A fierce Michigander girl is sent by her parents to a remote European tennis training academy where she must fight for survival against the management and her peers.
This latest Shudder entry by Nikias Chryssos (The Bunker, A Pure Place) is unshy with its cups of blood… succeeding in its claim of being a horror, but it fails to excite truly. Careful for spoilers as we discuss the film.
I enjoyed how non-Hollywood this film was. No big stars, no grand, expensive-looking shots. Things were seemingly minimal, and therein lay its beauty. The first act had glimpses of ensuing evil as we follow this brave young lady into the academy where she is instantly expected to drink cups of blood at dinner, which she could not keep down. She becomes accepted as one of the “cool girls” pretty quickly (there were only 6 students at the school anyway) and also makes huge strides early on as the “outlying-American-trying-to-fit-into-a-European-world trope”.
Our protagonist, played by Sandra Guldberg Kampp (notably not American), is subjected to severe psychological abuse, backstabbing, and competitive sabotage along the way as she learns that survival of the fittest is the name of the game. In this way, the story’s central psychological engine mimics Black Swan, another sports-horror film starring the effervescent Natalie Portman. That film also shares the Lesbian theme present in Bloody Tennis, and for these reasons I thought of Black Swan.
Another film I was reminded of whilst watching Bloody Tennis is Midsommar, which I actually just watched recently. (My girlfriend and I have been on a roll with these weird psychological thrillers and horrors). Both films depict the protagonist (Florence Pugh in Midsommar) refusing to join the bizarre customs she witnesses, but later emerging as the Queen and defeating everyone else. In Bloody Tennis, Kampp’s character is punched, slapped, forced to drink the aforementioned blood, sabotaged, strangled, hung upside-down off a bridge, and ridiculed throughout the film, but then predictably emerges as the winner, while all others are murdered.
I do feel that Black Swan and Midsommar were more entertaining and gripping in how they unfolded. My main gripe with Bloody Tennis is that the acting and casting of Elina Löwensohn and Zlatko Buric failed to convey the menacing, grotesque, overt hatred I wanted to feel in the way they treated the girls.
I wanted to cheer when LowLöwensohnt her demise, but I just wasn’t feeling it. Her reactions during the final tennis match also didn’t fit the scene’s tone. Why laugh at that moment? It made little sense to me.
I like that Buric and the other “bad guy” with a speech impediment who does the dirty work of killing off the girls survives the movie. It definitely made the overall story a lot more ominous that he “gets away with murder”.
Overall, I give this movie a thumbs up for being so non-Hollywood, but just 2 stars for its lack of thrills and high predictability.