Blooded is a 2011 British independent horror/thriller film written by James Walker, produced by Magma Pictures and Ptarmigan ACP and directed by Edward Boase.
In October 2005, five young people were kidnapped in the Highlands of Scotland. Stripped and abandoned in the the wilderness, they were forced into a deadly game where the hunters became the hunted. Their ordeal was filmed by an extreme animal rights group as a warning to others: if you hunt... you're fair game.
Tropes:
- Animal Wrongs Group: The 'Real Animal League', which kidnaps five young deer hunters and then hunts them.
- Beastly Bloodsports: Lucas Bell is the youngest hunt master in Britain, and the public face of the foxhunting lobby. It is his very public defiance of the ban on foxhunting that makes him a target for the Animal Wrongs Group.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: The Animal Wrongs Group tortures Lucas, the public face of the hunting lobby, in an attempt to break his spirit and compel him to record a Hostage Video denouncing hunting.
- Cut Phone Lines: When Liv makes it back to the house, she discovers that the Animal Wrongs Group has stolen all of their cell phones, and cut the landline.
- Dead Animal Warning: In the interviews, it is mentioned that the first serious threat Lucas received for his views on hunting was a dead fox dumped on his doorstep.
- Defiant to the End: Lucas regards his position as the public face of the hunting lobby as so important that he refuses to read a prepared statement condemning hunting and remains stubbornly silent despite being captured, humiliated, hunted like an animal, and tortured by the Real Animal League. He only cracks when the RLA string Liv up and threaten to gralloch her like a stag. And doing this shatters him completely
- Electric Torture: The Real Animal League uses a taser to torture Lucas in an attempt to force him to read out their prepared statement.
- Exactly What I Aimed At: When Charlie is fleeing through the forest being chased by the RLA, his commentary notes that bullets kept hitting all around him, but none hit him. He realizes this could mean two things. Either whoever had the rifle was a poor shot, or they were a very good shot and they were herding him somewhere.
- Fake Kill Scare: Charlie and Ben watch in horror as the RLA seemingly executes Lucas with a bullet to the head. It turns out to be a Staged Shooting intended to scare Lucas into compliance.
- Foregone Conclusion: From the mockumentary interviews, the viewer knows that Liv, Ben, Charlie and Eve will survive the ordeal.
- Gutted Like a Fish: After Eve shoots the stag, Ben performs a gralloching: the traditional Highland field dressing of a deer, in which the belly is slit open and all of the viscera pulled out. Later, a member of the RLA threatens to perform this on Liv as she is suffering Unwilling Suspension.
- Heal It with Booze: Charlie disinfects the laceration on Ben's leg by dousing it with whisky. In the interview, Charlie comments that they didn't have any other disinfectant in the house. Given how otherwise well-equipped they were for a weekend deerstalking, it seems odd they didn't have a first aid kit.
- Heirloom Engagement Ring: Lucas hides his mother's engagement ring in a bird's nest for Liv to find in what he hopes will be a romantic proposal. Things do not go as he had hoped.
- Hostage Video: The RLA forces each of the hunters they have just pursued across the island to read a prepared statement denouncing hunting and renouncing their previous beliefs, which they video and intend to up load to the web. Liv, Ben, Charlie and Eve all comply, but Lucas regards his position as the public face of the hunting lobby as being too important and remains Defiant to the End.
- Hunting the Most Dangerous Game: An Animal Wrongs Group kidnaps a group of hunters, strips them to their underwear, and releases them in the moors to be hunted by members of the group.
- Imperiled in Pregnancy: The protagonists are captured by an Animal Wrongs Group, who strip them to their underwear, dump them in the wilderness, and hunt them, so they will know what it feels like to be quarry. The dossier the group prepared on each of their targets contains a disturbing amount of personal information, including a copy of Liv's ultrasound: meaning she is pregnant, a fact that only she knew.
- Mockumentary: The film is told in the style of true crime reconstruction: using a mixture of interviews, reenactments, archive footage, and the video made by the RLA.
- Noodle Incident: Ben is a heavy drinker, and apparently has some interesting stories:"I wish I could say this was the first time I'd woken up in my pantsnote with no idea what happened."
- Scenery Porn: The movie contains many panoramic shots of the beautiful, rugged and desolate landscape on the Isle of Mull.
- Staged Shooting: The RLA seemingly executes by putting a gun to his head and pulling the trigger. It turns out there was a blank in the gun and the whole thing was staged to show Lucas what would happen if he did not comply with their demands. Ben and Charlie, who are watching, do think he has been killed.
- This Means War Paint: Of the symbolic variety. After Eve shoots the stag, Ben daubs her cheeks with the animal's blood, and tells her that she has been 'blooded', and explains how this a tradition after a hunter makes their first kill.
- Title Drop: After Eve shoots the stag, Ben daubs her cheeks with the animal's blood, and tells her that she has been 'blooded', and explains how this a tradition after a hunter makes their first kill.
- Unwilling Suspension: A member of the RLA binds Liv's ankles and wrists, and then hoists her up on the same hook Been and Charlie had hung the stag on when draining its blood. He then threatens to gralloch her like the deer.
- Vehicular Sabotage: The first thing Liv does when she makes it back to the cottage is to attempt to start the Land Rover, but it won't it go. It seems likely that the RLA sabotaged it, given they also cut the phone lines.
- Verbed Title
- Vomit Discretion Shot: Eve turns away from the camera to throw up when Ben is gralloching the stag. (This makes perfect sense as this is a reenactment for the documentary rather than the actual event.)
- We Are Everywhere: No explicit brag but this is the implied threat of the Real Animal League. The dossier the group prepared on each of their targets contains a disturbing amount of personal information, including a copy of Liv's ultrasound, indicting she is pregnant: a fact that only she knew. She had not even told the father yet.
- With This Ring: Lucas hides his mother's engagement ring in a bird's nest for Liv to find in what he hopes will be a romantic proposal. Things do not go as he had hoped.
