What happens when you mix a prohibition gangster movie with vampires and have Ice-T (‘Leprechaun in the Hood,”Tank Girl’) starring in it? That is the question that ‘Bloodrunners’ decided to ask and they answered in spades. The film was directed by Dan Lantz (‘Bloodlust Zombies,”Ninja Babes from Space’) off of a script he did with Michael McFadden (‘Gotham,”Bull’) who also stars in the film.
In the movie, we follow Ice-T who plays the prohibition gangster Chesterfield who is the shining star of this film. Honestly, if the focus had him front and center the entire time, I may have been able to forgive some of the movie’s faults. Chesterfield is a vampire that is illegally running liquor which is blood in a small town and also the leader of a band in the shadiest nightclub that the city has.
McFadden who co-wrote the script played the lead as Jack Malone. He’s got a deadpan sense of humor and is a corrupt cop that has decided to shake the club Chesterfield runs down for a “luxury tax.” Things go down too smoothly for Malone and his partner so they choose to dig in and see if more money can be made.
This investigation leads to a full crackdown with Malone and the police at his disposal against Chesterfield. It should be an easy win until they discover that the nightclub owner is, in fact, a vampire as are many who work for him.
Honestly, McFadden did a great job with his role, but with Ice-T stealing every scene he was in it just made you want to see him having more screen time.
Visually they are able to pull off a period piece pretty well though you can tell that the costumes, sets, and vehicles are where the bulk of the profits went to. When special effects were needed the practical effects were largely forgone for cheaper CGI, which hurt the film. This was likely due to a budgetary constraint.
Sadly, the visuals are what took you out of the film when the CGI was on screen. Still, a very fun vampire film and I’d love to see what Lantz could do with a bigger budget and hope we see McFadden get some larger roles in the future. Ice-T, as always, was quite enjoyable.
Overall it was a fun little period piece horror film and worth checking out if you’ve got some time to kill and it sounds like something you’d be interested in. If not, it won’t sell you on prohibition era films so just know that going into it.
‘Bloodrunners’ is now available on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, Vimeo, YouTube, and Google Play.
Stuart Conover is an author, blogger, and all around geek. When not busy being a father and husband he tries to spend as much time as possible immersed in comic books, science fiction, and horror! Would you like to know more? Follow him on Twitter!
