Horror Movie Review: Blood Clots (2018)

An anthology of horror shorts, Blood Clots doesn’t bother with a wrap-around story instead presenting seven stories with nothing to link them. It’s just a collection of varied and inventive (well, some) shorts.

Clot I: Hell of a Day is the opening short and doesn’t start things off strongly being a so-so zombie story. A hurt woman takes shelter in an abandoned restaurant during a zombie apocalypse. Before she can leave though, the dead wander in forcing her hide in the basement. There she waits while the zombies mill about above.

The best thing about ‘Hell of a Day’ is how professional it looks. The short is shot really well, acted even better and gets pretty gory at times. It’s hard to get too excited though as it’s just zombies even with its shock ending.

The next short is Clot II: Never Tear Us Apart. A tongue in cheek story. Two men on a trip to visit family stumble across cannibal’s shack in the woods. It’s silly but pretty entertaining especially with its final moments.

Unfortunately, this is a short that also appeared in 2016 Minutes Past Midnight that we reviewed here.

Keeping things varied, Clot III: Blue Moon introduces werewolves mixed with the sleazy sexual practice of dogging (go look it up). This is such an over the top short that it’s hard to not have a big smile on your face as naked men and women get ripped apart.

Clot IV: Time to Eat is the shortest of the bunch and is a nice palette cleanser after the chaotic style of Clot III. It simply sees a young boy going into his basement to discover a tentacled creature inside all while his mother prepares dinner in the kitchen. No dialog, this is a short that stands out thanks to the expressiveness of the characters.

It’s initially disappointing to see that Clot V: Still is another zombie short but unlike Clot I, this one has some originality about it. It’s super simple, a man portraying a human statue has to keep really still while a zombie attack goes on around him.

We hear his thoughts as he wonders how he is going to get out of this predicament. It’s funny, it’s gory and very clever.

Clot VI: Hellyfish has buckets of imagination and clearly inspired by the monster b-movies of old. A terrorist and a spy find a submerged A-bomb and accidentally release its radiation turning jellyfish into mutant monsters. The finale, where the jellyfish cause chaos on a beach is pure slapstick and gory fun!

Finally, we get Clot VII: The Call of Charlie. A couple, planning a dinner date with friends, get some unexpected guests who invite themselves over. Rather then send them away, they let the new pair stay and meet Charlie. A human sized Cthulhu.

Utterly brilliant and utterly ridiculous but so much fun to watch. The dinner scene is both awkward and hilarious but the make-up/effects on Charlie looking downright amazing.

With no wrap-around story, there was a danger that Blood Clots would just feel confused. However, while nothing links the stories together, each one has its own charm and are lovingly made. The highlights are definitely The Call of Charlie, Still and Blue Moon!