MOVIE REVIEW : ‘BLOOD HOOK’--HORROR THAT FAILS TO CATCH

“Blood Hook” (Culver 3, Culver City) is not what you’d expect from either New York’s zany Troma Team, which recently gave us “Surf Nazis Must Die,” or from a horror picture featuring a bunch of college kids on a weekend outing in the country.

Neither a comedy nor a “Friday the 13th,” “Blood Hook” is unfortunately a rather pallid business despite some obligatory gore. It’s technically adroit, turns upon an ingenious gimmick, but its people are colorless and uninvolving. “Blood Hook” lacks the crudeness and energy of out-and-out schlock, yet it is also too flat and mechanical to generate suspense.

Mark Jacobs stars as a bright young man who takes his friends to his late grandfather’s place by a lake where a fishing tournament is under way. Pretty soon it’s clear that it’s not only fish that are being caught as five people disappear, victims of a crazed fisherman who wields a nasty three-barbed hook. Writers Larry Edgerton and John Galligan have come up with a highly original reason why the guy’s driven to kill, but there’s nothing else in their script or in James Mallon’s direction that is in any way exciting. “Blood Hook” (rated R for some grisly stuff) is more likely to put you to sleep than to keep you on the edge of your seat.

‘BLOOD HOOK’

A Troma Team release. Executive producers Lloyd Kaufman, Michael Herz. Producer David Herbert. Director James Mallon. Screenplay Larry Edgerton, John Galligan; from a story by Gail Anderson, David Herbert, James Mallon, Douglas Rand. Camera Marsha Kahm. Music Thomas A. Naunas. Costumes Patsy Herbert. Special makeup designer Dale Kuipers. Film editor Marsha Kahm. With Mark Jacobs, Lisa Todd, Patrick Danz, Sara Hauser, Christopher Whiting, Paul Drake, Don Winters.

MPAA rating: R (under 17 requires an accompanying parent or adult guardian).