Dark Blood

Boy, a young widower with native American roots, lives in a desert in the USA contaminated by nuclear tests. In this desolate place, surrounded by katchina dolls which the indigenous population believes possess magical powers, he awaits the end of the world. His refuge is suddenly invaded by Harry and Buffy, a couple second honeymooning in an attempt to save their marriage. When their Bentley breaks down in the middle of nowhere, Boy offers to help. But then, hoping to cross over into a better world with Buffy, he starts treating them like prisoners. When Dark Blood’s leading actor River Phoenix died suddenly ten days before the end of the shoot in 1993, the film’s insurance company became the owner of the unfinished material. Years later, director George Sluizer managed to save his footage from being destroyed. In January 2012 he decided to finish the film by reading aloud off-screen the missing scenes from the screenplay. The resulting work is an existentialist latter-day Western which derives much of its evocative power from the presence of its leading man, who was himself teetering on the brink of death.