My review was written in May 1987 after a Cannes Film Festival Market screening.
"Blood Hook" is an entertaining horror feature that manages to singlemindedly milk suspense and honest yocks out of its ovedone and intentionally fishy premise. It's a minor discovery in a decadent genre.
Peter (Mark Jacobs) and his teen friends are obvious prey for a maniacal fisherman when they go to the Wisconsin backwoods house of his granddad, killed 17 years ago in mysterious fashion. There are many goofball locals to qualify as suspects, with the killer turning out to be a war vet whose metal plate in his head picks up radio music and cicadas' chirping vibrations that drive him crazy and force him to kill. He uses a huge three-hooked gadget to goirly snag and reel in his victims.
A Muskie Madness fishing competition is in full swing thereabouts, causing the local sheriff, in time-honored "Jaws" fashion, to ignore the evidence of foul play so as not to jeopardize the tourist trade.
Such conventional material is made palatable by film's incessant stress upon all things having to do with fish, loading the script with puns and an entertaining sense of the ridiculous. The absence of outright spoof is refreshing, so the pic plays straight but is still funny. Cast is okay (and hammy where called for) and lakeside locations attractive and atmospheric.
