Blood and Chocolate

Every so often a movie comes along that is wholly bewildering and unexpected. Blood and Chocolate is the tale of Vivian, a teenage girl and secret member of the Loup-Garoux, a tribe of shape shifters similar to that of werewolves. When Vivian (Agnes Bruckner, who’d play a convincing robot) finds love with a young artist outside of her pack, her suitor and pack leader Gabriel (Oliver Martinez, slippery with soap-opera sleaze) decides to scare off, or maybe eliminate, her young lover. The set up is that of a bad B-movie but the execution is that of a movie so terribly and unintentionally funny that it trumps the comedic efforts of far cleverer fare actually designed to split one’s guts with laughter. At least a D-movie, Blood and Chocolate delivers more bad acting, stilted dialogue, cheesy effects and terrible editing than fans of glorious failures could ever hope for. The creature transformation is amongst the movie’s most hysterical elements — there is no new monster formed, just a human body leaping, glowing with gold light and landing as a traditional four-legged wolf (the canine actors look like wolf and husky crosses). Classic moments include a dance party scene where everyone moves like a first time Tai-Chi student perpetually smelling burnt toast and a great slow-motion jumping body slam of a wolf off a balcony. Of the numerous deleted scenes, one supposedly threatening sequence of Gabriel force-feeding Vivian’s pseudo-mother absinthe to death is suitably ridiculous. The commentary track reveals about as much critical thought about the project as a viewing indicates was invested in it. If you find solace in ineptitude or mirth in the misguided, this might be just the steaming car crash for you. All other viewers should avoid this movie like the plague.