Dances With Films 2024: ‘Bleeding’ Review
Stars: Jasper Jones, Jay Dunn, John R. Howley, Tori Wong, Andrew Bell | Written and Directed by Andrew Bell
Vampires and vampirism have been used as metaphors for many things over the years, one of which is drug addiction. Films as diverse as Ganja and Hess, Abel Ferrara’s The Addiction, Daybreakers, and Bliss have made that connection for various purposes. Now writer/director Andrew Bell gives us his addition to the genre, Bleeding, which made its North American Premiere at Dances With Films.
A title card bearing a warning from 2008 tells us we’re in an alternate timeline where Blood and Dust, two highly addictive opioids derived from the blood of what are refered to as “the infected” are ravaging the country. Overdoses, the message tells us, leads to death and reanimation.
One of those addicted is Sean (Jasper Jones; King Ivory, To Die For) who uses it to cope with a shitty home life that includes a drunken, abusive father Hank (Jay Dunn; The Harbinger, Ex-Girlfriends). He should know better, his brother was killed after coming back after a fatal overdose. He gets a visit from his cousin Eric (John R. Howley) who wants to trade some of his mother’s prescription drugs for weed. Can you see a theme start to present itself?
The visit ends with Hank finding the stash of Dust Sean was planning to sell to get away from him and start over. Disgusted, Eric destroys it, leaving Sean no way to get out, or pay the dealer who fronted it to him. A desperate plan to come up with the money only gets them in deeper when they house they plan to rob contains a young woman named Sara (Tori Wong; Mirror, Watchdog) held captive. As it turns out, she’s one of the infected, or more plainly a vampire, whose being used as a source of the drugs.
Now, minus the vampires, this sounds like many, many indie crime thrillers and to a large degree that’s what much of Bleeding is. But unlike many films such as Ghosts of Red Ridge, which just clumsily added ghosts to a clichéd western plot, Bell does a much more skilful job of incorporating the supernatural into his script. The result is a film that is more fully a genre hybrid and doesn’t make these elements feel like a gimmick or clumsy plot device.
Bleeding is a harsh look at the effects of addiction, not just on the addict but on those around them as well. And while the focus is on the vampire-derived stand-ins for OxyContin and Fentanyl, it can easily be extended to Hank’s booze or the unnamed prescription pills that keep Eric’s mother in her own little world. We see the cycle of addiction in action, the parents, in this case both are single parents, are too fucked up to properly raise their children and they in turn look to chemicals to deal with the problems that brings.
That, of course, isn’t anything new, no matter how well it’s portrayed. What is different is the way Bleeding portrays its vampires. Rather than superhuman predators, they’re more like victims of human trafficking, kidnapped, exploited and killed when they’re no longer of value. Humans, in the form of Dustin (Andrew Bell) the dealer at the centre of the local trade, are once again the real source of evil as they prey on each other for profit.
If this sounds like the makings of a very depressing film, you’re right. Bleeding is a dark, nasty little film that offers little in the way of hope for any of its characters. And that darkness is mirrored and amplified by the film’s use of mostly dark-coloured sets and the low-light cinematography of Daniel Cho (Vampires vs. the Bronx, From the Flesh). You may want to have something a bit more cheerful ready to serve as a palette cleaner after sitting through this.
If you don’t mind the fact that it isn’t scary in the traditional sense of the word, Bleeding is a compelling film that is worth seeing when the chance presents itself.
**** 4/5
Bleeding screened as part of this year’s Dances With Films Festival.
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