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The reputation of a prestigious ballet school is at stake when one of
the students, Nisa (Sydney Ray), storms in wielding a submachine gun and
injuring the school's prima ballerina, Sylvie (Mindy Robinson) and thus
pretty much ending her career, and on top of that making a getaway. But
the shool's owner Wren (Julia Faye West) and head teacher Delphine (Laura
Amelia) do everything to keep the story under lock and key, which includes
shipping Ria (Jessica Knopf), the girl who provided Nisa with the gun,
away to a mental institution and working the other girls even harder. But
of course, an attempted murder like this doesn't just go away like this
just because you wish it to, as Nisa hides out nearby planning her next
strike, and Ria escapes from the mental institution to reunite with Nisa,
and Nisa sees the now heavily medicated Ria as her perfect tool. Among the
students of the academy, only Maren (Marla Martinez), a wannabe writer,
seems to have an idea what the girls are planning, as she knows what they
have been through and writes a novel about it - but she's considered a
nerd by the others, so basically her warnings fall on death ears ... but
of course, the inevitable is going to happen eventually ... Dawna Lee
Heising can be seen as a rather grumpy fairy godmother in one of the most
(intentionally) hilarious scenes of the film. Made on an
obviously not too high budget, Ballet of Blood still comes across
as a stylish and gripping horror thriller, thanks to a directorial effort
that dares to fall back on off-center aesthetics, work the beauty of
ballet into its plot and insert some utterly surreal sequences into the
movie's thriller plot, and that also understands how to use suspense and
atmosphere to the movie's advantage. And add to that jump scares in all
the right places, beautiful girls in lingerie or even out of it, some
pulpy mainstays, and of course the obligatory violence - and you have a
movie oddly reminiscent of European horrors from past decades ... and
that's a very good thing!
And if this review has gotten you at all interested, you might
want to buy the movie on Blu-ray here:
http://leglesscorpsefilms.com/product/ballet-of-blood-special-edition-bluray/
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