It is, of course, universally accepted that Joel Schumacher completely sucks in every way. Even his best films (“The Lost Boys”? “The Client”? Help us out here) are elevated by decent scripts, and would be far more watchable in the hands of a director who cared more about, hm, shot composition, canny music choices, proper lighting, focus on strong thematic content – really everything. Still, it’s a bit of a surprise that not only has he fallen far from the A-list, but his films can be relegated to a near direct-to-DVD status.
Such is the case with “Blood Creek,” which was released by Lionsgate very very quietly this weekend. Like last year’s “Midnight Meat Train,” “Creek” is a genre project that’s been quietly shuffled into theaters in nowheresville, second-run theaters in Dallas, Memphis and a handful of other cities. However, “Midnight Meat Train” was a well-known and anticipated film, with a website, a trailer and several release dates. There are virtually NO promotional materials available for “Blood Creek”- even IMDB cryptically lists it as “Town Creek.” As a result, no one knows exactly how many theaters Lionsgate has shuffled “Blood Creek” off to.
The movie stars Dominic Purcell, Henry Cavill and Michael Fassbender and appears to involve Nazis and occult experiments, but good luck finding much further information, even in the one IMDB review available. Our guess is that LG made some sort of theatrical committment to Schumacher and co. to give this stillborn film some sort of theatrical release, but this is a bit insulting, no? Maybe they finally saw “The Number 23”? Whatever the case, Lionsgate has scrubbed every mention of this film from their website. Their shame is palpable – it’s like this movie called the President a liar during one of his speeches or something.
While the studio seems dedicated to releasing SIX “Saw” movies, this castoff will probably be on DVD in the next couple of months, though if the scant early notices are to be believed, this isn’t on par with “Midnight Meat Train,” which received some minor praise from horror lovers. If you’ve seen this under-the-radar effort from the director of “Batman and Robin,” please post some information about it in the comment section. So we can mock you.
