tzaeru I feel that there is a general atmosphere of misunderstandance(sic) surrounding this beautiful film. And indeed - is it so tempting to merely write it off as a yet another substandard, mindless gore-fest, but we'd be turning a blind eye to the inner core of what forms and holds this movie at line and above the rest. What this piece of art truly is, is a complex and nuanced critique of whole modern Hollywood storytelling.Allow me to elaborate: While on one hand we've this fairly standard -- although well made -- merry-splatter-go-a-round, brilliance can be found from every crack and seam of the non-consistent takes; Brilliance oozes from every plot inconsistency and unexplained twist and poorly chosen phrasing for dialogue, for it allows the viewer to really focus on what is important. That importance is in characters and character interaction.Instead of being treated the fairly standard "actor did an emotion, lets now explain why that emotion is important and what led to it!" and "this character is like this, now lets explain why he did something that does not 100% fit the off-movie stereotype!", we're given a rather witty collection of complex, inter-character dynamics. We see a character give a promise; It gets us to wonder, given the personality of this character, if his off-beat honor will disallow him from breaking it, or if his more.. evil.. side gets the best of him. Whichever way the answer is, I can guarantee that it showcases not only the brutality of the real world, but the ultimate emptiness and meaninglessness of human action. At the same time, the movie shows how human personalities and human ideals indeed have more sides to them than what is made apparent by modern easy-to-swallow -- and very shallow -- storytelling.We see stereotypes that go all the way into caricatures, but at the same time there are surprises and depth molded into their stories. The stereotype is there merely to create the contrast. There are touches of true human life that we can all relate to. This movie is not self-explanatory. It does not make comprehension easy on you. But at the same time, it and its characters feel natural and true. Not artificial and plastic. For that -- and its experimentation and braveness -- I give it 9/10.Still not recommended if you diss gore/splatter/horror and/or love Hollywood/lack a sense of humor.

dschmeding Phew... after the incredibly bad "Dard Divorce" I am honestly positively surprised by "House of Blood" (which was releases previous to "Dard Divorce"). Again the visuals are pretty good, there is nice cinematography all over, great camera moves... Mr. ittenbach even managed to include elements to the plot that was not just working for the gore elements, some at least...Basically you get a straight horror movie about a bus of criminals on their way from one prison to the next that crashes in a car accident. After killing off pretty much everyone the psychos head for the Canadian border and end up in a house full of strange religious people like from 100 years ago. Since one of them is wounded the criminals have a doctor they kidnapped fix their pal up... well, until the inhabitants of the house turn out to be some kind of cannibal-zombie-werewolf-vampires and things get messy. Although my version of the movie is 100 Minutes and clearly says uncut I doubt Mr. ittenbach would cut away from heads being bashed in, so I'd say mine was cut and the full version delivers more gore entertainment like every Ittenbach movie does.Yet like every Ittenbach movie also this one suffers from some wooden acting. Yes, they got some decent actors like Christopher Kriesa and even Jürgen Prochnow but the fight sequences often seem clumsy and worst of all again Martina Ittenbach plays a major role and we all know she is an abysmal actor. Here she has to deliver lines in an accent that sounds like a mix of pilgrim and Romanian and is laughable (most actors don't even deliver the TH of thou, hath etc. right). Some of her looks in scenes of emotion (like the unbelievable romantic finale) are kind of funny... but I don't want to see that in a movie with the production values of "House of blood" but rather in a school play.There is some mysterious twists that lead to the doctor witnessing the events twice in a kind of time-loop which could have worked along with the straight "house full of bloodfreaks"-plot but just watch the ending and you'll understand why it doesn't. "House of Blood" is by far superior to the incredibly dumb "Dard Divorce" but it angers me again that Ittenbach trashes so much potential with a mix of good and abysmal actors and his obvious lack of talent for story writing. Please stick to FX and directing and let talented writers do that job... it hurts to see all that work and potential go down the drain every time I see your movies.

B N Loads of gore, decent effects and unintentionally funny characters made this film just makes it bearable. I had to watch this in 3 different sittings and maybe that's the best way to see it without becoming tired of the story.There are events that set off a chain reaction and sets a series of events into motion.House of Blood (called Chain Reaction on the IMDb) is really a pretty terrible movie in many respects. Christopher Kriesa is not that bad an actor, but the rest of the cast is pretty bad (except for what is basically a cameo from Jurgen Prochnow). I think the movie was shot in Germany. The gore effects are pretty bloody for the most part and some are pretty good.Others are not, especially the make-up work. We're left in the end with a lot of important unanswered questions. The whole "chain reaction" aspect and other parts of the writing are pretty poor.House of Blood is pretty poor and I'd only suggest a rental if you want something to make fun of or are that desperate for gore effects (lots of the red stuff flows). Thou renteth at thine own peril!

BA_Harrison With his early, (very) low-budget splatter films, Olaf Ittenbach proved that he could make a well constructed horror movie, despite technical limitations and a cast that obviously needed a few more acting lessons. Therefore, since it had a larger budget, I was hoping that Chain Reaction would be a leap forward in terms of overall quality for the German master of gore. But apart from a some flashy CGI credits, a few crashes, and the presence of a 'real' actor (Jurgen Prochnow), not a lot has changed. In fact, to be honest, the acting is actually worse than usual, and the script... well, it maketh me laugh!A dead crow drops from a tree to the ground and dislodges a rock, which hits a car (belonging to a doctor), that crashes into a bus-load of violent criminals, who escape into the woods (taking the doctor hostage) and eventually wind up in a house occupied by weird religious folk (who speaketh in ye olde dialect), who then transform into flesh-eating demons. Phew!To be fair, I like the initial premise—that something as insignificant as a dead bird falling from a tree can set off a series of dreadful events—but unfortunately, so does Ittenbach. A lot. So much so, that he uses the idea three times within his film! After his captors are all killed, the good doctor escapes, only to run into the arms of the law, who suspect him of foul play and decide to keep him under lock and key whilst they investigate.The doctor is put on a DOC bus to be transferred to jail, and, guess what happens..... that's right—a dead crow drops from a tree to the ground and dislodges a rock, which hits a car, that crashes into the bus-load of violent criminals... and so on.And when a third dead crow causes even more trouble later on, one wonders whether it might be wise just to cut down all of the trees along this stretch of road, to bring down the accident rate.As always with an Ittenbach film, there is plenty of gruesome gore on display (with some very nasty crushed heads being the most sickening of these), but with quite a long running time, there are also periods in which the film is just too 'dry'. Some of these moments offer some (presumably) unintentional laughs (the aforementioned olde English spoken by the demon people is hilarious), but other parts are just plain dull. Jurgen Prochnow is given nothing much to do, there is lots of mundane chit-chat, and the whole 'deja-vu' angle quickly starts to irritate.Ittenbach is a director who has shown a lot of promise in the past; he certainly knows how to put together a decent gore scene. Perhaps, in future, if he gets a reasonable amount of dosh to spend, he should invest in a decent scriptwriter and get a better cast. I'm sure he has a horror 'classic' somewhere up his sleeve, however, on the strength of this effort, it's hard to believe.