Blood Trails (DVD)

On the surface, Blood Trails does not have much going for it. It may have played at a few festivals, but it's basically a direct-to-disc slasher/stalker flick with no big stars in it and is written and directed by somebody you've probably never heard of. To boot, the title is tawdry and DVD's key art is cheap and tacky-looking.

However, like the books of yore, you cannot judge a DVD by its cover. This is not to say that Blood Trails blazes any new trails — it doesn't, but it does cover the same old ground with pleasantly surprising substance and style.

The story follows Anne (Rebecca Palmer), a bike messenger who makes the unwise decision to cheat on her boyfriend with a handsome stranger who says his name is Chris (Ben Price). She thinks there's no strings attached, but after the encounter is over, Chris's obsession with Anne is just beginning. The maniac even goes so far as to stalk Anne into the woods, where she and her boyfriend, Michael, are planning on spending a quiet retreat together.

After the cat-and-mouse games begin, Anne is forced to confess to Michael what happened and before he can even wrap his head around the concept he's been betrayed, Chris nearly takes Michael's head off. Once the battered boyfriend lies bleeding, and begging for Anne to take off and save herself, Blood Trails really takes off as a nonstop survival/horror movie in the tradition of Deliverance, The Hills Have Eyes, and Wolf Creek.

In the hands of a lesser actor, Anne could have come off as your typical stupid horror movie heroine. She does do a lot of dumb things, but Palmer pulls them off in such a way that Anne merely seems to be impulsive and unlucky. Price is very well-cast, as he believably straddles the line between foxy and frightening.

The story is simple and the characters are not very deep, but the death scenes are truly shocking and the suspense never lets up. Blood Trails may not be a keeper — once you've seen it, you've seen it — but it's definitely worth a look for fans of high-tension horror.

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Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson