Blood and Donuts

Blood and Donuts is a 1995 Canadian supernatural comedy horror film[1] directed by Holly Dale, written by Andrew Rai Berzins, and starring Gordon Currie and Helene Clarkson. David Cronenberg plays a cameo role as the local crime boss. The film features a vampire who is accidentally awakened after 25 years of sleep and starts to shyly make contact with the mortal world around him. As he interacts and begins to care for the people around him, he gets mixed up in their problems and they in his.

Blood and Donuts
Directed byHolly Dale
Written byAndrew Rai Berzins
Produced bySteve Hoban
StarringGordon Currie
Justin Louis
Helene Clarkson
David Cronenberg
CinematographyPaul Sarossy
Edited byStephan Fanfra
Brett Sullivan
Music byNash the Slash
Production
companies
Daban Films
The Feature Film Project
Distributed byLive Entertainment
Release date
  • 9 September 1995 (1995-09-09)
Running time
89 minutes
CountryCanada
LanguageEnglish

Premise

A vampire named Boya is awakened from his sleep by a golf ball. He has not been awake since 1969, and marvels at his new surroundings. He does not feed on humans but instead on rats and animals. He meets up with a cab driver who is in trouble with some criminals, and a female donut shop worker who gets stuck in the middle.

Befriending them both, and slowly falling in love with Molly, they take on each other's problems. He tries to protect them, but also endangers them by drawing the attention of an ex-lover from decades past who hasn't stopped looking for him in 25 years.

Cast

Production

Blood and Donuts was the first film to be produced by the Canadian Film Centre,[2] and it was director Holly Dale's first narrative film. Dale had previously made her reputation in documentary films.[3] Fellow director Vincenzo Natali served as a stand-in for Cronenberg[4] and also provided storyboards.[5]

Release

Blood and Donuts was released on home video on 4 October 1996.[6]

Reception

Brendan Kelly of Variety wrote that the film fails to deliver on its premise, as Dale has trouble combining the horror and comedy elements.[7] In a retrospective of Canadian horror films, Variety later called the film "critically acclaimed".[8]

Awards and nominations

Blood and Donuts was nominated in 1996 for the Genie Awards in 3 categories: Best Achievement in Costume Design (Emma England), Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role (Helene Clarkson), and Best Original Screenplay (Berzins).

See also

References
  1. "Blood & Donuts (1996)". www.allmovie.com. Retrieved 1 September 2019.
  2. "Toronto: Highlights of the First 25 Years of the Canadian Film Centre". The Hollywood Reporter. 2013-09-07. Retrieved 2014-10-01.
  3. Baldassarre, Angela (2003). "Holly Dale: Blood & Donuts". Reel Canadians: Interviews from the Canadian Film World. Guernica Editions. pp. 37–44. ISBN 9781550711653.
  4. King, Randall (2010-10-14). "New on DVD". Winnipeg Free Press. Archived from the original on 2015-03-23. Retrieved 2014-10-01.
  5. Mathijs, Ernest (2013). John Fawcett's Ginger Snaps. University of Toronto Press. p. 10. ISBN 9781442615670.
  6. King, Susan (1996-10-04). "It's the Season for Videos Focusing on Sports". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2014-10-01.
  7. Kelly, Brendan (1995-10-09). "Review: 'Blood & Donuts'". Variety. Retrieved 2014-10-01.
  8. Kelly, Brendan (2010-01-22). "Canadian horror hits mini-boom". Variety. Retrieved 2014-10-01.
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