Blood (2023)

2 1/2 Stars (out of 4)

Thirsty Something

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

This flawed, often-brutal horror movie — with kids and dogs in peril — offers a fascinating and fresh take on the ages-old vampire tale, with a powerful maternal twist and other modern parallels.

Jess (Michelle Monaghan) is a nurse and recovering drug user who, during a divorce from her husband (Skeet Ulrich), moves back into her family farmhouse with her daughter Tyler (Skylar Morgan Jones) and young son Owen (Finlay Wojtak-Hissong). Things get off to a rocky start when the family dog, Pippin, runs away.

They get worse when Pippin returns carrying some kind of disease, and bites Owen. At the hospital, Owen fights for his life, and nothing the doctors try seems to work. Jess is horrified when Owen suddenly sits up, takes down his IV and begins drinking blood! Willing to do anything to keep her son alive, Jess steals several bags of blood from the hospital and takes Owen home. But what happens when that supply runs out?

Veteran genre master Brad Anderson (Session 9, The Machinist) brings his usual sturdy, reliable direction to material that could easily have turned absurd. But Blood, written by Will Honley (Escape Room: Tournament of Champions), is less a monster movie than it is about Jess's plight, linking her mothering instinct with her former drug dependence. (The cuts she makes on her arms to feed Owen resemble needle marks.) Ironically, Jess letting her own blood causes the same kinds of symptoms as a drug user would have, and given that this entire situation is a secret, she's equally in danger of losing Owen no matter what she does.

It's a powerful, heartbreaking twist, and the movie uses it to deliver striking moments of character-driven shock. If only Jess could have acted less panicky/guilty throughout, and if only her ex-husband could have been a little smarter (does he never notice that his son has stopped eating food?). Regardless, Blood flows smoothly enough.