movie isn't what other reviews are about. BACK LIES!!!!! ^ it isn't really what the back says. its about a girl who tuns into a monster and she goes into a different "world" or whatever. she has friends that she lives with and turns one of them into one. the one who created her come back later. there is no sexuality or nudity in it except that the chick is an artist and she paints half naked paintings. nothing too terrible. oveall it was good but not what you might have expected.
Somewhere inside Bled, the new movie from Charlie Hutson (Dark Reality), is a really interesting movie straining to get out. The linked subjects of vampires and addiction are inherently interesting, especially in our current addiction-obsessed climate; I've seen the parallel touched on in a few movies, but I've never seen a full-length treatment of it. While there's no denying this is one, it is anything but interesting.
Sai (The Mirror's Sarah Farooqui) is an artists who's on her way up. She meets the mysterious Renfield (Ghost Rider's Jonathan Oldham) at a gallery opening, and he turns her onto a mysterious new drug that (he claims) is harvested from the bark of a tree in Eastern Europe. Okay, except that it looks a whole heck of a lot like blood. When Sai inhales the smoke that rises when you cook the stuff up in a spoon (can you see the incredible subtlety here?), she finds herself transported into a dream-world which gives her all sorts of artistic inspiration, not to mention erotic fantasies about her friend Royce (Sunday Evening's Chris Ivan Cevic). As time goes on, naturally, she needs more and more of the drug to be transported, and things get worse when her pal Eric (Shadows' Alex Petrovich) swipes her stash after his first taste of the stuff.
I don't think mentioning vampires in any film where one of the characters is named Renfield is all that much of a spoiler, even when the word "vampire" never actually pops up in the movie. But the whole vampire thing is a subplot here, actually (another take on the subject matter that could have made this a far more interesting movie than it actually is); instead, the main focus of the movie is on addiction. Where that, too, could have been done very well, the film is instead satisfied to stop off at all the usual clichés rather than trying to do anything interesting, original, or nuanced with the subject matter. The acting is in general substandard, though Cevic seems an especially likable chap, and may have himself a future in the acting world. Unfortunately, his relatively good performance is stuck inside a script that seems as if it's actively fighting against going anywhere. You're probably better off forgetting this thing even exists. *
Just plain awful ^ I can't say anything clever or good about this. My wife wanted to watch this because she likes vampire films. We watched the whole thing because she's willing to watch movies all the way through even if they're bad. She said it was one of the worst things she's ever watched and she usually likes anything. Don't waste your money on this. Your money would be better spent on the Three Wolf Moon shirt.
Something old made new ^ This vampire film takes some previously used ideas and makes them new. In other films such as "Side FX" the vampirism comes from a drug. So too in this film, only this isn't as straight forward as film-makers have allowed a supernatural element to remain.
In this the drug-user is transported to a place that is not simply a product of the mind. One interacts with real vampires there, and in some cases upon return to this reality something of that world is brought back.
Sai (Sarah Farooqui) is a young artist who is led to believe that trying this drug will allow her to improve her art through seeing the world in a new way.
I have a few quibbles, in that all the starlets keep all their clothes on even when transported to the alternate reality they get a nice red dress to wear. This slightly reduces the sexual appeal of the film.
The production values are very good. The cover though shows a fanged woman, and instead, in the film they have a number of jagged sharp teeth.
Half way ^ Not a bad movie if you need ideas and want to be a screen writer but the whole idea of getting blood from bark is a total let down
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