Blood Rage

Get a group of horror fans together around Thanksgiving and one of them will eventually say, “It’s not cranberry sauce.” This will elicit a chorus of similar replies and knowing smiles all around.

For those not in the know, the quote originates with this film, a low-budget slasher shot in 1983 but shelved until 1987 when it was released theatrically—minus much of its explicit gore—as Nightmare at Shadow Woods. Ironically, it was producer Marianne Kanter—who plays a sanitarium doctor—who mandated the excessive nudity and violence in the first place.¹

The plot concerns twin brothers played by Mark Soper—one locked up for a childhood hatchet murder he didn’t commit, the other free to enjoy the good life until brother dearest escapes on turkey day. Naturally, the guilty twin responds by turning his apartment complex into an abattoir.

The film’s calling card arrives when Soper, drenched in gore, touches the blood on his shirt, tastes it, and deadpans: “It’s not cranberry sauce.” Soper commits to the absurdity with such glee that the line transcends camp and becomes perversely iconic.

And here’s the thing about Soper: he’s good. As Terry, the psycho, he’s charming, even as he exudes a nonchalant menace. As Todd, the wrongly accused innocent, the charisma vanishes and he’s genuinely scared and vulnerable.

Meanwhile, Louise Lasser, playing the boys’ mother, appears to have wandered in from a different movie entirely. She delivers her lines like she’s reading a shopping list. Director John Grissmer wisely plays her performance for deadpan laughs. One inexplicable cutaway shows her sitting on the kitchen floor, refrigerator door open, mechanically eating leftovers. It shouldn’t work. Somehow it does.

The movie unfolds in a Jacksonville garden apartment complex over Thanksgiving night. The location repeats endlessly but feels authentic in that lonely, fluorescent-lit way cheap apartments do. The cinematography wavers between competent and static, yet the nighttime exteriors maximize shadows effectively, and the interiors maintain genuine claustrophobia.

Then there are the kills. When this movie delivers violence, it commits. The practical effects impress with vivid detail that rivals the big-studio slashers of the era.

And that’s the problem with the Nightmare at Shadow Woods cut: those impressive gore effects are gone. What remains is setup without payoff, tension without release. The producers tried to compensate by padding the runtime with extra footage, including an opening pool scene drowning in redundant exposition. Other scenes now begin with tedious introductions instead of jumping into conversations mid-sentence, robbing the film of some of its manic energy.

That said, is Blood Rage a great movie? No. But for devotees of low-budget ’80s slashers, it’s a bloody good time. Just make sure you watch the unrated cut and remember: it’s not cranberry sauce.