BloodSpell: episodes 7-8 (2006) written and directed by Hugh Hancock (Strange Company)

 

Finally, after a long delay episode 8 of Hugh Hancock’s feature mechinima production of blood, magic, monks, swords, fights, busty maidens, bald heroes, rock music, Scottish accents and Shrek-like humour has finally overcome its technical difficulties and been released. Despite my misgivings about episodes 1-6, I am pleased to see that this initiative project is still rolling along nicely.

 

• Episode 7 is probably the most action packed episode so far, despite its frankly clunky start. The main body of this episode is taken up with our heroes overcoming a fairly mediocre puzzle booby trapped with some excellent gollums or steam-age robots. Unfortunately this is all slightly lacking in ambition, as it could all be out of some Dungeons and Dragons adventure or a bog standard RPG computer game - certainly nothing greatly cinematic. Still, this scene is mainly played for laughs and the rockabilly soundtrack adds to the sense of farce. This is followed with a twist in the tail, which promises us more heroics to follow.

• Episode 8 is by far the best and most sophisticated episode so far and, hopefully, boding well for the future of BloodSpell. Jered is, literally, thrown back into the ‘blooded’ ghetto, where he needs to enlist the help of Carrie and Gad, her less than friendly uncle, to save the sassy Arianne from the Black Monks. While comparatively little happens in this episode, the lack of repetitive fight scenes, allows the characters and plot to develop at a more natural and satisfying pace. So far, BloodSpell has been a fairly linear, if enjoyable, series: with simply action scenes pushing the story from A to B, from B to C, etc… However for the first time episode 8 suggests that more complex character motivations and plot subtleties might be on the cards - I sure hope so!

 

So BloodSpell continues and I will continue to watch it. While I doubt it will ever be entirely to my tastes, I think I am getting used to BloodSpell’s occasional quirks. Well worth checking out, especially as it is free!

 

If you want to see BloodSpell then clicky here.