BLEEDING (2024)

New streaming on Screambox!
Directed/Written by Andrew Bell.
Check out the trailer here!!

Vampires are real and their blood is a highly addictive drug. That’s the world that BLEEDING takes place in. Two best friends, Eric (John R. Howley) and Sean (Jasper Jones) struggle with growing up in this world, while dealing with their own, more common, familial horrors.

The relation between vampirism and drugs has been done quite a few times before. I don’t know if the makers of this film know this and I’ll bet those who have given such high praise to BLEEDING didn’t know this either. Films like BLADE, THE ADDICTION, MIDNIGHT SON, ONLY LOVERS LEFT ALIVE, MY HEART CAN’T BEAT UNLESS YOU TELL IT TO, Larry Fessenden’s excellent HABIT, most recently BLOOD, and even VAMPIRE’S KISS dealt with one form of addiction or another and relating it to being a vampire. And while it does deal with the addictive nature of vampirism, BLEEDING doesn’t really delve into as new a territory as deeply as I believe this film thinks it does.

That said, BLEEDING is decently acted by the two leads John R. Howley and Jasper Jones. Their characters are both very flawed and damaged by the way they were raised, making them extremely sympathetic right from their introduction. The fact that they get themselves into this predicament because of one of the pair’s addiction to drugs is a very human way of reeling in one’s interest for a vampire movie. What plays out, though, is an almost mumble-core, slice of life film with some moments of violence and crime. The way the vampires move and act are somewhat stylized, but this film is much more interested in delving into the minutiae these two best friends’ lives and the complexity of their relationship than doing anything fancy with the drugs or the vampirism or the crime.

That makes BLEEDING a film that viewers more patient than I will call meditative and complex, but for me it felt more like the navel-gazing kind of arthouse film I’m supposed to like more than I really do. BLEEDING is capably made, well-acted, with a smattering of inspired moments of vamping, but because the theme of vampirism as a metaphor for addiction has been done so well by so many films, it really didn’t impress me.