Bleed (I) (2016) User Reviews

How did this get a cinematic release? It looks direct-to-DVD

[Zbigniew_Krycsiwiki · 4/10 · 8 April 2016]

Mediocre, gory, and featuring a screenplay which is all over the place, this tells a tale of a young, expectant couple, their bonehead brother and his girlfriend, and another couple who all go searching the woods near their new home, in search of an old, abandoned prison, supposedly haunted.

The first 45 minutes were decent enough, with some occasionally inspired camera work, and medium-acting skills on display, but after that, the filmmakers didn't know where to go with it, and the film becomes a series of filmed events, without a story to progress, and then the writers, began going down any clichéd path possible, but yet they never get anywhere, and there is no resolution to anything: black guy is the first to die, Charles Manson lookalike, hallucinations which may or may not be real, some sort of hillbilly cult in the woods who want the unborn child for unexplained reasons, then, what is possibly the second most over-used twist ending, they all die, for reasons which, again, are never explained.

Without the barely legible closing credits, this film clocks in at about an hour and ten minutes.

Bleed-ing Awful

[scythertitus · 4/10 · 11 June 2016]

I'm a big fan of low budget horror and this one clearly had enough backing behind it to not let its budget hamper its production values, but that is about all this movie has going for it! The characters have nothing to them and the plot jumps about with little sense or reason.

Sometimes when a movie has shallow characters and directionless writing it is at least saved by big original or daring in what it is trying to portray, not here. Instead we are given a generic plot and a bunch of clichés, just jumbled up so it doesn't even make a standard horror movie. It is boring and yet confused at the same time, I'm not even sure how that is possible!

Overall I can't recommend this movie, it's not like it's even 'so bad it's good', it's just bad because it has no real entertainment value and very little to say for itself. You would not be missing out to watch most any other low budget horror movie instead of this, seriously.

Close. Quite close.

[Patient444 · 4/10 · 2 April 2016]

I've seen something familiar quite recent, in The Drownsman, and they both are at the same level from my point of view.

It has an OK plot, good acting, good dialogue, does manage to get better with time but the end really falls flat. Like a pulse that will never get back, not even with a 360 shock! It stood there and showed the credits straight away! Only good thing about it to be honest.

But if you are a horror die fan, I will recommend it to pass some time and add another to the list, it is better than the usual productions out there yet it fails on the simple stuff. Like a better ending, a better conclusion, something to give closure and satisfaction to the viewer. Avoiding all the possible clichés might have helped too! Aw well, at least this one tried.

Cheers!

Don't waste your time on this stinker

[jimelas · 1/10 · 24 April 2016]

I am always amazed at the movies that people actually have a budget and go on to make like really? Who green lit this project? Is there someone with money to burn out there because I like to know them personally!!!

Let's get into it shall we, first and foremost this movie had potential to be great but instead of explaining things clearly or giving things a good explanation or some back story we get flashbacks that mean nothing because we don't know why we're seeing them and how they relate to the story as a whole.

If we could have worked on that back story and told us why people with crescent birthmarks were being hunted down and killed then yeah that would have been awesome. How about we learn that Kane was actually trying to help the little girl and not kill her but he was blamed for all the killings then sat on fire by crooked cops.

Then how about we not have the pregnant lady get in an accident, then run through the woods, then go into an abandoned prison, then run from bad guys all while being ready to give birth at anytime THEN you have her give birth and then slit her throat wtf? Who wrote this garbage and why does he hate women?

Of course the black guy gets killed that's standard for "horror" films, the stoner hippie girl gets killed, everyone gets killed in this movie you know who should have been killed the movie as a whole. It should have just stayed on the editing room floor and been abandoned and forgotten. I can't believe that I watched this whole kill feast the only person that lived was the baby and again why do they keep killing the people with the crescent birthmarks?

This was written so badly I get that they tried to fit in back story but the back story was more dynamic then the actually story so they should have just talked about the back story and why the whole town was killing crescent birthmark people, we never got what the symbols meant, we never got none of that because they writer had to be high and sleep deprived when he wrote this.

Bleed - my eyes did.

[scytheria-48203 · 1/10 · 4 August 2016]

Quite simply the worst movie I have ever watched. I only got to the end of this drivel because I was sick in bed and lacked the energy to do anything about it. I think it made my condition worse.

The plot is haphazard, barely presented before it all concludes. The acting is passable, but quite why any of the cast didn't walk off the set on the first day of filming eludes me. Talk about career suicide.

There's some gore. Some minor jump-scares. That's all I can say in defense of this movie. The hillbilly-cult, ritual slaughter, helpful-but-scary ghost, missing child, abandoned burned-out prison, rescue butterflies, stolen baby plot is the sort of rubbish three teenage boys might scratch together in five minutes, each throwing their own stupid ideas into the mix without regard to coherence.

Do the world a favor. Buy every copy of this movie you can get your hands on and burn them.

Horrible

[stefhm · 2/10 · 22 October 2016]

The Beginning of this movie set me up to believe this wouldn't be bad. It is. VERY BAD.

But once these characters get to the burned out prison it is like several different cliché movies in one. There are so many story lines that are not explained at all. The only thing that makes sense is crazy murderous hillbillies, bad guy ghost isn't so bad. but still kinda bad. Then nothing makes any sense. Why'd he kill the black guy? I thought he was helping them? Maybe only some of them? Birthmarks, what is the deal with them. No idea what the birthmarks mean bc they are never talked about, just that the crazy folk are killing people with them. And killing other people I assume. Can't say why though. Why do the crazy folk want the baby? Who knows! I would say bad plot but as there were several plots, I'll say they were all bad and not thought thru. Full on,waste of time

Hey, Riley Smith...

[Krackoon · 2/10 · 30 March 2016]

You're terrible.

So, now that's out of the way, I can move on to the actual film. 'Bleed' doesn't know what it wants to be. It's a cross between 'The Drownsmen' and 'House of The Devil,' IF 'House of The Devil' were completely terrible, which it's not. My apologies to every person involved in 'House of The Devil' for comparing that fine film to this garbage. The acting is tolerable, other than Riley Smith, whose overacting is both laughable and shameful. So, the first part of the film is your basic, search a haunted area, see a badly made CGI ghost of Charles Manson, and run for your life... Well, other than Riley Smith's character, who somehow manages to find enough time to attempt a sex scene in mid-fright. Probably the dumbest scene in the entire film.

The second part/plot line is your typical cult film, which comes with the ever so fascinating (steal the baby) birth scene. Needless to say, it's not any more frightening or entertaining.

Random Ramblings of a Madman: 'Bleed' is a straight to DVD caliber horror film, that'll you'll regret seeing even before the credits start to roll... and a horror film that you won't remember months later. What I do with films like these, is I write myself memos, as reminders that I've seen the film before, and that I'd have more fun tearing my fingernails off with a set of rusty pliers. So, that pretty much sums up the film. I'm about to hit 'submit' now, and watch the down votes flow in. I just hope one of them is from Riley Smith. It's basically an autograph, but better, since I won't have to see his face to get it.

wtf

[dianachangirwa · 1/10 · 16 December 2016]

Terrible movie. I actually wasted 1hr and like 20 minutes of my life watching this and the sad thing is people around the world are starving and instead of giving money towards them, they made this piece of trash. I've never seen anything like this, and I pray no one ever sees anything like this again. Don't watch this movie. The plot was garbage AT BEST. I know preschool age children who could write a better screenplay. If there's one thing it had nothing of, it was character development. They literally brought up how this girl has schizophrenia and never referenced how that was important. They spent 0.67978 seconds discussing their backgrounds and just laid out "oh we were haunted as kids then butterflies saved us" but literally never explained why or how that was a thing. Why did Cain look like that in all the jump scared if he wasn't a real serial killer? And why tf did Cain kill the black guy if he wasn't even evil. And who killed the Asian girl? Also did the husband die or not and why did she just leave her man like that? There was literally no plot, so many loose ends. I cant believe i actually sat through that. Don't make my same mistake.

Kind Of All Over The Place But Still Entertaining

[HorrorOverEverything · 5/10 · 26 March 2016]

They put their small budget to good use with this film, they managed to get a pretty believable cast (apart from the free spirited brother who comes off a little too strong), and everything looked really nice. They also did a fairly good job of setting everything up, they really lay a lot out in the first hour.

The main problem the movie has it that it just kind of gets a little too crazy in the finale, a lot of stuff starts happening and it's kind of hard to follow. They start rapidly wrapping up the stories in the film and it's really easy to miss some stuff if you look away for even just a second. It felt like they took their time building up the story but then only had a few days to wrap everything up.

I enjoyed it, just felt like they could have slowed things down a bit instead of trying to cram so much into the finale. Not a bad watch though.

5.5/10

A cruddy horror film that fails to strike the fear into you

[doalvarez2002 · 2/10 · 26 March 2016]

I decided to watch this film driven by the seductive trailer, but much to my surprise I called it quits a little more than halfway through because the movie falls between two stools: it was unable to engage me or at least entertain me. The beginning looked promising but as soon as the other people started arriving at the house, the film lost substance with unfitting and incongruent dialogues which attempted to build up a story that is played out so painfully slow and, worse still, defying the purpose of the film. Namely because there is a distinct lack of horror in much of the first half of the film. Then the unfolding story doesn't hold true. For instance, no loving husband in his right senses would leave his wife in an advanced stage of pregnancy completely on her own at a new house in the middle of nowhere simply because he wants to challenge his brother in-law who fancies going in search of ghosts in an abandoned and derelict former prison that happens to be nearby. In terms of the acting, I think that Chelsey Crisp did try her hardest to defend her credible role. However, that of the remaining disparate cast leaves a lot to be desired, which makes the film even more appalling. If you are looking for a great horror film, do not waste your time and money on this one because it neglects to be an enjoyable good one.

going back and forth

[violetbluegreenred · 3 April 2016]

I didn't completely dislike this film. In fact, especially at the beginning, I found it quite enjoyable. It did an excellent job at building up the suspense and the mystery, which really kept me invested, and some of the camera work, like with the cuts between visions, was very effective. But then some of the movie was just so odd. The background music in a couple scenes frankly did a disservice to what could have been some creepy or tense moments, and the chase scene as a whole was bizarre. I almost felt at some points that this film really could not decide what it wanted to be, which is a shame because it starts off so well, and this was really emphasized for me in some of the gorier scenes - intended to be scary and violent but kind of cheesy, in my opinion. The storyline is a little convoluted, but I did not have too much of a hard time keeping up because, as I said earlier, the beginning drew my attention well enough that I didn't end up paying only partial attention. Also, I think Chelsey Crisp and Brittany Ishibashi were especially phenomenal. I'll be keeping an eye out for any future work! All in all, a decent film! My feelings about it run on the extreme side: some parts made me REALLY like it, but others made me really dislike it, and I just don't have any middling opinions. Make of that what you will.

Mostly well done

[svensprite · 7/10 · 1 August 2019]

Acting was largely done well, for the content. The husbands part was lax, and the primary plot seemed rushed and didn't come to much of an understandable conclusion. I wish they fleshed out the final moments better. I see that they tried to reference back to an "older time" but rules and mythology weren't fleshed out. This could have had a sequel if the writing was much better.

Why is this popular on Netflix?

[dlauck-82726 · 2/10 · 14 September 2018]

I can handle a horror movie that doesn't end up being scary as long as it is a decent attempt at film making and tells a good story. This was just a complete mess....that's all I can say. Horrible script, abysmal acting, and a complete waste of time.

Unanswered Questions Abound

[roseybaby63-59-43149 · 3/10 · 17 May 2017]

This wasn't an unwatchable movie. It started out okay. I kept watching so I could find out exactly what the heck was going on. I never did get that satisfaction. The characters weren't fleshed out at all. You're given a little interesting information, but their never explained. I need answers! Why were the mountain folk abducting and possibly...I think...killing them? I'm still not 100% sure. Why was Kane being all scary and then is suddenly helping? Why the hell did they want her baby? Why? Nothing's explained. The characters made so many stupid decisions. All I was left with is a confused and unsatisfied feeling. There was potential for a good story, but it was sadly wasted.

Sounds like a good movie, it isn't

[valdez8forever · 1/10 · 29 July 2018]

It is kinda all over the place. Also it isn't very entertaining.

I want the hour and twenty-minutes I wasted on this back, please.

[zombielovesllama · 1/10 · 4 September 2018]

"Bleed" is the sort of film you might find in a cheap, paper case tucked way in the "Discount" section of a dollar store, and even then I would't say it'd be worth the price. Any basic description I've seen for this film makes it sound like a typical, low-budget "hunting ghosts in haunted building' film, which is most certainly isn't. This film attempts to take that idea and recreate it using a forced, confusing story line that leaves it's viewer bored and hungry for something better.

The film starts with a typical horror movie trope, as most do. The "Couple moving to new place to start a new life" is a story you may have heard before. From there on it then drags you into a story that is seemingly unique but that feels poorly written and rushed. What was, I assume, meant to be something new and unique in a genre filled with familiar ideas turned into a steaming, messy pile of poor acting, forced story, and endless disappointment.

All in all I'm surprised anybody actually looked at this, said it was good for release, and then actually released it to the unsuspecting public. It's cruel, really.

Ummmm.... What exactly did I just watch??

[absinthechinadoll · 3/10 · 23 January 2017]

Spoilers in here (well, sort of). I wanted to like this movie, I really did. In fact, the first few minutes were actually kinda creepy, and make you want to watch more. Why did the little girl have the birthmark? Why did the creepy guy try to chase her down? But then...we switch to the current time period, and everything kinda falls apart. You've got the standard horror movie characters - you know, like the couples that go camping at Crystal Lake, or the friends on a road trip where the car breaks down, etc. In this case, you have a pregnant couple, the pregnant lady's friends, and her asinine brother with his hippie chick girlfriend. OK, pretty standard. I give this movie 3 stars because some of "scare" moments were kinda cool and gory. Also, the primary location at the old burned down prison was effectively scary. But aside from that, the film made no sense. Why did the hillbilly cultists want the baby? Is the baby supposed to be a savior, or some sort of Antichrist? What exactly did this Cannibal Kane character do? It seems like he's trying to scare everyone off...but wait, he's trying to help? And if his spirit is trying to help, why didn't he follow Miss Prego when she got picked up in the van? What the hell happened to the kids when they were younger and got saved by butterflies? I do love my horror movies, good and bad, but they need to at least have a cohesive plot of some sort. Any plot that this might have had got completely unraveled and twisted up with no clarification at the end. If the movie had at least 10 or 15 more minutes to flesh out the plot and give meaning, it could have been really good. Oh well.

You'll Bleed when You Watch This

[theamitverma · 3/10 · 26 March 2016]

A low budget cliché that makes your time and eyes "Bleed" when you watch this. From the start - a lot of time "wasted" to set up the story (so first half is very slow). Second half miserably fails to provides any kind of entertainment and fails to engage (you) as a viewer. At the end you, as a viewer, will certainly feel robbed of your time and money...

Story is quite straight forward - A couple moves to a lonely place and invite some friends and after boring you to limits, they plan to visit an abandoned-prison to experience ghosts. Second part may sound exciting but the execution/filming of this particular part is - utterly unpleasant and without logics. Below average acting by most of the actors marred remaining expectations (to entertain).

My words may have not explained the 'shoddiness' of this movie well but I have wasted another 20 minutes just to make others aware to save their time. Hope this review saves some time of others...

Undecipherable

[dcarsonhagy · 3/10 · 29 March 2016]

**SPOILER CONTAINED**

"Bleed" did not disappoint--it was confusing from beginning to end. A husband and wife move out to the middle of nowhere. The husband is a doctor; the wife, a teacher. On the way home from grocery shopping, the wife has a flat tire and is helped out by a local law enforcement officer. He notices a mark on her neck. And then it gets real weird.

The newlywed couple have invited another couple to join them in a celebration. A celebration of what the viewer never really finds out. The female is supposed to be clairvoyant, or something. She senses something in the house as soon as they arrive. The wife's brother and his "flavor-of-the-month" arrive uninvited. He and his girl are supposed to be in tune with the spirit world, although you'd never think they do anything but...well...you know. Through a dare, two couples and the husband (sans wife) decide to visit a burned down prison. Confused enough?

"Bleed" just didn't cut the muster for me. It skips around so much. You never really know what the hell is going on. Questions abound with answers never being supplied. I could not really tell you what this was about. Oh, but everybody dies.

Rated "R" for brief nudity, simulated sex, language, and violence.

Half-baked, but OK for an evening, Bleed's exactly what you expect it is.

[alexgrenewriter · 4/10 · 5 January 2017]

Shot on a $550,000 budget, this film is exactly what you expect it to be - a fun watch if you're not doing anything else, a slightly amateurish (though well-shot) romp through a brutally predictable story.

Let's start with the good stuff. The cinematography is good, sound's good, and the music's effective. The acting is fine. Nothing to write home about, but given the dialogue, these folks are doing a decent job - particularly Brittany Ishibashi, who comes off like practically a real person.

There are two big issues with this film. The first one is that the protagonists, overbearing hipster physician Matt (Michael Steger) and pregnant wife-who-makes-other-pregnant-ladies-look-bad-at-Zumba Sarah (Chelsey Crisp) are thoroughly, immediately dislikable. They're uptight, judgmental, irascible, self-absorbed, and there's something about the expression of permanent sympathetic condescension on Sarah's face that makes you want to leave, immediately, and go to the house down the street, or next door, or visit any other couple in town. I cannot fathom why writer/director Tripp Rhame wanted us to spend time with these people - if it was about writing believable characters, then yes they're believable, but at what cost, comrade? They're like all the worst parts of Portlandia characters with none of the humor.

These two charmers are joined by jingly-necklaced Stoner Sterotype Eric and his sort-of-pagan-ish girlfriend Skye. I know this will shock you all, but Eric and Skye are into ghost hunting! What a coinkydink. Also along for the ride are a well-adjusted racially-diverse couple who you immediately know are going to be slaughtered for their minority-ness, bland niceness, and overall lack of plotting necessity.

The film's bigger failure - the one that stops it being a truly worthwhile watch - lies in its writing. The cast - and plot - is a parade of clichés so recognizable you could practically order them on Amazon. Chucklehead stoner (played with hammy gusto by Riley Smith) who leads everyone into danger with his tomfoolery, check. Some book thing splattered and scrawled-on with black and red ink by Art Department - which gets read out loud by Cheech Marrin as we hear the obligatory breathing-out sound and get the first-person ghost's-eye rushing-through- the-spooky-location shot - yup. Endless flashlight-and-shaky-cam crud in the woods - mais oui.

Hell, if it's not broke, you don't fix it, even if it's been done so many times your dog could probably write the dialogue for it ("Did you hear that?" "Hear what?" "Let's get out of here.")

The writer/director of this film seems to be assuming we'll automatically side with the buttoned-up, beyond-boring yuppie couple. Fifteen minutes in, I'm already rooting for whatever inbred Church-of-Hick-Satan budget Jesus lookalike is going to put us all out of their misery.

My Review Of "Bleed"

[ASouthernHorrorFan · 7/10 · 26 August 2018]

The story that Rhame tells is a crisp, modern horror tale that stays pretty close to classic horror story ideas. There is the "newcomers to rural America fear", a paranormal element that teases to the horrors to come, and an "abnormal" community of crazy cult people.

The characters are contemporary hipster-esque, well developed, and believable enough to be interesting. However they are not all too original, and the direction the story takes them in is slightly off-kilter. Some choices the characters make didn't quite make sense. Still they are far from the standard two-dimensional clichés normally associated with traditional horror movies.

"Bleed" has a tight, suspenseful energy that starts slow, and like the characters destiny, rolls into a tense, and bloody nightmare. The cinematography is great and stylized in a manner that offers a claustrophobic quality to the already dark nature of the story. The effects are a blend of well done typical CGI paranormal tricks and practical gory effects that offer blunt, visceral moments of carnage. "Bleed" is a B-level movie that creates an atmospheric, thrilling nightmare worth watching.

Awful is a good word!

[misscath-02668 · 2/10 · 20 August 2017]

This had to be the stupidest horror movie on Netflix that I have seen so far. Why did this young couple with a baby on the way move to this God awful hick town in the middle of nowhere? Why does the husband have his wife drive him to this abandoned prison to go ghost hunting, after he said it's BS? What is the significance of the friend's schizophrenia and why was it even brought up? How does the woman survive a roll over in her car despite being 8 months pregnant and by the way, she can run pretty fast for a woman about to give birth!

This movie was just so ridiculous, what was the point? Why did they need the blood? What happened to the little girl? I don't get it. Did give some kudos for the acting, but that's it. This was ridiculous!

Good Setting, Bad Everything Else.

[BatesMT · 3/10 · 5 October 2016]

This movie has almost nothing going for it, so I will keep this review short and sweet. Yes there are spoilers in this review so be warned now.

The villain, who looks like a member of the Wyatt family if you are familiar with wrestling right now, turns out not really be the villain, and he is a ghost who can turn into a fireball. Yep. It happens.

There are people and kids with this weird birthmark on them that you think you will get a real explanation about. That doesn't happen. Some of the townsfolk seem super natural like but it turns out they are just your run of the mill cliché backwoods people.

The characters are all forgettable and unlikable, the story makes no sense, like for example:

The "villain", Kane, kills the black guy (shocker) first in the most wtf way (he humps the air and it slices the black dude all up... yea), but then goes on to save the other character later in the movie.

While the old creepy burned down prison setting is actually a cool setting, the rest of the movie will make you forget that simply because it is just awful.

Skip this one. Watch Last Shift instead which isn't much better, but it was way more coherent than this garbled up mess.

Oh and another reviewer mentioned the "barely legible end credits", and he's not kidding. I thought my TV was dimming itself down.

Falls flat

[arzacane · 3/10 · 16 June 2018]

This movie started out pretty decent. Had token characters for a horror flick and the acting was above average. It started with what seemed like it could be a decent story. Girl who seems important disappears for some reason because of locals. then come to present day. Pregnant lady needs help with a flat and gets it from what seems like a nice sheriff. Friends and relative show up for house warming party, They decide to visit this abandoned prison. That's when stuff starts to happen. It start to build up pretty good and it looks like we start to get answers. The evil inmate we learn was framed by police and the chance for redemption because of the advancement of DNA tests causes the police to....wait, kill all the inmates? Uhm, ok. Then everything falls flat. I don't know if they ran out of time or budget but so much is left unexplained. Why are these locals killing everyone? What's the importance of the birth mark? Why did Evil Inmate protect the main character and her brother?

I really wanted to enjoy this film but right when it started getting good they just dropped the ball. The only redeeming factor was the actors. I hope they get a shot at another film because they were the best part and you could tell they tried to put their heart into their characters.

Wasted hours

[nicolefritzphotography · 1/10 · 1 October 2018]

This is literally one of the worst movies I've ever seen. There is no resolution to any part of the story line. The ending is complete garbage. So disappointing.