MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, sociological*
Once in a great while, I'll stumble across a micro-budgeted fantasy flick that, despite limitations of cast-size and fx, still shows a little charm. Not this one, though. In addition to all the usual failings, the flick's most egregious flaw is that the script waits until the last half-hour to inform viewers as to what the object sought by good and evil questers, the titular Bloodstone, is capable of doing.
I noted a 2016 "Rangers" title on streaming that must be a precursor to this one. At least the same individual who wrote, directed, producers and starred in BLOODSTONE plays a character with the same name in the 2016 film, so I guess they must tie together somehow. I strongly doubt that the earlier movie expounded much on the fantasy-world though, or BLOODSTONE would have recycled some of that content here.
So this much is clear: two groups are looking for some artifact, the Bloodstone. A raiding-party abducts the young daughter of the hero, forest-ranger Drustan (David Nordquist), so Drustan pursues the raiders, though he only encounters two of the evildoers: a snarky "orc" with an English accent and an unspeakin hulk. He has various back and forth encounters with the two. For instance, he declines to kill them from afar in order to follow them to his captive daughter, but they capture him instead and beat him up. He finally kills them both and leaves, but a dark-elf sorceress shows up and revievs the talky one. Meanwhile, Drustan runs into Shariya (Wendy Tuck), a lady elf. He doesn't initially trust her and they get into a short hand-to-hand fight that remains the only memorable scene, but only because it's an elf doing kung-fu blocking-blows. There are more forgettable fights, flashbacks to how Drustan became a Ranger, some mystic stuff about the Bloodstone, and-- I guess it ended somehow, I've already forgotten it.
Still better than WIZARDS OF THE DEMON SWORD, though.
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