The Call of the Blood: A 1934 Melodrama That Forgets Its Own Name

Is this worth your time?

If you have a thing for dusty 1930s cinema and don't mind a story that moves at the pace of a slow-moving cloud, maybe. If you need a movie that knows where it's going, steer clear. This is for people who like to watch faces instead of plots.

The whole thing feels like it was filmed in a room where everyone decided to whisper for the sake of drama. There's this one scene near the middle—you'll know it because the light in the room shifts in a way that makes everyone look like a ghost—where the dialogue just stops making sense.

Oddly specific observations

• The sound quality dips so low during a kitchen argument that I actually checked if my speakers were broken.
• Sara García is clearly the only one in the room who knows what she’s doing, and she spends most of her screen time looking exhausted by everyone else.
• The set dressing looks like someone cleaned out an attic from 1920 and just shoved it all in front of the camera.

Watching this made me think about La perle, which at least had the decency to be brief. The Call of the Blood really wants you to care about the lineage of these people, but it doesn't give you much to go on besides long, lingering shots of curtains and hallways.

There's a moment where a character walks across the room to pick up a glass, and I swear it takes an entire minute. It's not tense. It’s just… a long walk. It felt like the editor fell asleep at the desk.

I can't say it's *bad*, exactly. It’s just very, very tired. 😴 It feels like a relic that doesn't quite know why it was dug up. You can tell the cast is trying, but the script is holding them back with lead weights. Sometimes, the silence between the lines is the loudest part of the movie. 🎞️

If you're looking for something that moves, look elsewhere. If you want to watch something that feels like a forgotten postcard, you've found it.