Blood Trails centers on bike courier Anne, a young woman who is currently going through a rough patch with her long term boyfriend. We soon discover that Anne has had a one night stand with cop Chris. Realising a little too late that she does love Michael and hoping to make it up to him (without confessing) she asks him to go away with her for a weekend cycling in the mountains. Michael is over the moon so the two set off but Anne feels uneasy the whole time. Her unease is warranted however as she discovers that Chris is stalking her and wants her all to himself. He’d kill to have Anne as his girlfriend…and he does.
On paper, Blood Trails sounds awesome, young couple stalked by psycho on mountain bike through dense forest for 90 minutes. On film it’s a bit of a slow burner and ultimately disappointing.
The film starts rather slowly as we learn what dirty little secret Anne is hiding via flashback and then watch as her paranoia increases in the mountains. The film eventually kicks into high gear (pun intended) with an awesome and surprising death by mountain bike but quickly turns into a mindless bloodbath for gores sake.
The scenery is gorgeous and the effects are very good but I didn’t particularly warm to any of the cast and I found the story a bit dull too. In fact, by the time we got to the climax I had long since had enough.
OVERALL SUMMARY
Blood Trails is a decent enough backwoods horror tale but we’ve seen it all before and in more suspenseful ways too. This is worth watching for the scenery and some gruesome kills but it’s not the most original film of recent years.
