I love getting screener movies because you legitimately never know what you are about to watch. A lot of times, they are lower-budgeted independent flicks that are made with a lot of passion, but not always with a lot of finely honed talent. Other times, they are completely hidden gems I might not have ever discovered before. Some of the very best films I’ve seen in 2024 have been screeners I received! And yes, some of the very worst have been, too.

So a lot of times I turn these on and have no idea what I’m about to get. I usually just have a quick summary to read, and I have to base my expectations off of those.

For instance, for today’s movie–All You Need Is Blood–I received a summation that read, “Bucky is a 16-year-old aspiring director who dreams of becoming the next arthouse auteur sensation. After a strange meteor crash lands in his backyard and turns his deadbeat father into a brain-eating zombie, Bucky and his friends seize the opportunity to create the ultimate horror flick, starring his undead dad“.

That was all I knew, and honestly? Based on that? Hopes were low. I had already seen a few “Zombies, but funny” movies this year, and I was a bit tired of the take on the genre.

Luckily, there is a lot going on to All You Need Is Blood, and it’s not entirely just a madcap adventure of zany zombies. But to see all of that, let’s get into our Ups and Downs!

TWO UPS AND TWO DOWNS

+ All You Need Is Blood ends up being a surprisingly fun time that manages to perfectly walk a tight rope in its tone. It doesn’t try to be too silly or goofy, but it definitely has its entertaining moments. Likewise, it doesn’t take itself too seriously, but still manages just enough of an air about itself that you can feel realistically engaged in the picture. It’s a tough mood to pull off, but they accomplish it.

+ An easy way to burrow into my heart is to have your project be a love letter to the entire creative process. To be an endeavor that seeks to make a creator feel seen by showing just how absurd it can be to make something. I love that stuff. I’ve written my entire life. I have this website and its podcast. I love movies that display the whole ordeal of creating something!

And listen… I’m not going to sit here and tell you that All You Need Is Blood is up there with One Cut Of The Dead. The latter is an epic and a classic and is arguably the greatest loving shout out to fellow creators that has ever been made. But! This movie did make me reminisce about it. It gave me the vibes, as the kids might say. And if you give me even slight recollection of a movie I love, that’s a good thing!

So yes, this flick sees you. If you’ve ever put yourself out there. If you’ve ever tried to make something for public consumption. If you’ve ever felt different because of what you want to create. All You Need Is Blood is there for you. I dig that.

– At one hundred minutes long, this film is a solid twenty minutes too much for what it is. There just isn’t enough material here to sustain this runtime, and what they add to pad it all out to the hundred minute mark feels so forced and unnecessary.

I would genuinely hate to lose the Eddie Griffin stuff because he puts in a great performance. But his role is so unnecessary. The conflict between the Emma Chasse and Mina Suvari’s characters doesn’t feel like it ultimately adds anything to the film. Honestly, the friend character Vishnu is negligible. There’s a lot of elements that are so extraneous, and even editing one or two out would really help this movie feel less bloated.

– There is a “final boss” zombie for Bucky and his love interest June to defeat, and he feels like he came from an entirely different movie than the one I had been watching. It’s just… so out of left field when you see it because, to that point as I said above, this movie did such a good job not getting too goofy. And then, all of the sudden, it trips up.

It’s all another element that feels like it might be there to pad out the runtime, too. This was not a flick that I thought needed a boss villain. It had a few zombies and a story with a soul, and then… bam! There’s some absurdism. It took me out of the movie I was enjoying up to that point, and it was all wildly unnecessary.

OVERALL

Talk about a mixed bag! What All You Need Is Blood does well, it does very well! I loved the heart of the tale and the way the tone was handled. But it just gets a bit too zany and off the wall for me at the very end. And, like I said, it’s far too long. This could have been a really good 70-80 minute flick, but at 100 minutes, it’s stretched past the part where the elements keep all working. There’s tons of promise here, though! I definitely would like to see what the talents involved get into next.