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BLINDED BY THE BLOOD
Written, Directed, Produced, and Narrated by Tim Ritter.
BLINDED BY THE BLOOD is an interesting, guerrilla-style behind the scenes look at the making of two early Tim Ritter films. The first half of BLINDED is devoted to the early cult classic KILLING SPREE with second half focusing on WICKED GAMES: TRUTH OR DARE II.
The KILLING SPREE section is fairly standard stuff, mostly centering on the complex make-up effects that were created for each of the films grisly death scenes. Working with a budget of $150,000.00, Tim and his crew are able to do some great work. This should be standard viewing for anyone looking to get into the effects market.
For me, the KILLING SPREEE post production phase was the most interesting. It took Tim 3 years to get the film distributed, finally going with the self distribution route. This came at a time when Blockbuster Video was at its peak and the large studios were buying up all the shelf space. This made it almost impossible for any independent filmmaker to get his work seen.
By contrast, Tim's follow-up feature was a sequel to his early effort TRUTH OR DARE. WICKED GAMES was a micro-budget production where Tim was able to raise $10 to produce his work. After watching this segment I'll give Tim's any praise he wants. He went from a full crew on KILLING SPREE to a seemingly one man show on WICKED GAMES. Man, does this guy have a set of stones! All his make-up had to be flown in and applied by the actors, his FX men had moved north. Madonna had stolen the title of his movie, and had no ending. But he persevered and finished his film.
Like the KILLING SPREE segment, the most interesting segment takes place during the post production phase. Tim, being the outspoken man he his, goes on a local cable access show and criticizes his local film commission resulting the government censoring the program and ordering a seizure of much of Tim footage.
Perhaps this documentary would work better being divided up and used as supplemental material on possible upcoming DVD releases or the two films. Together they make a nice compare and contrast of one man's dealings in both the low-budget and the no-budget industries, but I think they would work better after just having finished a viewing of each respective film.
The best way to learn how to make a film is to get on the set and just do it. I learned more on my first day on a set then I did in the prior two years of film school. I learned just as much during the two hours spent watching BLINDED BY THE BLOOD. Tim Ritter packs the documentary with as much material as he can without letting the pacing fall flat. Check it out.