Flashback: 'Blood in the Face'

Back in 1991, when Blood in the Face -- the powerful documentary now available on YouTube -- had its H-Town premiere at the Rice University Media Center, I wrote this:

Early in the remarkable documentary Blood in the Face, one of the interview subjects calmly explains his game plan for a better, more wholesome, less mongrelized America: ''Basically, shooting on sight everyone we think isn't white.''

But the cleanup campaign won't stop there. No, not by a long shot. After the non-whites, the non-Christians will be the next to go. And, mind you, most of the people interviewed in Blood in the Face have established very rigorous criteria to decide just who is and who isn't a Christian.

''We would define Jerry Falwell as a Jew,'' says one disarmingly calm but stern-faced knight in shining polyester, ''because he believes in Israel.'' 

Welcome to America's dark side, where racists, Nazis, ultra-rightists and paranoid paramilitarists give full vent to their hateful rantings. Filmmakers Anne Bohlen, Kevin Rafferty and James Ridgeway spent a good portion of the late 1980s with their cameras and microphones trained on the ominous growth of radical-right organizations in America. Blood in the Face is the distillation of their extensive research and often chilling interviews. The film does not pass judgment, does not take sides. Rather, it allows its subjects to speak for themselves, to reveal the full scope of their xenophobic fury through their own words. 

 Blood in the Face sounds like the title of a horror movie, which it is. But here, the monsters wear sheets and swastikas. And, unfortunately, they don't disappear at dawn's first light.

As you watch this extraordinary film, I invite you to consider: How do you think some of the folks interviewed by the filmmakers reacted to the 2008 and 2012 Presidential elections? Who do you think they are campaigning for these days?

And most important: How effectively are they now spreading their message with the Internet? 

You can read my complete 1991 review here.