Summary
- Henry Cavill's early career choices, including the movie Blood Creek, showcased his versatility as an actor.
- Blood Creek is a gory horror thriller directed by Joel Schumacher, known for his varied filmography and contributions to the Batman franchise.
- The film follows the Marshalls as they seek revenge on the Wollners, who serve an evil force connected to Nazi occultism. It is a straightforward and bloody horror movie with elements of fantasy and action.
The career of most movie stars takes numerous twists and turns. A longtime action hero might take on a vulnerable role in a romantic comedy. A dramatic performer might find their niche in parodies of their earlier career. When a star finds the part that defines their presence in Hollywood, it can be easy to forget their earlier appearances. Henry Cavill's early career was marked with unique choices like Blood Creek.
Screenwriter David Kajganich is best known for writing the 2018 remake of Suspiria. The celebrated supernatural horror film was a massive breakthrough for everyone involved. Kajganich has been working in the industry for over a decade before Suspiria. He was tasked with adapting Heinrich Böll's 1974 novel The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum. When that adaptation fell through, he created Blood Creek.
What is Blood Creek about?
In the 1930s, Hitler and the highest-ranking members of the Nazi Party became obsessed with occultism. Convinced that ancient sorcery was the key to installing their 1000-year Reich, the Nazis began sending experts around the world to find powerful relics. Hitler sends Professor Richard Wirth to West Virginia, where a family of German immigrants hides a Viking runestone. There, he's hosted by the Wollners. Wirth demonstrates his mastery of dark magic, but his proposition strikes the Wollners as evil. The Wollners trap Wirth in their basement. They bind him and themselves with an ancient ritual. Wirth and the Wollners live for decades. They serve his whims, but they keep him weak. For decades, they struggle through a nightmarish fight for survival.
71 years later, brothers Evan and Victor Marshall are camping in rural West Virginia. Victor disappears, leaving Evan to search madly for his older sibling. Sometime later, Victor unexpectedly reappears. Victor explains that he was kidnaped and held captive by the Wollner family, now a disgusting group of mighty zombies. Victor and Evan swiftly arm themselves to defeat the Wollner. The Marshalls set out in search of revenge, but Wirth is always two steps ahead. As the Marshalls fight the Wollners, they risk freeing an evil more ancient and terrible than they could have imagined. It's a violent, fast-paced battle between families. When the real threat emerges, the terrifying action reaches new heights.
Who directed Blood Creek?
Blood Creek came to the screen from the incomparable Joel Schumacher. It was his third-to-last film before his tragic death in 2020. After a rough upbringing, Schumacher entered the film industry in 1972, working as a production designer on Frank Perry's Play It as It Lays. He came to prominence in the 80s with multiple varied classics like St. Elmo's Fire and The Lost Boys. In 1993, he took over the Batman franchise from Tim Burton. His first superhero film, Batman Forever, received mixed views from critics but made a killing at the box office.
His follow-up, Batman & Robin, was less successful, putting an unfortunate black mark on his career. Schumacher went on to direct many strange and unique features. Some fans may only know him as the man who gave Bruce Wayne a Bat Credit Card, but his career is endlessly fascinating. Flatliners, Falling Down, 8mm, Phone Booth, The Number 23, and Phantom of the Opera stick out. They weren't all success stories by any metric, but the world of cinema is poorer for his loss. Blood Creek, in all its bloody schlock horror glory, represents an unusual outing in his career. His work on the film was marked with strife. The battle between Schumacher and Kajganich eventually led to Schumacher rewriting chunks of the script. Blood Creek is a collaborative effort, as all films are, but Schumacher's firm hand on the reigns can be felt.
How does Blood Creek end?
The Wollners warn the Marshalls of the Nazi in the basement. While they fight, Wirth escapes. The runes have altered his body, and the Wollners can no longer hold him back. Wirth explains that Victor and Evan have played into his hands. He directed the Wollners to abduct Victor and let him go. Wirth knew that Victor and his brother would return to exact vengeance upon his captors. With their help, he escapes the cellar for the first time. Wirth's body has undergone decades of unfavorable aging, keeping him from reaching full power. The Marshalls poison Wirth with the blood of his elders, which happens to rest in their veins. Victor uses barbed wire to decapitate Wirth while he's weakened. Without Wirth, the Wollners succumb to age and turn to dust. The youngest of the family uses her final breath to tell Evan and Victor that there are many other Nazi farms across the world. Victor returns to his family, but Evan dedicates himself to stopping these atrocities.
Blood Creek is a straightforward gory horror thriller with all the fun of an earlier offering. Fans of everything from Dead Snow to Call of Duty's Zombie mode will have a great time with the film. Henry Cavill would go on to bigger and better things, but fans of the actor will enjoy seeing him drenched in Nazi blood. Blood Creek is exactly what it sets out to be, absurd gore and all.