Review of Bloodstone (1988) by Eric R — 06 May 2010

I wish I could start this review with some clever pun like "This is a forgotten gem" or this is a "diamond in the rough" however I just can't because this is no gem. It's just another run-of-the mill 80's adventure film that blends in with the thousands of others that filled the VHS selves back in the early days of video rental stores.

Filmed in Indiana, we have a newlywed couple traveling by train in India for their honeymoon. However on the train a thief, who has recently stolen a huge ruby known as the "Bloodstone" (no, not the same damn cracker jack stone from the Subspecies series), slips the stone into their luggage because the authorities were on his trail. This of course leads to high adventure as both the police and the thieves boss are after the coup for the stone.

The best part of this film is the authentic India cinematography. If you can get your hands on the Image Entertainment DVD, the transfer is beautiful and captures the lush vegetation wonderfully. Another highlight of the film is the secondary characters which consist of a scheming taxi driver and a high nasally pitched police inspector. These guys are actually fun to watch and totally blow our two leads out of the water.

This lies our problem, our newlywed couple. As the lead characters these characters were flat and uninteresting (our leading man also seems to have his voice awkwardly dubbed). Thank God we have interesting secondary characters to pick up the slack. Our head villain (played by Christopher Neame) is also flat and hardly seems threatening, despite director Dwight H. Little desperately tying to make him so.

There you have it, Bloodstone, another average 80's adventure film that is only saving grace is a couple of funny and interesting secondary characters and beautiful India cinematography. The film was produced by Nico Mastarakas, an extremely overrated Greek director that thankfully left the directing talents to newcomer Dwight H. Little, a director perhaps best known for Halloween 4.