Bleed with Me

To me yes there are some good concepts and ideas floating around somewhere in this slow burner... I appreciate this type of movie - that is a more slow moving, well shot psychological drama but sometimes... I mean I absolutely loved the Blackcoat's Daughter but this film is well short of that....

So sure, build to a crescendo... string us along... give us little bits and pieces and clues. This is why I give the movie a 5 because at times it was interesting and I'm wondering.. 'what is really going on here?'

For some here I read reviews that are happy with this film, and while not a total waste of time for me it just fell short. Less sometimes... is just less.

This is the particular type of indie horror movie that aims for "evocative" but ends up "dull." There are endless closeup shots of characters' faces in which we're meant to read all sorts of emotions or glean information, but it's impossible to tell what they're going for.

If there were a meaningful resolution to the whole thing, it might retroactively make the whole movie worth it. But it doesn't resolve, it just stops. I was left wondering what if anything the filmmaker was trying to say.

Bleed with Me (2020) was probably meant to be a short film.

Instead, what we got is 50 minutes of pure filler with mundane dialogue and scenes with supposedly disturbing imagery, which aren't going to impress a single horror fan.

After these, we get to a potentially usable plot point (which was done a million times, but ok), and then the film ends. It's like watching a series pilot (but with no cliffhanger) or a prequel to an interesting film that preps you on the more interesting events. Like if the main story wasn't the focus of the film.

If your story is so obvious and has no twist whatsoever - build up interesting dialogue, uncomfortable scenes, hints, anything that might interest the viewer, not just everyday talk that goes nowhere.

The main lead is just a "victim" type character that can be used to provide some interesting twists. The boyfriend could've been written out. He has nothing to do in the film at all.

Like, ok, great, you have this obsessive girl and her colleague who has never seen anything good in her life. Make a play around that, let them interact with each other, change each other. Wouldn't it be great if they would agree to live like that while the boyfriend wasn't into it, and eventually, they would kill him instead. Then, after some time, the supposed victim would become dominant in their relationship? It would've been at least something interesting.

If the idea was to fill the film with metaphors and allusions, why not go full arthouse so the viewers would not understand anything and think the film was just too clever for them?

I don't know. It looks like a tiny project, which is fine. But if you got a release, why not do your absolute best to impress the viewers? Do something crazy with your story?

Basically, the movie has the seeds of an interesting story, but it never develops, and even after 50 minutes of filler, the story doesn't go anywhere. The ending feels like absolutely nothing.

Good luck next time.

This has a lean cast (three people) and a lean runtime. It's an ambiguous slow burn with two impressive central performances (the third isn't bad either, but has less to do). If you like stripped-back horror that leaves things to your own interpretation then this is well worth your time.

The first 30 minutes of this movie is very good after that you keep scratching your head thinking to yourself hmm where's this plot going.