Blood Machines (Movie Review)

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

PLOT: Upon the discovery of a crashed vessel, a pair of space poachers set out across the galaxy to capture the ethereal A.I. that has escaped the wreckage.

REVIEW: Four years after scoring internet views and winning fans for the four-minute music video TURBO KILLER, filmmakers Raphael Hernandez and Savitri Joly-Gonfard, pretentiously pseudonymized as Seth Ickerman, have reunited with electronic musician Carpenter Brut for BLOOD MACHINES, a non-narrative visual bombardment of dazzling cyberpunk imagery that’s sure to tickle every H.R. Giger fanatic and absolutely nobody else. Indeed, the overt mash-up of cartoonish comic-book tableaus with retro 1950s sci-fi B-movies is readily apparent, as is the desperate desire to be compared to that galaxy far, far away. Whatever the intent, the outcome is a curious one, as BLOOD MACHINES is presented as a 3-part TV series currently airing on Shudder.com. Alas, with less than 50 minutes of total screen-time, the visual art project hardly registers at a film at all, much less a TV series, but rather amounts to an elongated, self-indulgent music-video pulsing with intergalactic psychedelia, trippy imagistic hallucinations, and sensorial overload. But with little point to speak of, with no statements made whatsoever, BLOOD MACHINES is a nothing more than a well-made short-concept-art-motion-picture.

The Mima is a rogue spaceship trundling through the cosmos manned by a mysterious A.I. desperate to liberate itself. When two space hunters, Vascan (Anders Heinrichsen) and Lago (Christian Erickson), learn that the Mima has crashed on a nearby planet, they’re dispatched to find answers. Upon approaching the downed craft, Vascan and Lago witness a shamelessly derivative cyborg that looks identical to C-3P0 with glowing green eyes and a levitating nude female named Corey (Elisa Lasowski), who escapes the Mima and dashes across the galaxy. Vascan and Lago give chase, leading to a barrage of wet-nightmarish imagery and visual splendor sure to sate even the most hardened of cyberphiles. Of course, the episode ends after 12 minutes or so and gives way for a 4-minute credit sequence, most of which includes various VFX companies and CGI specialists.

The second chapter continues the dogged attempt of Vascan and Lago to capture Corey, but by now all narrative threads have been shredded in favor of a cosmic onslaught of vibrant spectacle and vivid neon filter-lighting. By now we begin to realize the entire piece is really just a way to visually accentuate the hypnotic, trancelike music of Carpenter Brut, which, is quite distinctive on its own, but in tandem with the well-matched images, is elevated to new heights. If this is the number on intent, I suppose it succeeds. If the idea was to also make a cogently crafted story to boot, which I tend to doubt, then the end result fails. A marvelous failure, sure, but a failure nonetheless. What I question most, if not fear, is who this project is really for? Even if it isn’t just a masturbatory piece of self-indulgence for Brut and Ickerman, I can’t see this “film” persuading anyone who isn’t already deeply steeped in cyberpunk regalia. BLOOD MACHINES preaches too loudly to the converted!

By the time the third chapter arrives, the plot has been discarded entirely in favor of vast visual laundry. The cubensic imagery washes over us in a constant stream beauteous colors, but never communicates anything to us, much less the profundity that a real trip on LSD or psilocybin most certainly would. More to the point, without narrative tissue to guide us through, without a compelling story to elicit a modicum of compassion and sympathy to keep us invested, all we’re left with is a well-executed art project that merely exists. Orwell once said “all art is propaganda, but not all propaganda is art.” In the case of BLOOD MACHINES, the art can’t even muster a propagandistic valence. Simply being there isn’t enough to warrant the trouble of creation to begin with. Is it?

All told, BLOOD MACHINES is a well-made but ultimately pointless exercise meant to what? Conjure more internet likes? Sell more records? Land a bigger budget directorial gig? The intent is unclear at best, nonexistent at worst, leaving in its wake a trail of incoherent self-indulgence that is simply pretty to look at. For a sub-50 minute miniseries that necessitates four-minute credit-rolls at the end of each chapter, BLOOD MACHINES isn’t likely to strike a chord among many aside from the rabidly salivating cyberpunk crowd. If you dug Turbo Killer, give it a peek. If not, don’t bother.