Though it came out in what is generally considered a dead time for B cinema Hemoglobin is a film that I have quite a nostalgic interest in. I nearly saw it some 11 odd years ago, I guess it must have been right about the time it first came out and I recall seeing the first couple of minutes and being put off by talk of inbreeding. That sort of thing gave me the willies back in the day, I was a lot more prudish and so as I recall I skipped to another channel and watched Species. Fast forward to yesterday and I finally got around to watching Hemoglobin after all these years. Worth the wait I'm happy to say, plus I probably wouldn't have got a huge amount out of it had I watched it back then, its darker and more adult oriented than the sort of thing I used to groove to and most likely would have been a snooze. The plot deals with the unfortunate John Strauss, cursed by a degenerative and life threatening blood disease, a cure for which he searches on his ancestral island. Unfortunately this is a place of dark shenanigans, notably the aforementioned inbreeding whose repercussions are still present and making trouble. Its gloomy stuff, moving at a measured pace it melds dark drama with creature feature, stirs in disturbing themes and cooks the lot with solid performances and well woven atmosphere. Roy Dupuis summons appropriate sickly desperation as John, convincingly driven to far places, while Kristin Lehman handles the role of his wife with a nice feel of love and support. Genre fans will be most pleased by the inclusion of Rutger Hauer though, having a blast as an alcoholic ex doctor nonetheless able to rise to the occasion in times of need, a rundown but definitely not out performance that's gladdening to see given his occasionally rather forgettable work in other b pictures of the era. Other performers do well enough, no one really shines but they work well with the wet and dreary location. A solid if unremarkable script from genre legends Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusset (with Charles Adair) keeps the film serious minded and interesting whilst throwing out some fun character quirks, things get a bit sketchy towards the end though with character behaviour stretching beyond the characterisation and wavering tone. Mostly its solid work though and the bleak edge works well, aided by fine monster effects. The beasts are shown to just the right extent and look impressively grim, every bit the foetal distortions brought to monstrous birth that they are supposed to be and their attacks are tightly edited and intense, occasionally even bloody. Sadly the direction here isn't terribly dynamic, Peter Svatek can maintain a dark atmosphere but not much in the way of tension so the film suffers in the final block, he also fatally shies away from what could have been a fantastic bit of grotesquery, this was a film that needed real balls and they are sadly lacking, so what should have been a terrific climax falls a bit flat. Inevitably this brings into sharper relief other problems with the film, lulls in pacing, plot holes and the like, but I prefer not to dwell on them. Basically I had a fine time with this one for the most part, more unsettling than expected and well worth the wait. Inessential if you don't have much time for creature features or this era of horror in general, but otherwise I'd say its pretty well worth checking out...
