By: JWBM
It's disappointing how certain aspects in life can come between a potentially hopeful and happy family. Especially where the bond starts to split at the seams from something as trivial as a few man-made pills at the bottom of a bottle.
"Family Blood" is a drama/horror that mixes pharmaceutical addiction with another more supernatural kind. It deals with the chaotic, distrusting environment of two teenage kids living with an addict for a mother. Except, this is every kid's nightmare times two when something more sinister enters the family portrait.
The mother goes through this pull and tug dynamic of chemical dependency and living a normal life as an enveloping wing that swoops in to provide for and protect her kids. As the tables turn to the supernatural portion of the film, it begins to lose that inner struggle that made the story start out strong. It then turns into a kind of Stockholm syndrome angle with the villain's shadow taking over every crevice of their household till survival is the only option. It makes it feel like it had a great, wide-open premise but then wrote itself into an ordinary box.
The villain is supposed to come across as a powerful, commanding entity that makes stern, matter-of-fact statements, but he ends up feeling stiff, forced, and emotionless. It could have made him a key element to a true mental and physical struggle between the mother and her kids, but it instead gave him this more primal, black and white facade that made decisions and outlooks more clear cut.
With little more to show for itself, the subtle, careful tone and direction starts to drag its feet with a trailing driving point. It makes it feel like the story and characters lost their tragic struggle and turned more into a lost cause. It's a shame as this could have been much more powerful of a film and experience to dissect the layers.
Rating: 5/10
Director: Sonny Mallhi (Anguish)
Actors: Vinessa Shaw, Colin Ford, James Ransone
Info: IMDB link
Trailer: YouTube link
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