Nothing But The Blood Review: Intense Characters and Emotion In This Dogmatic Drama

Release date: August 4, 2020
Running time: 89 minutes
Starring: Rachel Hudson, Jordan O'Neal, Nick Triola

Jessica (Hudson) is a small-town journalist who is sent to cover the opening of a controversial church. As the ministry digs its roots into the town and its residents, her life takes an unexpected, violent turn that will shake her foundations to their very core.

Nothing But The Blood is an emotional movie, which puts a lot on its characters.  All of them, but Jessica in particular, go through so very much in this movie and often this emotion is written on their faces.  Jessica is a driven lead character with a traumatic past and a present that is about to catch up to her.  She is an interesting personality who has familiarity with the church and violence and is trying to do something about it.  I also really liked Nick Triola as Michael; his "church" persona is very welcoming and overly positive but he is cold and indoctrinated when needed.  He really felt like what you would imagine a devout religious zealot would be.  And the story of Nothing But The Blood captures a lot of emotion and growth.  It is a sad, emotional story that runs the gamut of human emotions.  Also, the music of the film is quite good; it enhances the serious scenes and helps to set the tone for a lot of the film.  

However, it was really tough to figure out what Nothing But The Blood has to say.  It seems to rail against religious dogma and blind faith to scripture, but doesn't really have an overarching message aside from people can make bad choices.  Additionally, many of the characters make major life choices relatively quickly and sometimes don't seem to react to the issues going on around them.  Some of the character's personalities change so quickly that it just seems a little unrealistic.  Additionally, the film goes through some major time shifts without acknowledging it or changing much in the characters appearance.  It can make the progression of time feel arbitrary when all of the sudden people should 5 years older with little transition.  And finally, in our current times, it strikes me as odd when a film has zero diversity.  This film is about a homogonous church, but it seems like diversity is something that really has to be taken into account when building out the cast.  Also, there is a Kool-Aid reference where it should have said Flavor-Aid.

All About The Blood tells an emotional story with tragedy and growth, accompanied by a great soundtrack.  

Rent it.

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