A fundamentalist cult gets its comeuppance in Daniel Tucker's NOTHING BUT THE BLOOD

The film begins with a sermon, in which the preacher seem awfully certain -- as so many of  them are -- that he knows exactly what god wants. We then meet a hard-drinking, horny reporter covering a "new church in town" called Emeth, which one particularly unpleasant character informs us means truth in Greek.
And, yes, that church -- which has a reputation for burning down the homes of gays and making life miserable for the unmarried-but-cohabiting -- happens to be where our know-it-all preacher preaches.

Easy, if not outright absurd, coincidence abounds in the new mini-budget indie movie, NOTHING BUT THE BLOOD, written and directed by a young man named Daniel Tucker (shown at right), and so do some incredibly awful actions that seem to have no logical consequences at all. "Where the fuck is law enforcement?" may become your instant-then-constant mantra over the course of this film, which lasts a long, winding and very silly 90 minutes.

The fact that a lawbreaking church with a reputation this this dreadful seems to raise no eyebrows save that of our heroine's (the reporter) and our hero's (her soon-to-be boyfriend who's been a part of that church since childhood) sets the suspension-of-disbelief bar so high that few, if any, viewers will bother with an attempt to reach it.


Mr. Tucker and his movie tell us, over and over, things we already know, and his film is chock full of characters who alternate nasty name-calling with bromide offerings. The conception and execution of Nothing But the Blood is so poor that one cannot blame the actors involved, each of whom does what s/he can with the mediocre dialog and silly situations given them.

Chief among these are Rachel Hudson (at left, two photos above) and Jordan O'Neal (just above but barely recognizable through all that titular blood) as the movie's very odd couple, Les Best (below) as the hypocrite preacher, and Nick Triola (at right, two photos above) as the church's second-in-command. Were it not for the would-be timely theme and the heavy-duty violence throughout, TrustMovies can't imagine that this appallingly bad film would ever have found release. Still, here we are in the middle of the worst, most stupid and worthless U.S. Presidency (and its concurrent administration) in our country's history, and at least one-third of America approves. So, hey, why not?

From Gravitas Ventures (but impossible to find on the company's web site), Nothing But the Blood arrived on Blu-ray, DVD and VOD last week and is available for purchase and/or rental right now. Your move.