Blood Debts

For the Arrow episode, see Blood Debts (Arrow).

Blood Debts is a 1985 English-language Filipino action film directed by Teddy Page and starring Richard Harrison, Mike Monty, James Gaines, and Daniel Andrew. It follows the story of Mark Collins, a 45 year-old Vietnam veteran, who after witnessing his daughter being shot, becomes a vigilante. The film has garnered attention online due to its abrupt ending, featuring two sentences of text over a freeze-frame of the final shot, accompanied by dissonantly jaunty music.

Blood Debts
VHS cover
Directed by	Teddy Page
Written by	Richard Harrison Timothy Jorge
Produced by	K.Y. Lim
Starring	Richard Harrison Mike Monty James Gaines Daniel Andrew
Cinematography	Bob Aaron
Edited by	David Mac
Music by	Patrick Wales
Distributed by	Silver Star Film Company
Release date	1985 (1985)
Running time	86 minutes
Country	Philippines
Language	English

Plot

While enjoying a picnic, Sarah Collins and her boyfriend are surprised by a gang of five young criminals. They gang rape her and kill him, but just before they are about to kill her she escapes and runs to her parents' house. The gang members shoot Sarah in front of her father, a wealthy Vietnam veteran named Mark. The boys wound him seriously and leave.

A few months later, Mark has recovered from his wound. He manages to find the murderers and kills each one of them. He also begins patrolling the streets at night, looking for criminals to execute until his wife Yvette convinces him to stop. However, he has been observed by the henchmen of Bill, an enigmatic businessman desiring to crush the local drug syndicate. Bill has Yvette kidnapped and forces Mark to continue his vigilante work.

Mark eventually escapes and stages a one-man assault on Bill's compound, obtaining and using progressively larger weapons from the henchmen he kills. However, Bill emerges with a pistol and shoots Mark in the back. As Bill prepares to shoot him again, Mark tears open his sleeve to reveal a small flare gun and fires off a last-ditch shot, blowing up Bill. The film ends abruptly with a freeze frame of the explosion and text in all-lowercase Swiss style type—informing the audience that "mark collins, age 45, gave himself up to the authorities after the incident. he is now serving a life sentence."

Cast

• Richard Harrison as Mark Collins
• Ann Jackson as Yvette Collins (credited as "Mark's Wife")
• Catherine Miles as Sarah Collins
• Mike Monty as Bill
• James Gaines as Peter

Reception

A mixed retrospective review at Spinning Image stated "Unsurprisingly the population of the Philippines has been rather cut down by the end, but that finale was what lent Blood Debts its shot at immortality: an abrupt, explosive retribution that was unexpectedly hilarious if you were in the right mood. It was a long way to go to reach it, though."^[1] Another review at the French B movie website Nanarland [fr] said: "It is a safe bet that faced with such a display of crass stupidity, filthy rapes and summary executions, many will remain unmoved."^[2]

Another analysis of the film found that it was "nuts" and that "Teddy Page and Richard Harrison together seems to almost guarantee goofiness. The dubbing is some of the funniest this side of For Y'ur Height Only.",^[3] an assessment confirmed in the book Spinegrinder.^[4]

Internet popularity

The film ends very abruptly, with the credits rolling before the grenade explosion finishes or Bill's body parts hit the ground, with both actors substituted with obvious and crude stunt mannequins.^[5] Simultaneously, the song "Lubricator" by Frank McDonald is played over the scene and the credits, contrasting with the sour tone of the on-screen text describing Mark's fate. This ending has been uploaded several times on YouTube, usually with sarcastic titles to the effect of "The Proper Way to End Your Film"; the most popular upload on YouTube has over 11 million views.^[6]