BLOOD SONG

 1982/18/86m

A.k.a. Dream Slayer (UK video)

“When he whistles this tine… the time for killing begins.”

Director: Alan J. Levi / Writers: Joseph M. Shink, George Hart, James Fargo, Frank Avianca, Lenny Montana / Cast: Frankie Avalon, Donna Wilkes, Richard Jaeckel, Antoinette Bower, Dane Clark, William Kirby Cullen, Lenny Montana.

Body Count: 8

Laughter Lines: [killer, once hurt by final girl fighting back] “You hurt me… really hurt me!”

Shot under the working title of Premonitions in Oregon, this bizarre Halloween copy casts 50s beach movie fixture Frankie Avalon as a gurning psycho, whose daddy shot the missus, her lover, and then himself, leaving little Frankie a wooden flute that he treasures.

After escaping from his institution years later, like so many of these fellas do, he stalks healing cripple Wilkes (previously seen as the hysterical girl shrieking at the shark in Jaws 2 – see a shot of her in this movie in The Collection review, sitting far left, ready to wail again), who has a psychic bond with him after his blood was donated to her. Oddly, he only becomes aware of her when she spies him trying to bury a corpse.

Contrary to its set up, Blood Song tries to steer itself away from the standard slasher movie opus by allowing Wilkes’ teenage friends to survive, instead opting to off orderlies, hitchhikers, and luckless passers-by.

Avalon is predictably amusing as the woodwind-favouring psycho and Wilkes is good as the final girl, but the belief that its something better than it is prevents any of it from setting to memory.

Blurbs-of-interest: Wilkes was also Klaus Kinski’s manipulative daughter in Schizoid; Antoinette Bower was Jamie Lee Curtis’ mom in Prom Night.