Blood Vessel (2019) - Not as bad as I thought

There's so many dire movies (especially in the horror genre - which happens to be a favourite of mine) on streaming platforms that when I find one that's even half decent it feels like this is some sort of 'masterpiece' compared to 90% of most streaming platforms' content.

During World War II, a lifeboat of Allied soldiers finds itself stranded at sea, until they come across a large German ship which they board, only to find is deserted.  Naturally, something supernatural has occurred, but it takes cast a little longer to pick up on this.

The cast itself has to be one of the most diverse bunch of stereotypes I've seen in a long time.  Now, despite this probably being seen as a 'negative' the characters are actually quite entertaining and I found myself being able to forgive the typical national traits the writers have bestowed on each protagonist.  Although I swear there was the odd time where the script fell back on 'modern' language instead of working out what kind of insults were appliable from the various nationalities of the era.

One of the survivors is a woman (nurse) who does come across as a little too 'strong-willed' and '2023-esque' than a wartime nurse probably was in those days.  But, when they come across the lone survivor on the boat (a little girl) the two share a few 'Aliens-style' 'Ripley and Newt' moments.

It's quite a slow burner of a film as over two thirds of the runtime is largely taken up with the Allied soldiers wandering round the vessel wondering what happens.  The supernatural threat doesn't really show itself until over fifty minutes into the film's life.  I'm guessing because the movie didn't have much of a budget, the film-makers didn't want too many special effects or heavy make-up shots in order to save money.  The problem is that the 'threat' looks a little goofy and I even found myself laughing when the creatures rubbery ears wobbled when it moved too jerkily.

But, like I say, overall I enjoyed the story and, although it wasn't anything original or something I hadn't seen done a million times before, it killed an hour and a half and I enjoyed some of the choices the story took in order to hammer home the bleakness of the period.

7/10 if I woke up on Groundhog Day and had to watch this again, I could live with that