If you’ve just finished the movie and are asking yourself if Novakovic’s Bloodline Killer is a slasher or a horror, it’s not. Don’t let the Google search or the makers fool you; it doesn’t even qualify to be called a thriller either. Shawnee Smith plays Moira Cole, who is trying to save her family from her obsessive cousin, and you thought family gatherings weren’t fun without the cousins?
Spoilers Ahead
What happens in the movie?
On the night of Halloween, a joyful Dillon Cole dresses up as Dracula for the little kids in his neighborhood. While distributing candy to little trick-or-treaters, he’s also trying to humor his son, Connor, who’s trying to focus on studying. Connor wonders where his dad went when he doesn’t return from the porch for a long time, and he finds his father in the yard while a man in a skeleton mask strikes his head with an axe. Connor tries to fight back, only for the killer to swing his axe at him. His mother, Moira, charges out of the house and shoots the man, but he disappears within a few seconds. The man is popularly known as the “Skulleton,” and Moira tries to save her boys from his axe during the course of the film.
Who is the Skulleton?
The Skulleton is Moira’s own cousin, Lee Harris. Lee was arrested when both of them were teenagers for murdering and decapitating Moira’s father, along with several people from Deep Ridge. Lee’s mask is described as a “hollowed-out metallic aberration” in the court records. Lee is a cold, silent man who’s almost a stone-like being who only knows to kill. His lawyers filed for an insanity plea, and his lack of emotions and eye contact became the foundation of it. His lore earned him a lot of fans who still search for his original mask to this day, not to mention that he inspired a Halloween costume. There is a movie franchise after him as well, but Moira gets the royalty checks from it, so something good came out of it for him. Decades after his arrest, Lee escapes from the high-security state institution and comes back to hunt Moira down.
Why is Samantha helping the Skulleton?
A local nurse who’s been taking care of her mother for years before her death, Samantha, finds herself alone in a big house she inherited. She finds the Skulleton injured and looking for a place to hide, and she injects him to put him to sleep and takes him with her. Samantha is Lee’s sister, and she has hope that her brother will recover from whatever evil’s taken over him. She is somewhat of a psychopath too, as she thinks it’s her responsibility to keep her brother safe from law enforcement. Samantha keeps him in her basement tied up and feeds him information about the Coles. To top it all off, she also spies on Moira almost every day, and Moira asks Detective Cyrus to run the plates of the car that she sees in her block every day.
How are Moira and her sons after Dillon’s death?
It’s been a year since Dillon died, and Connor got the worst trauma out of it. Connor’s health kept worsening after the incident, and he has been bedridden since then. He has grown resentful of Moira after he found out about the letters she sent to Lee when he was in captivity. Connor thinks her keeping contact with him led the Skulleton right into their house, and he holds her responsible for his father’s death. Moira’s other son, Michael, is more stable than his brother, and he moves out of the house to start a new life with his girlfriend Lisa. Lisa and Michael broke up after Dillon’s death, but Michael convinced her to get back together.
How does Skulleton get free again?
Detective Fink goes to Samantha’s house when he finds out that she’s Lee’s sister, who legally got her name changed. When he can’t get a response, he breaks in to discover Lee tied to a bed. Not knowing who the person is, he sets him free and turns away to call for backup. Lee creeps up behind him, and after a short fight, he snaps Fink’s neck. Samantha comes home to find Fink’s dead body, and she takes it out to dispose of the corpse. After getting out, Lee kills a supermarket owner, and a random cop and his wife. Why am I saying these things so casually? Well, because that’s how little these deaths make an impact on you. Fink’s partner Detective Cyphers is heartbroken over his death, and Moira calls him to warn that Lee was responsible for Fink’s death.
Is Moira responsible for creating the skull?
Connor tells Michael how he’s never heard their mother talk about her parents or childhood without sounding morbid and cryptic. He senses that there must’ve been something wrong that traumatized her for life. He’s not wrong, as Moira and her therapist constantly try to practice mental exercises to help Moira get over her fear of Lee. From what I’ve gathered, Moira hated her father so much that she asked Lee to kill him. Lee decapitated his uncle, and his lust for blood only increased after that. Lee still holds Moira responsible for his conviction.
Does Samantha kill Detective Cyphers?
After Fink’s body is found, Cyphers’ old colleague Detective Trusten James joins the investigators. James has been obsessed with Skulleton for years, and now he’s here to wrap him up as soon as he can. Cyphers goes to Samantha’s house, which by now is a rat trap for cops. He heads into the basement to find Fink’s inhaler, but Samantha shoots him before he can do anything more. Samantha then explains to him how her mother gave her a responsibility to look after Lee, and she must do that. Samantha puts a pillow on Cypher’s face and shoots him through it. She leaves the house after that, but Cyphers survives. James comes to save him soon after; meanwhile, Lee kills an old lady who’s the neighbor of the Coles.
Does Skulleton kill Moira and her family?
In Bloodline Killer‘s ending, Samantha comes back to find Lee standing near her home, and she tries to talk Lee out of killing anyone else. Lee stands still while she lectures him, and eventually kills her too. Michael takes Lisa, Moira, and his brother to a fundraiser at the ice skating rink where Lisa teaches. Moira and her sons have overcome their differences, and they finally reunite here to have a good time. After they come back home, Moira notices she didn’t leave the garage lights on, but they’re on now. Moira and Michael go to check the premises for any threat, and Connor finds himself in the storeroom with their dog. The door closes on him soon, and he discovers a lump of skin lying on the floor. Connor screams and shouts as panic and anxiety take over him again. He calls the cops for help before Skulleton kills everyone. Lisa finds the Skulleton with a kid he abducted earlier, and when she turns her flashlight on, she sees the kid’s face had been skinned. Lisa shouts for help, and Skulleton is now fighting with four of them.
Despite trying their best, Skulleton’s raw strength proves to be too much, even when all four of them push him through a window. Now everyone is unconscious and lying on broken shards of glass, but Skulleton gets up just like Undertaker would during one of his matches. He kills Lisa with a fatal blow to her chest and flees when the police siren comes closer. Cyphers and James spot the Skulleton on the road. They chase him into the woods, and Cyphers puts one bullet right through him. It’s not enough, as Lee still gets away. In the last shot of the movie, Moira and her sons are crying for help, and Lee plans to attack Cyphers. That’s it; you’ll never know what happened to anyone except if there’s a sequel, which I doubt will be any better.
Shawnee Smith made her mark in the legendary Saw franchise, and for her to be stuck in an undercooked movie like this is a shame. The one hour and forty-five minutes wasted on this are not rewarding for a single minute. The Skulleton’s real motivation is still a mystery, and so is the reason Moira wanted her father dead.
