This unfortunately happens to Varsity Blood.
I lay the blame on the writer/director Jake Helgren as he is a TV movie journeyman and did not even have the desire to make a film that had any real quirks to it. He's good with actors it seems. Though very green, this cast display a professional level of charisma and chemistry. But where he places the camera and what he shoots in front of it, most notably a number of night scenes that I found to be too under lit, gives the film a very average feel. Not even the well executed kills get that much of a rise out of me. The atmosphere is just so tepid. Mediocre. End of story.
In conclusion, Varsity Blood is an unremarkable slasher film that has little personality and has only minimal cheerleader, or jock, oriented titillation. I can't in any right mind recommend this to anybody because it just that uninspired.