The review is going to be a non-spoiler comparison between the original Blood-C and this movie. If you hated the original, I will attempt to convince you to watch this. If you liked the original you'll probably like this too... Maybe.
The original Blood-C was one of the worst animes I've had the experience of watching. Unoriginal generic characters who gain no development or complexity throughout, generic "monsters" with no backstory or development, terrible pacing, really bad animation and lazy music which is the OPPOSITE of how this movie operates.
However, my main complaint of the original Blood-C isn't any of those things listed above, it was that it lacked any sort of direction. There was always a small plot lurking in the backrounds of Saya being manipulated by those around her. This eventually leads to a plot twist close to the end. Unfortunately the entire story was just stalled without anything happening until that plot twist arrived. All the characters being completely one-dimensional made this stall incredibly boring and pointless. "Do we keep her as a cute, innocent school girl blindly murdering these creatures or do we actually progress the plot?" Unfortunately, stalling the plot was the answer they came up with.
This movie contained more character development in the first 3 minutes than the original series did in it's entire 12 episodes. The dark, gorey, eerie setting was nailed down instantly, the mood was set, the tone was set and the characters (especially Saya) actually came across as a like-able, REAL people who you can actually relate to. It's like there was a board meeting where the production team actually talked about the direction they wanted the movie to go in. "Do we want a fast paced action romp? a high school rom-com with monsters? A dark, gorey slow-paced psychological thriller?" Instead of the mash up of ideas that the first contained.
Even Saya who came across as the most unlikeable, generic character possible in the original now seems like a complete bad ass with a complex morality based on the shit she had to go through. All the characters in this movie have unique, likeable personalities that develop as things happen. It's crazy how much difference having good characters made. The movie has high production values, sure, but having good characters doesn't require money, just a writer who cares.
CONCLUSION:
In the end, the film turned out to be a slow-paced, dark, intense psychological about a cold, complex girl, messed up by her dark past looking for revenge but finding something more important. There is a lot of dialogue, it's a very quiet and sombre but also an intense and dark film (with still some fast, lively action scenes). If you can embrace the movie for what it is you will love it.
Movie: Characters (8) Story (4), Art & Animation (9), Music (5), entertainment (6), Ambience (8)Overall (8)
Original: Characters (2), Story (4), Art & animation (2), Sound (3), ambience (2), entertainment (3), Overall (2)
