For all its faults, The Bloody Man comes with serious horror credit. Actresses Lisa Wilcox and Tuesday Knight both appeared in A Nightmare On Elm Street 4: The Dream Master. However, the film suffers from a plodding running time and various cliches. The Bloody Man is, simply, a bloody mess.
We see protagonist Sam (David Daniel) as a troubled child, having just lost his mother (Lisa Wilcox). His father (Jeremy Carr) wastes no time shacking up with his new stepmother Kim (Tuesday Knight). The rest of Sam’s family loves and accepts Kim, but Sam isn’t so trusting. The first hour of the film sets this up, along with incidents of bullying at school. However, these story beats don’t need to extend for a full sixty minutes, and you may find yourself bored before any of the horror element kicks in.
The eponymous Bloody Man is conjured from a comic book Sam enjoys. An evil entity is soon unleashed, threatening Sam and his family. However, you first must sit through tedious family drama before any of that happens. And speaking of tedious, the acting in this film leaves a lot to be desired. It’s somewhat cruel to harp on child actors not delivering in a film, but the film is a sometimes-excruciating exercise in actors who blatantly aren’t used to memorizing dialogue. And with over a 2-hour runtime chock full of exposition and dialogue, the film suffers because none of said exposition or dialogue is executed well. Still, the film is recommended for public libraries with patrons who are horror devotees, especially fans of the Nightmare on Elm Street extended universe.