Blood Vessel is an entertaining film filled with tension, Nazis and a lot of red lights.
Spoilers galore below!
The film starts out with a group of people stranded in a life raft. Their hospital boat was torpedoed by a Nazi ship (or maybe a submarine; I didn’t read the opening text on the screen). Suddenly, out of the mist, a Nazi minesweeper appears before them. The group is made up of three yanks, an Aussie, two Brits and a Russian. Cue up poor joke.
As the group approaches the boat, they notice that no one is on board. Through some gunslinging, the Russian is able to shoot a cable that the group uses to get on board. Naturally, one of their group doesn’t make it. The yank captain falls into the water and is sliced and diced by the propellers. A typical way to go in these films.
Upon boarding the deserted ship, the group begins to explore. They soon stumble upon several deformed and grotesque bodies on the boat’s bridge and engine room. It is almost certainly the crew though that is not explicitly stated. Realizing that something is definitely wrong, they decide to do the most logical thing they can: explore the ship some more. Although, to be fair, all the lifeboats on the ship have been sabotaged.
A few more minutes into their exploration they are startled by seeing a small girl crawl out from a dark niche down a hallway. Upon finding her again they confirm that she is not German (at this point she’s either Italian, Romanian, or Bulgarian according to the characters), they continue their exploration. Also, the girl, whose name is Mya, bites one of the Brits hands. And all Mya seems to say is something like “familia”.
As they get down to the next level, they run into a survivor – a German no less! After they convince the German that the group won’t kill him he begins to let his guard down. He then sees Mya and falls her “the beast” though not in an Alyssa Edwards sort of way. A scuffle ensues and the German guy shoots one of the other yanks before being stabbed by the Russian.
We’ve now lost 2 yanks at this point. Remaining: 1 yank, 2 Brits, an Aussie, the Russian, and the Italian/Bulgarian/Romanian girl.
Continuing with the exploration, the group splits up. One of the Brits decides to do his own thing, the remaining yank and Aussie do some more research and the remaining group are in the infirmary treating an injury from the earlier scuffle. Btw, the girl, Mya, looks at the blood in a hungry way. Probably foreshadowing. We also learn a little more about the Russian as backstory filler happens. Same with the Brit as well. We soon find out that the Nazis had a map of Transylvania, an ancient tome with a skull on the cover and several photos of men in front of an ornate looking coffin. I think we know what is about to happen in earnest.
The Aussie and the yank then find said coffin in the cargo hold. Of course, the yank decides to unchain the coffin and open it. Leading us to see what looks like a pretty hideous bat creature thing just laying in the coffin. Of course, the thing’s eyes open immediately and the creature (known as The Patriarch, thanks to the subtitles) rips out a good chunk of the yank’s neck. We’ve now lost all the Americans onboard. The Patriarch – or, let’s call him the Bat Dude – then attempts to attack the Aussie but he gets away. At the same time, we see Mya, back in the infirmary, go into a trance like state and attack the Brit lady. It seems that Mya and Bat Dude are connected since she attacked after Bat Dude woke up.
As Mya is about to turn the Brit lady into a midnight snack, the Russian shoots Mya who scurries away. We then switch to the other Brit who is on the radio trying to contact the outside world. In the background of the shots, we see Mya slowly crawling towards the Brit. As the Brit is yaking away with someone on the radio, Mya goes in for the kill. This is of course after the Brit decides to sell out his country to the Germans. We’ve now lost one of the Brits. We are down to The Russian, the Brit lady and the Aussie. Plus two undead creatures.
After watching a brief video, the remaining survivors realize what they are dealing with. Through the old tome mentioned earlier, the Russian figures out this creature comes from old Eastern European fairytales. We also learn that the only way to kill these fairytales is to use holy relics. And of course, there happens to be a box down in the cargo hold. Convenient as always. While this happening, Bat Dude finds another coffin and decides to wake up his long lost love. We now have three humans and three undead things. The odds are getting worse for the humans.
We find out that the Brit lady, who was bitten by Mya earlier in the movie, has been infected and is starting to change. Again, more foreshadowing. The group captures Mya in a small compartment. But Mya, having another trick up her sleeve, tries to confuse the group by being a small human child. But, unswayed, the humans burn Mya alive. Bat Dude, being engraved by Mya’s death, begins to exert his control over the Brit lady. She tries to fight it but she succumbs to Bat Dude’s whiles. It is then assumed that Brit lady dies when Bat Dude and Bat Dudette decide to dine on her neck.
We are now down to Aussie and Russian and Bat Dude & Dudette.
Russian gets bit by bat dude but is able to escape after shooting him with a flare gun. Aussie man gets tricked by Bat Dudette and almost looses his face. Russian then shoots Dudette with a machine gun and throws an axe to the Aussie who the proceeds to decapitate Bat Dudette. Now Bat Dude is really, really pissed off. The guys realize that they have to destroy the boat to prevent Bat Dude from escaping. This is further compounded by the fact that they hear another boat in the distance – presumably the Germans heard on the radio from earlier.
The film ends with the Aussie and Russian fighting more of the undead (who happened to be locked away in another compartment that they didn’t see until the end) as they attempt to reach the ship’s explosive armaments. The Russian stays behind to set off the explosives as he has been bitten and realizes that he is starting to transform. Russian blows up the ship and Aussie – who finds Brit lady at the last minute, both jump into the water as the ship is destroyed.
As Aussie and Brit lady are saved, she bites him. We slowly fade to black with the Aussie guy sinking to his death while Brit lady – now probably Bat Dudette 2 is the sole survivor.
The adjoins and action were pretty good. I’d give it a solid 3.5 out of 5.
Wonder Wander Wine 