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‘Blood Shot’: Unlikely Crimefighting Team Takes on Terrrorism

Indie films have to pull big stunts to compete with Hollywood. It’s hard enough for a Juno to edge out historical epics and political thrillers with its poignantly witty dialogue. If you’re a low-budget action movie, you’ve got to top robots turning into cars and superheroes slinging webs around the city.

Filmmaker Dietrich Johnston promises to do just that with Blood Shot. With a couple million dollars scraped together, filming in the warehouse spaces of downtown Los Angeles, he has conceived the ultimate buddy cop duo. A vampire (Michael Bailey Smith from The Hills Have Eyes) and a cop team up to fight terrorists.

Smith is a longtime friend of Johnston‘s, and most of the cast are other hungry actors showing their best. He’s got a few names though, including Deadwood veteran and the voice of Chucky the killer doll, Brad Dourif as the evil terrorist Bob. The gang is here to give you 10 reasons why Hollywood can’t touch this lovingly made low budget hopeful.

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1) It’s got the Brad Dourif Seal of Approval.
“I don’t know, it just seemed like something I could do,” said Dourif. “It seemed like fun. I suppose mostly it was fun. In terms of what was out there, this was right in the middle of the writer’s strike. There’s not a lot happening out there. For what’s out there, it was way, way, really good.” 

2) You can Buy an Action Scene. Contact jacqueline.johnston@gmail.com if you want to help make Blood Shot bigger and better by funding more action. Now, what Michael Bay movie would ever allow that?
“There’s an action sequence in the second act,” Dietrich Johnston explained. “It takes place in a warehouse. Vampire ships some body bags to the terrorists in this warehouse in anticipation of going over there to kill them all. It would be a really fun action sequence.”  

Photo: Brad Dourif
Credit:
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3) If that didn’t make the cut, just imagine the action they’ve already got!
“It’s pretty awesome,” said Smith. “I have two weapons that are pretty specially made for me. I’m killing a lot of terrorists. I get blown through a wall. It’s pretty awesome. Fortunately, I had a stunt double did that. It was pretty cool. I’m in a warehouse sliding down a rail, I’m shooting people. It’s been very cool.”

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4) Brad Dourif‘s Star Power. He’s modest, but you know you love him.
“If I were really a big star, this would make a huge, huge difference,” said Dourif. “I would like to think that my relationship with the film is really more about getting people turned on and trying to bring up the level of what’s going on. I see myself much more as an actor than somebody who can really sell a movie. I don’t know how much of a salesman I would be for the movie. I don’t see myself that way. I’m well known in horror. That’s going to get some notice and people will, sure, it’s a help.”

Photo: Brad Dourif
Credit: Kristin Klier

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5) This vampire kicks Blade and Buffy’s butts.
“This is a cross between Nosferatu and The Terminator,” said Smith. “Yeah, I watched some of the old black and whites of the Nosferatu from ages ago, the way he walks and moves. But still, you have to have the characteristics of like the Schwarzenegger, the Terminator. He has to be a vampire type guy.”

6) Brad Dourif: Uncredited Director. The actor has challenged director Johnston‘s previously conceived ideas.
“I have my scripts and I have my storyboards,” said Johnston. “Then I have Brad Dourif who’s brilliant, who comes in and he wants to rework the scene until it feels good to him, so it ends up being something a little bit different than I imagined. I knew it was going to be brilliant when his name was brought up and he’s given me a brilliant performance. Remember in Lord of the Rings: the Two Towers when he cries as he looks onto the amassing army of orcs? Remember that scene? He’s bringing that kind of sickness to Bob.” 

Photo: Brennan Elliott and Michael Bailey Smith
Credit: Kristin Klier
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7) Brad Dourif finally gets groupies. At least in one scene, Bob leads a harem full of hot babes.
“There are no real Brad Dourif groupies, I can tell you that right now,” Dourif  said. “These kids are all younger than my daughters. I mean, it’s just I feel way past this. It’s always attractive, it’s always cool to see attractive girls around but the second I talk to them, they’re kids.”

8) Blood Shot: The Movie has been a long time coming. Smith and Johnston shot the short film version in 2002.
“I have lived through it, the whole process,” said Smith. “The story is bigger. There’s more background on the vampire and how he gets his powers and things like that, the strength of the vampire. Dietrich, the director, writer and director, did a lot of research and came up with some really creative ideas on how the vampire functions in this world and stuff like that. It all fits together pretty nicely.” 

Photo: Michael Bailey Smith
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9) A terrorist named Bob and a harem full of babes, that’s the kind of humor in Blood Shot.
“Well, the humor is in the drama,” said Dourif. “You kind of have to, in my case, because the character is a protagonist and moves the story forward, he can’t be really that funny. He’s got to be, in order for the story to work, he has to be a little bit scary and a little bit serious. So I’m not really playing it for laughs, but I’m aware that it’s also fun. I do have moments where it’s a farce, it’s a comedy.”

10) If you miss this one, you’ll be totally lost when Blood Shot 2 comes out!
“There’s already a sequel germinating in that crazy brain of his, so it’s pretty cool,” said Smith. “He’s kind of discussed that with me.”

Photo: Brennan Elliott
Credit: Kristin Klier

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