Cody hits the road with a blood-soaked comedy adventure that's available on DVD and VOD as of today.
The first credit that appears on the screen as Blood Riders: The Devil Rides with Us begins is for the company LaughterSlaughter Films, immediately indicating the sort of tone writer/director Lari Teräs went for with his feature directorial debut.
The action/horror/comedy, which is indeed full of laughter and slaughter, starts off with a dead girl, played by Gabriella Lanzillotta, sitting in some kind of bright white limbo, talking with an interviewer played by Chris Feltis. The dead girl doesn't seem to be too fazed by the fact that her life has been ended too soon by people at this point unknown, but she does hope that they'll burn in Hell for what they did to her. And she hopes that whoever finds her body will do the right thing.
The people who find her body are not doing the right thing. The dead girl's corpse is discovered in the trunk of a car that teenagers Janek (Corey Lof), Kyle (A.J. Morabito), Zoey (Caitlynne Medrek), and Dane (Joel Ballanger) have randomly stolen from a parking lot for stupid teenager reasons - Janek and Kyle because they're tired of being kicked around in life and wanted to do something impressive, Zoey and Dane simply because they wanted to have some fun. When they see the dead girl, they understandably freak out. Unable to notify the authorities due to the fact that they stole the car, they do whatever is necessary to keep the crime secret while seeking help to dispose of the vehicle and the body within.
The teens get more than anyone ever could have bargained for while on this quest to stay out of trouble. Soon they have a lot more than just one body to get rid of, as the accidental murder of one person who threatens to contact the police is followed by several more murders committed in self defense, with the adorable Zoey turning out to be the most capable killer of the bunch.
Despite the fact that these kids are responsible for so much bloodshed, they never lose their likeability. Nothing they do is ever malicious, they're just in over their heads and doing what they have to do. All the while they remain exceptionally polite - I lost count of how many times the characters say "Sorry" in this movie. Most of the people who die along the way aren't exactly sympathetic, either, as the kids find themselves up against Nazis and human sacrificing cultists who are planning to resurrect Hitler... and to do so, need a small box containing the fallen Fuhrer's mustache.
As characters die, we get to see their meetings with the limbo interviewer as well, and see as he casts judgment on where they are to spend eternity.
Things get quite crazy during Blood Riders' brief running time. It's very quirky, fun, and fast paced, and the four teens are enjoyable characters to hang out with, all of the actors delivering solid performances. The low budget is obvious, but the movie looks and sounds good, and Lari Teräs shows a lot of promise as a filmmaker. He has made a very entertaining debut with this film, and I'm interested in seeing where he'll go from here and what sort of insanity he might have in store for us in the future.
If Blood Riders sounds like it'd be up your alley, I highly recommend checking it out. It's a great way to spend 71 minutes.
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