Horror Movie Review: Blood Tracks (1985)

Ripping off The Hills Have Eyes in a way but moving the location to the snowy mountains, Blood Tracks is everything great and terrible about 80s horror. On the one hand, it’s silly and cheesy but on the other, it’s a boring re-tread of better told stories.

The story sees a hair metal/rock band heading out to the cold wilderness of the ‘north’ to film a music video. Along for the ride are a collection of nameless characters such as the video crew and a load of female groupies. All here to be fodder for the mutants that have taken up residence in a nearby abandoned factory.

If you’ve seen any slasher horror from this era you know what happens next. Characters go wandering around, often on their own and find themselves victims at the hands of the mutants.

Blood Tracks takes an age to get going. It’s almost like too movies in one as the first half is all about the band and the shooting of their video. Eventually, an avalanche happens. Or at least they say it does and we hear some far of rumbling. Now apparently trapped, the mutants start picking them off and the second half gets going. It’s a fight for survival as these monsters have been hunting their prey for many, many years.

The family of mutants are pretty ambiguous. Other than at the start of the movie were we see them pre-monsters and young, we really don’t have anything to go on. How have they survived in the cold wilderness and how did they become what they are? It’s a big stretch to believe that they went from little children to hulking, horrifying monsters. Even if it was inbreeding, that would surely take generations!

That ambiguity doesn’t really matter though as it’s ultimately a horror movie about them killing whoever comes their way. Which they do here and sometimes in inventive ways. Considering the movie tries to paint them as victims just defending their territory, they sure defend it in violent ways!

They are the most memorable thing about the movie. A huge cast of characters makes picking individuals out very difficult and the acting ranges from passable to cringe-inducing. The female entourage in particular have no other purpose other then to get topless, scream and die.

There is entertainment to be found in Blood Track but you’ve got to dig deep to find it. Few will last until it starts getting good as even for an 80’s horror, it looks rough.