Indie horror films can be such a mixed bag. And when I say indie I mean the stuff that is essentially made for no budget. If there is a budge I’m looking at things $10k and less. Drifter was the only movie I was able to catch and the inaugural Living Dead Horror Convention in Portland and I’m assuming it was made on a budget of under $10k. At least I really hope that was the case.

Before getting too much into the movie I think it’s important to point out that I don’t believe all movies can be treated equally. To some degree you have to grade on a curve. A good movie is a good movie regardless of budget, but given certain budgetary restraints I’m willing to give a pass on certain things. This is usually on the production side of things when considering effects and locations and so forth. Acting and story should basically never been impacted by the budget. Even if you’re working with an empty bank account, acting and story are two things you can perfect. You may have to change your story, but you can do it.

Now let’s talk about Drifter and see where it falls exactly.

The film is about a realtor trying to sell a house known as “the Blood House.” We hear different reasons as to why it’s called that. The realtor says the family that used to live there had the last name Blood. Other people in the town say it’s because the house is cursed and anyone that lives there ends up dying mysteriously. As you can imagine this makes the house a bit tricky to sell. Who wants to buy a house that will kill you? Not me, that’s for sure!

This realtor is determined though. He’s got a guy painting it up in an effort to get it nice and spiffy. Unfortunately, Blood House strikes again! The painter decides to sneak in one night with his girlfriend and another friend for some drinking and uncomfortable sex. And seriously, this is a very uncomfortable and awkward sex scene. I think it’s supposed to be funny. I didn’t hear anybody laughing. Anyway, the girlfriend’s ex catches wind of this and shows up. He kills all three and then himself.

The next day after the police finish cleaning up the crime scene a drifter slips into the house. He basically begins to squat there, getting cozy upstairs and taking a nap. The realtor, still determined to sell the house, sends over a new painter and a repair man. Unfortunately they run into the drifter who kills them. The drifter then proceeds to kill everyone that enters the house.

In between the drifter’s killing we get another incredibly awkward sex scene. I think this is important. The movie is about 70 minutes and there are two awkward sex scenes. Impressive.

Back to the drifter. Why is he killing everyone? What is his motive? For most of the movie we don’t know, but then in the last 10 minutes or so out of nowhere comes this vampire-like creature. She crawls out of, I don’t know, some tunnel that is for some reason in the house, and she seems to have complete control over the drifter. It’s almost as if she puts him in a trance to do her killing. Being the vampire-like creature she is, she bites the drifter’s most recent victim.

Now the movie never says this, but I’m assuming that the audience is supposed to come to the conclusion that all the mysterious deaths to occur at the Blood House are a result of this creature. Ok I guess I could by that, but it brings with it a lot of questions. If the creature is ultimately responsible for the killings how come every victim isn’t found with bite marks? I would think that she’d be doing all this killing to drink their blood, at least that’s what appeared to have been implied in her one scene.

The bigger question for me, however, is what about the current owner of the house? The realtor is trying to sell the home for the current owner who grew up there. His mom recently passed away and so he no longer needs it. This guy lived there most of his life with the rest of his family. How come nothing happened to them? Everyone before them died and then the house took a break while they lived there? That seems…odd. This seems like a pretty big loose end that is never touched on.

The issues go far beyond the plot as well. The acting is not good. There is no other way to put it. In these super low budget horror productions you often encounter some atrocious acting, so I didn’t come in with high expectations in that department, but this is rough. I’m sure some of that blame can be attributed to the dialogue and poor script, but I can’t completely let the actors off the hook. Speaking of the script there seemed to be a lot of forced humor and forced nudity. The jokes didn’t land and the nudity was just there so they could say, “Hey, we’ve got boobs in our movie!”

Drifter feels like it wants to be a Troma movie but doesn’t fully understand what it is that makes the best Troma movies stand out. It’s not just about having juvenile humor, a little gore and naked chicks. You need heart and charm and Drifter lacks in both those areas. Kudos to writer/director Joe Sherlock and crew for completing a feature film. That’s no easy task. Unfortunately it’s not a good one and I can’t recommend it.