Reunion goes wildly wrong

The director normallly makes documentaries, and he adds that element into what winds up eventually being (spoiler alert) a vampire movie. One scene near the end is jaw-dropping in its violence because the filmmaking makes it almost for a moment seem real. The coverage of the location (houses and a homeless and addiction center in Los Cruces, New Mexico) is, for a horror movie, unusually naturalistic. Many of the bright natural light images are beautiful, none more than the slmost-still shots of the two and sky at the very end. On the other hand, Kos and his writer aren't particularly successful at pacing and suspense. Some people reportedly actually from a local center of the kind depicted, as minor characters, add an authentic look. On the other hand, some of the main actors were not so well directed and appear either overly glum or overly emphatic.

Reviewed for Variety by Dennis Harvey, who is in agreement that the documentary technique works well but that the horror elements are too little and too late for a genre film. He starts out by noting that found-footage horror is a genre that debuted with the brilliant 1999 Blair Witch Project and that every year or two someone tries to produce a zinger in its wake but this isn't that zinger.

The direction of actors is less successful than the use of local setiing. From the start the leads, Brittany O'Grady (of "White Lotus") playing a filmmaker called Emily Wyland, and E.J. Bonilla as her cameraman Danny Martinez seem under-directed and in need of constraint, especially Bonilla. This is true of others, such as Alanna Ubach, as Emily's estranged mother Sam, why seems too emotional, too mawkish, and Leo Marks, who plays a slightly deranged local man. And so on.

I have only good things to say about the use of local settings, particularly the handsome natural-lighting shots of ordinary Los Cruces, New Mexico urban landscape and skies, which are beautiful, especially toward the end. But that would not be what you go to this movie for. I will say that I remember a violent final scene, and those sunlit buildings and sky.

In Our Blood 89 mins., debuted October 9, 2024 at Screamfest Horror Film Festival in Los Angeles. The Letterboxd score of 3.3 is decent and the current comments there are good. It opens in theaters Oct. 24, 2025.

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©Chris Knipp. Blog: http://chrisknipp.blogspot.com/.