Blood Cult

Blood Cult is an American 1985 slasher film and one of the first to be released on the home video market.

Plot

The film starts out by showing two police officers, Simmons and Charles, finding four girls severely injured and tied up in a room with candles and blood smeared all over the walls. The film then cuts back to a week earlier, and shows Sophia breaking up with her boyfriend Guy. Sophia then has a falling out with her friend Charlotte. That night, Charlotte is abducted outside her dorm. She wakes up next to a girl named Joann, whose legs have been severed. Charlotte escapes her bindings and gives Joann a mercy kill before she is recaptured. Several people wearing robes then cut out Charlotte's heart, killing her.

Sophia and her friends Macy and Tilly later see Guy and his friend Vinny picking up two hookers. The cult members seen in the opening scenes then kill Guy and Vinny and abduct the hookers. The girls meet up with their other friends: Annie, Lisa, Lizzy, Mari, Mandy and Chloe. Meanwhile, the cult members behead one hooker and remove the brain of another. They are then seen conducting a ceremony with Joann's legs, Charlotte's heart, and the body parts retrieved from the hookers. Afterwards, they discuss a "major ritual" coming up, which they will need many victims for.

Over the next few weeks, Sophia and her friends are gradually abducted one by one. At one point, Simmons and Charles decide to put Sophia, Mandy, Lisa, and Tilly in protective custody. However, the police officer they recruit to take the girls to safety is killed, and the girls are all kidnapped except for Sophia, who hides in a cave. The next morning, though, she is captured. When Sophia regains consciousness, she finds out that Macy, Annie and Chloe have been harvested. Macy and Annie are dead, but Chloe is still alive. Sophia is able to free Chloe, but she is almost instantly killed.

Sophia and Tilly are taken to be harvested. Sophia escapes and hides, but Tilly dies. Sophia is discovered and beaten. After Lisa is killed, the cult members decide that they have enough parts for the ceremony, and the remaining girls are beaten for fun. At this point, Simmons and Charles find the hideout, and discovered the badly beaten Sophia, Mandy, Lizzy and Mari. Simmons takes the girls outside, while Charles investigates further. He discovers the strange ceremony, and watches in awe. When he goes in for a close look, he steps into a trap and is hung. None of the cult members notice.

Meanwhile, several cult members on security detail discover Simmons and the escapees. They kill Simmons, while Sophia, Mandy, Mari and Lizzy manage to escape. Outside, the girls attempt to hotwire the police car, but Mari is electrocuted. The guards then appear, and Lizzy steps on a landmine and dies when she tries to run. However, Sophia and Mandy manage to run over and kill the guards. They then take the car and drive back to civilization. Back at the ceremony, it is revealed that all of the cult members have committed suicide except for three. When they discover that the girls had escaped, one of them freaks out and stabs the other two before slitting his own throat. At the end of the movie, a news broadcast reveals that the kidnappings had ended.

First home video claims

The film claimed to be the first movie "made for the home video market" as an advertising technique. Several other movies, previously released to theaters, had already been released on VHS; Blood Cult was the first direct-to-video film.