Bloodlust: Subspecies III (1994) (Blu-ray Review)
Directed By: Ted Nicolaou
Where to get it: Full Moon Direct
After getting dragged back to the layer of Radu by his dear ugly mother, Michelle is still in the thrall of the evil vampire Radu as we start the film. While her sister Rebecca seeks help for her sister, Michelle yearns to be taught the skills of the vampire, or at least it works as a nice stalling method until help can finally arrive. Meanwhile, as Becky tries to free her from his evil clutches, she this time gets some help from a few authority people who FINALLY decide it’s time to believer her and help out. Shot back to back with part 2, this time around Rebecca seems to take the more starring lead as the movie progresses at a rather boring pace.
So if you’ve read my review of part 2 of Subspecies you can take everything I told you I liked about it and toss it out the damn window this time around. None of that goodness is left here at all. The gore has once again gone away and we have a slower pace that I just can’t stand. To make matters worse, we follow Rebecca more than we do Michelle. And while it’s at least good that they are played by the same people (making films back to back will do that for you), Rebecca just isn’t as interesting as Michelle or as hot. Michelle is what this whole franchise is supposed to be about next to the actual Bloodstone. Why not keep the main focus on her?
Also while Radu (who is still drooling a lot) was a heartless bastard during part 1 he continues his trend from part 2 of getting soft. He spends more time here trying to make Michelle swoon for him rather than killing sons of bitches! And let me break it to you Radu. Take it from me, if she isn’t interested, she won’t be interested. It’s just not going to happen. It also doesn’t do him any favors that he killed the man she loved and keeps biting her. Regardless, it gets old watching Radu getting all puppy-dog eyed over Michelle. It just kills the overall vibe.
So you lack gore. You lack that killer instinct from Radu. And we go at a slow pace following the lesser of the film’s two sisters. When you add all that up (plus the major lack of Radu’s little finger people), you have a film that even falls under the original as far as quality goes. The only saving grace at all to this one is the finale, which while cool isn’t at all good enough to save this stinker of a film. I can kinda see why they went and made another Subspecies after this one because this was not the note you’d want to end your franchise on. Thankfully the series went on and thankfully the blu-ray looks pretty awesome when compared to how we’ve seen this movie before on VHS and less than steller DVDs. The movie may let you down, but the transfer won’t
– Making Subspecies: The Recollections of Ted Nicolaou, Anders Hove, and Denice Duff video interviews
– Audio Commentary by Ted Nicolaou, Anders Hove, and Denice Duff
– Killer Subspecies Montage
– Full Length Original VideoZones
– Full Moon Trailers
