Books of Blood

This series is mostly cheesy, but not always in a bad way, and there's dark melodrama and funereal dialogue that's almost as self parodic as teen goth poetry. There's the occasional foray into indulgent nightmare imagery and jump scares to bridge the plot points. Scumbag characters get their comeuppance, and then some. The seemingly kindest people in Books of Blood are, of course, the most psychotically evil, or, barring that, the most vengeful. There are rats and vermin galore. On the whole, it's entertaining, the kind of movie, for the first 4/5ths of it anyway, teens watch with friends around Halloween to see who gets the most scared or grossed out.

That said, some scenes are just plain dark, and not for everyone. For those who have experienced suicide or depression, the flashback scene of a girl on the phone with her boyfriend encouraging him to commit suicide as he stands on the ledge of a building while unsure about jumping is likely to be downright disturbing. This is especially true because this character, up to that point, seemed to the most sympathetic, as her struggles with heightened sensitivity to noise, her struggles with the prescription medications that help her with this disorder, and her efforts into channeling her traumas into art made her the most accessible and developed character in the movie. That her fate leads to a bad twist ending cheapens these struggles and her guilt over her horrific behavior.