Sunday 10 April 2011

Blooded - the movie


If you hunt, shoot or fish, you must watch Blooded, a new movie out on DVD, on Filmflex, or online via iTunes or LoveFilm.

Not only that, get all your non-hunting/shooting/fishing friends to watch it too.

Blooded is not a soppy propaganda film about countrysports. It's a gritty, powerful drama about a group of deer stalkers on the Isle of Mull who are targeted by the nastiest type of animal rights extremists. The film is presented as a 'documentary' about a (fictional) event in 2005. The producers have gone to a lot of trouble to create an alternative reality, so you begin to wonder if the film might actually be based on real events. The main character is clearly based on pro-hunting figurehead Otis Ferry, and the film-makers set up a fake animal rights website for the Real Animal League, which appears to have duped a good few real antis.

Is it pro or anti fieldsports? The producers say neither. It's a film about extremism, they say - the things people do when people feel so strongly about an issue that they stop debating and start fighting.

But there's no doubt who is portrayed more sympathetically in this film. The stalkers are real, three-dimensional people who have thought deeply about their relationship with the deer they kill and eat. The antis, by contrast, are anonymous, impersonal figures hidden behind balaclavas, who will stop at nothing to achieve their aims.

Shooters will enjoy looking for the rare technical errors - a rifle missing its bolt in one shot, a supposedly experienced shot resting the rifle barrel directly on a rock. But these don't detract from the experience.

Even if you didn't care about the subject, it's a gripping story well told. Blooded deserves a place alongside cult classics such as The Wicker Man.

3 comments:

vicky said...

The trailer makes the film look very 'anti'?

James Marchington said...

At first sight, you could get the impression that it's anti. Some shooters won't get it, but that's what makes it all the more powerful.

bigcatdetective said...

I,ll try and watch this film thanks for the tip.......