My quick rating - 4.3/10. Blood Barn tries to kick off its summer of terror with a camera glide straight out of The Evil Dead playbook. Something unseen crashes out a window, glides across a field, and slithers into a barn before settling inside a locked chest. Moody? Yes. Original? Not in the slightest. But hey, at least they let you know immediately what shelf they’re pulling from.
To celebrate their final summer before college, Josie (Lena Redford) invites six fellow camp counselors to her family’s abandoned barn. Within two minutes of meeting this crew of soon-to-be-demised twenty-somethings, they’re already openly questioning why they’re even friends with Josie. Nothing says “tight-knit group” like eye-rolling your host before the beer’s warm.
Amanda (Andrea Bambina) stands out as the resident bully, and honestly, she plays it well. Her mean streak conveniently masks her eventual possession arc. Although when your face is painted blue and black like a Halloween clearance rack demon, subtlety isn’t exactly hiding. Still, she commits.
The film leans hard into its 80s homage vibe. We’ve got camp counselors (hello, Friday the 13th), a remote location, flimsy logic, and a whole lot of practical effects. The group of guys? Completely interchangeable. You could swap their names mid-scene, and I would not have noticed. When they strip down for a lake dip, the grass literally sucks their clothes underground. Nature said, “Nope.”
The family backstory, which is supposedly central to Josie’s connection to the evil, is frustratingly thin. There are old photos, ominous hints, and then… nothing. No real explanation of what crawled out of that chest either. It looks like demonic rope. Or snakes. Or haunted extension cords. Your guess is as good as mine.
The possession spreads rapidly, leaving one uninfected friend scrambling to contain the chaos. What follows is a string of cheesy, energetic confrontations. Cheap props. Flimsy effects. Questionable acting (okay, none of them can act). I mean, Rachel is played by Chloe Cherry, and if that name sounds like it is from another genre, you are correct, porn (sorry, kids, no link). But there’s an undeniable low-budget charm. The wine-dripping-lightbulb moment - clearly inspired by Evil Dead - looks like they poured it down the side instead of into it because… physics is hard.
There’s even a gender-flipped nod to the infamous forest assault scene, which at least shows they’re aware of horror history, even if they don’t quite elevate it.
Look, I can’t fault indie filmmakers for wanting to craft their own Evil Dead. That’s practically a rite of passage. But I can fault them for doing such a messy job, unless the mess was the point. And honestly? It might’ve been. There’s a self-aware wink buried under the rubber snakes and dollar-store demon makeup.
For horror fans who enjoy spotting references and appreciating all practical effects, Blood Barn offers some sketchy fun. For anyone else? It’ll feel like being trapped in that barn yourself, waiting for something interesting to crawl out of the chest.
https://jackmeat.com/blood-barn-2025/
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