Sean Parker
When it comes to vampire movies, there’s very little left to the imagination. We’ve seen period pieces like Last Voyage of the Demeter and Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and then there are the more modern ideas like Abigail and Renfield. But as far as content, we’ve been locked into a tired pattern of predator and prey, the bloodsuckers and the victims. Writer-director Andrew Bell pulls us away from that formula, blurring the concepts of monsterdom by crafting his feature debut, Bleeding, in the vein of a suburban crime drama. This move will likely surprise vampire movie fans when the movie hits Dances with Films NYC this week.
In Bleeding, vampire blood is a drug for humans. Blood, along with its incendiary byproduct, Dust, are mainstream narcotics for teenagers to feel a bit otherworldly. The film introduces us to Eric (John Robert Howley), looking for a bit of escape from his home life, where his mother (Chloe Sirene) has sunken into a deep depression after the passing of her other son, Markus, after an overdose of vampire blood a year before. Eric is known to break into empty houses when he’s like this, but today, he decides to see his cousin Sean (Jasper Jones) for a bit of pot and companionship. What sounds like a relaxing afternoon goes south when Hank (Jay Dunn), Sean’s police officer father, discovers a brick of Dust he clearly intends to distribute. Reading Sean the riot act isn’t enough as violence erupts, and Sean and Eric are banished from the house.
With two thousand dollars worth of drugs destroyed, Sean and Eric need to think of a fast way to come up with the money or face the wrath of drug dealer Dustin (Bell), who will undoubtedly be displeased with the financial loss. The two devise a fix to make the money back by robbing an empty vacation home and pawning some items. However, when they arrive at the perfect location, they find a vampire woman (Tori Wong) tied up in the bedroom, complicating everything.
It isn’t that we haven’t seen vampirism as addiction before. Surely, Abel Ferrara’s The Addiction and Larry Fessenden’s Habit will spring to horror fans’ minds. However, the way Bell depicts this story pushes a more tenable concept onto the drugs themselves, which have indelibly ruptured the lives of every character. The vampirism adds an extra dimension by the obvious draining nature of loving someone afflicted, but also in the idea of dying two deaths if they don’t receive help. The first death a person with addiction faces is when an ultimatum leads to them leaving over getting care, and the second death is due to the disease itself. These heavy concepts make Bleeding’s premise less fun than other vampire movies. However, the uniqueness makes it remains a remarkably compelling watch.
As a character, Eric is courageous. He is trying to care for his mother at home, who has almost entirely given up on doing that herself. However, today is a more strenuous day for Eric than most. It begins from the moment we meet him, but there’s a host of visual tie-ins to understand it. He pops one of his catatonic mother’s pills because she isn’t taking them, and it continues with the body cam footage Hank shows him. Once turned, vampires aren’t allowed to survive and are put down with severe malice by the police. Seeing the act instantly reminds Eric of Markus, who Eric begins immediately projecting onto Sean. There’s a weight of grief on the shoulders of the character, who may have hoped to traverse a similar road during Bleeding’s auspicious start but somehow finds purpose by its heartbreaking end.
Furthermore, there’s a symbolic inference in Eric’s need to break into houses and consider the more complete familial lives of others. The photographs of great times surround him, warm memories hanging on the walls, and the longing to feel that normalcy again. However, Eric’s dream world shatters in attempting to share that experience with Sean. Not only is the vampire woman there to break Eric’s attempts to bond with his cousin, but Sean is so addicted to blood that her presence presents a problem.
There’s also a strange catharsis in Eric’s formed friendship with the vampire woman, Sara (Wong). Sara was a friend to Markus, serving as Eric’s last genuine connection to him. Through Sara, Eric can know Markus a little better. He also learns how she ended up in this situation and sees she’s more of a victim than a monster.
Bell has a mind for social commentary here, showing a dark world full of grey areas. That applies to the young characters who are forced to make some dark choices, but Hank’s actions go much further as the parent and authority figure. Hank’s insensitivity in pulling Eric to watch him “uphold the law” isn’t dissimilar to those people who willingly shared Taliban beheadings on the internet. It’s a vicious, unempathetic act to no longer see a person in need of help in these scenarios, a mocking sentiment to the executioner who supposes very antiquated ideologies about those addicted who, consequentially, puts everything else into motion. Addiction is not a black-and-white issue, but Hank has marching orders perpetuating a callous disregard for the afflicted.
Behind the camera, Bell has an eye for determining tension. Some scenes feature slow close-ups to draw you in, others leave space for a character’s upper hand to change. The location supplies equal beauty and charm, too. A stained glass window as Sara pours blood into a jar makes the act seem biblical on some level. The wavering balance of light and dark implies a similar struggle. This level of cinematography shows a lot of promise.
Bleeding’s makeup and effects are all practical and well-done. In one scene, Sara changes from a vampire back into a human, and it’s a sight you will not blink through. It’s brilliantly realized as she gazes at Eric, suggesting familiarity while looking slightly monstrous, paralleling the themes of Bell’s story—my highest praise to the effects team on this incredible sequence. Plus, Alex Symcox’s score keeps the dramatic intensity up in this and many other scenes.
If I were to compare Bleeding to anything else out there, I’d say fans of Carter Smith’s Swallowed will see a lot of comparisons, though Bleeding is undoubtedly of a darker, more philosophical nature. Both films undertake the darkness of drugs in different ways, with Bleeding shining light on the unfair stigma of mental health and addiction. Bleeding‘s performances are fantastic, and the story is starkly captivating. If you’re looking for a heady elevated horror drama worth a watch, Bleeding is worth seeking out.
Bleeding plays as part of Dances With Films NYC at Regal Union Square on Friday, December 6, at 10:30 PM.
BLEEDING – Festival Trailer
https://danceswithfilms.com/bleeding/ Friday, Dec 6th – 10:30pm Regal – Union Square In a world where vampire blood is harvested as a drug, two desperate teenagers on the run from a vicious dealer break into an empty house and find a sleeping girl locked inside.
