Blood Machines: Review

30th May 2020

Corey (Elisa Lasowski) and Bald (Natasha Cashman) are space hunters who find a rather large ship piloted by Vascan (Anders Heinrichsen) and Lago (Christian Erickson), two overworked and underpaid men astonished to find two women alone on a planet and eager to get to their ship.

However, once they get to work, the space hunters unleash an artificial intelligence which takes the form of a beautiful naked women called Mima (Joëlle Berckmans). So, the ship has to chase this mysterious woman through the depths of space in order to retrieve what they believe is theirs.

Blood Machines is a new short series exclusive to Shudder that showcases the mind of director Seth Ickerman and what his visual effects team are capable of accomplishing. Inspired by 80’s science fiction, Blood Machines harks back to a time where the visuals were stunning, the plot was bizarre and nothing really made sense, but was a lot of fun.

Like those kinds of movies from the 80’s, Blood Machines has a very impressive visual style. The short series reimagines a retro aesthetic, giving it a modern twist so that the audience’s imaginations are fully realised on the screen which was stopped short by budgetary constraints at the time. The thumping synthesiser soundtrack is extremely catchy and although the plot is very thin, the visuals are certainly enough to keep audiences entertained. Even if it’s just to wonder how it was all pulled off.

However, Ickerman’s short film was never meant to be split into three parts and it shows as putting them into this format weakens the already shaky story and a jarring title sequence halfway through the second episode hints at what it should have been.

Also, not unlike most science fiction films of the 80’s, there’s more style than substance and while it may look impressive there really isn’t much that hasn’t been seen before. Whereas the idea was to lovingly and authentically recreate the 80’s throwback style of a science fiction film the audience thinks they remember, Blood Machines is probably the reason those kinds of films aren’t so well remembered.

Being able to put all the elements together is quite a task and the results are bound to please those who share the director’s interests. However, making a psychedelic Lovecraftian Bond title sequence may not be what everyone is looking for.

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