Director: Katja von Garnier
Starring: Agnes Bruckner, Hugh Dancy, Oliver Martinez
Joey's Review:
How would you like to be a basic American bitch caught in a steamy romance triangle with hot European men with accents who like to take their shirts off or drawwwwww? Well, have I got another piece of YA bullshit for you! Blood and Chocolate comes roaring in with its own supernatural unbelievable love-vomit that was probably slated as a release on the CW, but immediately rejected for having too high of a white people ratio.
A cookie-cutter “forbidden romance” story, we follow the journey of Vivian (Agnes Bruckner), a cardboard box with someone’s face drawn on it, as she meets Aiden (Hugh Dancy), a graphic novelist who trespassed on a church appreciated by werewolves. As a werewolf herself, Vivian is, at first, cautious, but he is clean shaven, and uses Faber-Castell markers, so there must be something, and the two cavort around town showing off their parkour skills and get to know each other’s inner most desires and secrets…except for the most important one in that she has fur.
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| Vivian and Aiden practicing their "Disney Channel peek around a corner" move assuming that's where this movie would air. |
Off in the distance, more chiseled men with accents worry, as Vivian is part of an arranged marriage with the werewolf pack leader, Gabriel, who wants Vivian because…I don’t know…she’s literally the only American one? Vivian is a bit of an ass to the tribe and this romance with the “muggle” could lead to secrets of the pack getting exposed and next thing you know, we have another Blade: Trinity on our hands and NOBODY wants that. So alas, grrr, argh, battle, rabble rabble, love conquers all, it’s YA, it follows a pretty standard formula.
So standard in fact, that it’s really a challenge to enjoy it. I get that movies like this aren’t made for me, but if you’re going to treat your audience like the most bland, shallow viewers imaginable, it’s not really difficult to crack your code even if you’re not the main demographic. Building completely around a stereotype has never made a good film and the practice has become the butt of plenty of jokes; it’s why these movies are often panned and go straight to DVD.
Blood and Chocolate wasn’t a BAD execution of the “how to reach the 11-16 year-old female market” Powerpoint slide, it was just a really dull, pointless one that hit all of the bullet points but literally nothing else. My nausea didn’t come from some ridiculous twist or drawn out narrative more than it did the obvious attempt to check off boxes. Even the title sounds steamy and mysterious…but Vivian works in a chocolate shoppe. There ya go, mystery solved. Is there going to be a reveal moment for Aiden to learn about the werewolves? Of course there is. Is it going to matter? Of course it won’t. Is there going to be a werewolf fight? You bet there will! Will everyone have their shirts off? Get that pause button ready, baby!
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| Swoon-tastic Gabriel posing for his imaginary promotional fragrance ad. |
Again, not for me, so I can only really grade this from my jaded perspective and TRY to be sympathetic to the target viewer. So, to my future daughter, if you find yourself wanting to watch a movie where you can swoon and imagine yourself in a steamy, gothy, underworld as the fiery damsel who just wants to be her own woman…there are a billion better movies out there. If you are jonesing for a werewolf movie, well you’re pretty screwed no matter what you see. If you have to watch the two together, it’s this or Twilight, and I’ll microwave that piece of crap if I see it in the house so I guess it’s Blood and Chocolate for you. For me, it’ll stay on the shelf until that moment with 4 dustbusters to keep it company.
Samantha's Review:
As a former teenage girl who was attracted to many types of romantic garbage, I won't pretend that Blood and Chocolate isn't just that. If you ever liked Twilight, you will probably like this movie as well. Hell, if you liked 50 Shades of Misogyny, you might like this movie.
The movie starts off with the introduction of a teenage girl who has the emotional depth of Kristen Stewart...but she's blonde. She's an American girl who has a secret....SHOCKER. She will fall in love with an artist...because of course she will. But oh...there's more...she's betrothed to her aunt's ex-husband. I know....it's odd.
See, her secret is that she's part of an ancient people that for some reason have an issue with the concept of long term relationships and it's the same dude just going out and "marrying" all the young girls he's known since they were children. Think of it like community grooming. So, naturally....this artist is an issue, as if the issue wasn't this creepy dude attempting to bang his niece.
So the girl is a werewolf...in love with a human....betrothed to her uncle, and part of a secret werewolf cult. She proceeds to endanger her beloved boyfriend and infuriate her fiance-uncle because what else does young love do? So now her boyfriend is on everyone's shit-list and her fiance-uncle wants him dead, so they try to kill him. Because murder is how to seduce young girls. She saves him but not at the expense of her own well being. Since this is a cliche werewolf movie, let's have a moment to realize what werewolf kryptonite is....silver. Yeah, while boyfriend was on the menu for murder, he snuck in a silver steak knife in an attempt to defend himself against of pack of wolves, and instead of slicing open an enemy, he sliced open his wolfy girlfriend.
Passed this point is a bunch of very foreseeable circumstances such as a magic silver cure, an anticlimactic fight scene, and a happy ending.
I'll be honest, the only reason this movie is fun for me is because the little teenager in my brain, who read the books, and loved Twilight-eque stories at one point, likes it. It's a guilty pleasure. And that guilty pleasure gets a 5/10.
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