12/08/2025
Blood and breakfast review from baron von neck from the castle of Frankenstein magazine
Blood and Breakfast (2024) - No offense meant to horror icons Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers, but the "mask" that the serial killer wears in this movie is kinda cooler than theirs.
It's a pumpkin design, orange and green, and it flashes on and off.
And boy, does writer/director Mark Byrne give you a pretty good reason to cheer for him as he goes about his business. This is quite a scruffy bunch the killer whittles his way through at a bed-and-breakfast inn!
This is really low-budget stuff here. The special effects aren't particularly "special," and the killings won't make you go, "Wow, that was different!" But it's fine, and free on Tubi. You can laugh at the splattering as he whales away with his ax.
The acting is pretty solid. There is a fine line between tongue-in-cheek performing and just looking clumsy and nervous. The cast here appears comfortable with each other in front of the camera. They certainly look like they are having fun with it. So good on them.
But ohhhhhh, are they a bunch of weirdos.
They bicker. They whine. They point fingers at each other. One of them, a self-entitled woman named Angie (Beatrice Boepple), is grate-on-your-nerves insufferable as she constantly picks at her sister Lizzie (Kay Leahy) - and everyone around her. They aren't all mean, but they're all amusingly annoying in their own ways.
Part of it is they're all spooked. Each one of them is the survivor of attacks by a serial killer who has been terrorizing the town. Of course, we get flashbacks as they tell their tales. They get more spooked when they start disappearing.
My favorite "guest" is a kind of sloppy, but affable guy named Mike (Matt Burns), who came to the inn while doing a favor for his sister. He has the coolest scene when he and a computer-screen temptress named Destiny (Morrigan Milam Thompson) have a little private time in a back room. The look on her face when things get crazy is priceless.
It's unfortunate that we don't see Thompson for more than the two minutes. She'd have lit it up as a guest/victim. I'm curious if she was on the set when they shot this. She could have done it from home, and saved the airfare.
Oh, well. The two minutes made me smile. And so did the rest of the movie. High-brow horror snobs would probably call it junk. But for me, it went down easy with a couple of beers and a sandwich.
Grade: 3.5 out of 5 stars.
