How sad is this?

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Like Lurking Fear, Bleeders is also inspired by Lovecraft's short story The Lurking Fear. Basic premise is taken from Lovecraft, but plot is completely different than both previous movie and original story. Although, this time it's pretty solid. Screenplay I liked a lot, movie not so much. I have no specific objections, it's simply that overall impression is white-livered. Decent entertainment for genre fans.5/10

This is an average horror flick that really should be better than it is. The initial screenplay adapts Lovecraft's "The Lurking Fear" and was by Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett. The film sports a beautiful location (Grand Manan Island, Canada) that maintains that same creepy boating town vibe as their earlier DEAD & BURIED, but gets bogged thanks to flat direction from Peter Svatek. Dupuis, who also has the O'Bannon penned SCREAMERS on his resume (his mom must be proud), looks a tad out of place, more like a TWILIGHT reject with his pale skin, flowing hair and bad fashion sense. Hauer is decent in the film and actually survives. Oddly enough, half of the cast also popped up in THE SWEET HEREAFTER the same year. The film does earn points for having harm come to several children through out. Svatek must have some kind of fetish because he moved on to TV movies like BABY FOR SALE (2004) and STOLEN BABIES, STOLEN LIVES (2008).

"Bleeders" is a dull, disappointing creature feature with little to like about it.**SPOILERS**Stranded on a small island, Kathleen Strauss, (Kristin Lehman) and her husband John, (Roy Dupuis) decide to stay there following an outburst of a physical condition he suffers from. Unable to find help from Dr. Marlowe, (Rutger Hauer) he advises them to stay there anyway to rest up from his condition. Realizing that the island's cemetery is being overhauled, a series of strange disappearances of the locals manages to get wind back to them about a deadly curse plaguing the island. When it's claimed that he is the descendant of a long-cursed bloodline of European royals that were doomed due to their incessant inbreeding and forced to come there, he initially disbelieves the stories until an encounter with a race of devilish creatures, hungry after the removal of their food-supply, are terrorizing the island and must team with the locals to keep the ravenous creatures at bay.The Good News: This here is a disappointing, but potentially worthwhile entry. One of it's best features is the absolutely creepy, and potentially great story for this one. This one had the perfect potential to be incredibly creepy with the way it went about building up it's story, with the rare blood disease and the deranged ancestors meshing well with the suspense of the subterranean menaces plaguing the town through the cemetery was ripe for a series of incredibly atmospheric scenes, and while the occasional shot of something scurrying around breaking open the coffins or dragging someone away underneath the series of tunnels do get pretty creepy, they pale to how great it could've been. The other really big plus is the look of the creatures, which are appropriately grotesque. Despite only being glimpsed clearly rather briefly, they're pink lumpy, hermaphroditic blobs with multiple stomachs, numerous nostrils and eyes. They also act quite viciously, only attacking when they themselves appear to be in danger but causing a lot of damage when it happens, a really nice touch that adds to their credibility. The only other part to work nicely is how well-done the finale is, which is great. With the suspense of the huddled masses inside the darkened lighthouse with the snarling creatures right on their heels to the enormously satisfying confrontations within the tunnels below and all the more, this is a great conclusion and works nicely. These here are the best features of the film.The Bad News: There was a couple of rather big flaws in this one. The biggest out of all of them is the film's incredibly languid and utterly boring pace. It's really hard to stay interested in this one because it really doesn't have all that much going on for it during the beginning half. Rather than build off the incredible potential it had with it's fantastic story, it concerns itself with useless scenes of the family's wandering around the village trying to find something to help them or just taking too long to explain anything. There's no reason why the meeting at the house where his past is spelled out for him should take over ten minutes to get through, especially since the thing is given in two lengthy discussions that really only needed one, since one ends with the revelation of a flaw in the argument and the second go-round gives it completely, wasting tons of time in the process. Even going deeper in the histories of the other townspeople is a lot of time taken up there that could've been better served in getting the creatures some time, since they have so little time anyway and given or even removed them from the film somewhat lets them shine a little more. That also brings up another rather big flaw to this one, the incredibly limited time the creatures themselves are involved. As mentioned, it's only around the last twenty minutes that they are shown with any kind of frequency, and that's due to the amount of time that's spent with the other story lines here. This is especially troubling considering how potentially promising the story could've been with so many great things in it. Another rather big flaw is the film's really hard-to-see gore scenes, as nearly everything takes place under the cover of night and rendering them practically impossible to see. The fact that it's body count is so small it's hard to generate much of any under that condition is the film's last big flaw, since, even though it's impossible to see them, when it doesn't have a lot to offer it stands out even more. That really could've been fixed during the assault at the end, but overall, the biggest flaw is the boredom.The Final Verdict: An incredibly dull and boring creature feature that's all the more maddening knowing what could've been present is wasted. Really only worthwhile for those who enjoy the work of the creative crew or find these slow-burning films interesting, while those who can't stand the flaws should seek caution.Rated R: Graphic Violence, Nudity, several Sex Scenes, several attempted Rapes and some Language

Bleeders is set on a small isolated island called Van Daam's Landing where the parent-less John Strauss (Roy Dupuis) & his wife Kathleen (Kristin Lehman) have travelled to in a desperate search for answers to John's hereditary blood condition after discovering that he was born on the island. They ask the islanders whether a 'Strauss' family ever lived there but they claim no one by that name ever has. Meanwhile the island is in a bit of a crisis as all the dead need to be dug up in the local cemetery as the wood used in the coffins is substandard, it is discovered that some of the bodies have disappeared. Around the same time there is a sighting of a deformed creature which ends up dead that the local doctor Marlowe (Rutger Hauer) examines & finds out that it's blood has the same genetic flaws seen in John's. Are they connected? What are these creatures, what do they want with dead bodies & what will happen now all the bodies have been dug up...Also known as Hemoglobin here in the UK which means I saw the uncut version this Canadian American co-production was directed by Peter Svatek & is average at best. The script by Charles Adair, Ronald Shusett & Dan O'Bannon was apparently based on the short story The Lurking Fear by H.P. Lovecraft & has glimpses of creativity, excitement & a pretty good story but the finished result is really dull to watch, it takes itself far too seriously & is just far to slow to maintain one's attention for over 90 minutes, the film doesn't get going until the last 10 or so minutes by which time, if your still awake, is far too late. We learn during Bleeders that these creatures have been on the island for literally generations yet no one has ever seen them because they feast on dead bodies stuffed embalming fluid, OK that's fine if it was a large city but this is a very small community. I mean how many people died there a week, it must have been quite a few to sustain a load of creatures. Even if only one person a week died & that was enough to feed all those creatures that's still a pretty high death rate in a community that probably numbers no more than a few hundred, right? The narrative is very loose, nothing is tied together that well & the explanation why these creature exist in the first place is flimsy to say the least & I wasn't keen on the open twist ending either. Having said that it's watchable & there are a few decent sequences in there.Director Svatek must take the blame for taking a potentially great premise, some terrific special make-up creature effects & turning in such a drab & lethargic film. Bleeders is well made but it has no real energy to it, the horror scenes have little tension & no scares until the end when everyone has to barricade themselves in a lighthouse as the creatures try to get them as a thunderstorm rages outside. There isn't much gore, there's a mangled creature, a few dead bodies, some brief stabbings & the films gore highlight is a cool slit throat that gushes blood.Techncially Bleeders is good, it's well made & competent throughout but I'd have liked a bit more visual style. The special make-up creature effects are excellent it's just a shame that they get all of five minutes worth of screen time, a real shame because they look really impressive. The acting was OK but nothing special & is it just me or does Dupuis look like a female Bruce Campbell?! Hauer probably needed rent money & doesn't put much effort into his role.Bleeders had the potential to be a great film with some cool creatures but in the hands of this set of filmmakers what we ended up with was a slow, dull & disappointing exercise in patience, maybe I'm being too harsh here as it's not without it's merits but there are so many much better horror films out there that I simply cannot recommend Bleeders at all.