BLOOD RELATIVES
They call him "The French Hitchcock"
And they call me "the Canadian Emmanuel Lewis". What's in a nickname?
Could it be, a great thriller out of Quebec? Nah, impossible. I knew they couldn't well make a great one, so this good one would have to do.
A brutal attack leaves one young woman dead and her cousin slashed up. So, a Montreal police detective has to look into the mess, and determine just what the hell happened. Things aren't helped by the fact that the surviving victim is proving unreliable and obstructive.
The back of the box describes every single thing that happens in the first hour of the movie. (okay, it doesn't mention that one guy actually throws himself on the coffin during the funeral scene) So if you're going to see this one, you're best off ignoring it and just watching the damn movie.
Donald Sutherland plays the cop, and this is one of his better performances. Donald Pleasance also has a small role early in the film as a child molester. I used to always get those two actors confused with each other.
The structure of this one is pretty wonky, mostly because of the last act. Almost a half hour of nothing but flashback, and the till-then involving film stops dead. Sure, after that the conclusion is satisfactory, but it's a lumbering, cumbersome way to get there, with a lot more information than is remotely useful. About fifteen minutes should have been cut out of the end of this movie.
Still, it's a good little movie, more of a mystery than a horror film. Just remember - don't bother reading the back of the box. I hate it when boxes do that! I hate it more when the backs of books do that.