Blood Salvage (1990) Reviewed by Scabboy
Reviewed By: Scabboy
Written & Directed by: Tucker Johnson
Distributed by: Magnum Home Video
Alternative title: Mad Jake
3.5 out of 5 skulls
Blood Salvage is another barely known slasher shot on location in the South (outside of Atlanta Georgia) that suffered castration by the M.P.A.A. and in return had an abysmal box office turnout. It’s easy to see that this movie was made to reflect The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and throughout the movie you see a lot of homages to the movie. We even see the father (Jake) slam a sliding metal door just like ole Leatherface.
The premise of the killers isn’t cannibalism, but harvesting (or salvaging) humans to sell their organs on the blackmarket to a greedy doctor played by Ray Waltson. The family’s M.O. is fairly simple, they ambush vehicles, wait for them to break down and then tow them back to their savage where the victims presume they will be helped. Instead they are catured and held captive as their organs are removed to be sold.
When we meet the main family of the movie it is at a beauty pageant. The daughter is wheelchair bound and prior to this it is established that the father of the murderous family, Jake, has a soft spot for girls in wheelchairs as his wife succumbed to a similar ailment. Jake’s primary concern is to help this girl, as he seemed to find a cure for paralysis- injecting spinal fluid from his donors out in the barn into her back. Something Christopher Reeves would have gave a nut for.
After his half-wit redneck kids ambush their R.V. they are towed back to the salvage. The family captures the parents and little brother as the wheelchair bound girl is left in the R.V. and finally captured. Throughout the movie she tries to find out what happened to her family, as she’s getting better day by day from Jake’s daily injections into her spine. The father (of the girl) is played by B-Movie hero John Saxon, and he finds his way out of the barn and seeks help only to be brought back by the local law enforcement who have been paid off to keep Jake’s little business hush-hush.
The movie was seriously entertaining. It has a lot of humor, especially when the two half-wit sons are arguing back and forth. There’s a scene where the elder son Hiram boxes Evander Holyfield and gets knocked out. Evander was a producer of the movie. Another humorous part of the movie is when Jake is extracting organs, he naturally recites passages from the Bible and makes the captives sing along with him. In the background we see Elvis singing along with him. So, I guess we all now know what happened to Elvis!
I spoke with a crew member from this movie over email once. He mentioned that the movie’s gore was heavily cut, that it was plentiful. He went on to mention that the film’s original camera negatives were lost and probably would never be seen in it’ true glory. What a shame. The movie was pretty corny, but a fun 98 minutes- a true homage to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. We even get a nice and cheesy song in the credits. This time it’s “Washed In The Blood Of The Lamb” done by the 3 rednecks in character- awesome!
The movie is recommended, maybe to people who have liked the type of movies I have reviewed- The Forest, Grotesque and such.
This one is only available on VHS as well.