Movie review: "Bleed"

If you think of a cross between "The Blair Witch Project,"

the "E! Hollywood Story" and "Make Them Die Slowly," you'll get

some vague idea of what "Bleed" is all about.

This is one of the best shot-on-video achievements of the year, and it's by a first-timer, Chris Woods of Tampa, who avoided all the common rookie mistakes and came up with something that just might be releasable in theaters. (I'm not damning with faint praise. In the ultra-low-budget world, a theatrical release is like winning the Kentucky Derby.)

Woods wrote, directed, produced, photographed, did sound,

set up lights, edited and made coffee for his opus, but he did

something more important: he got professional actors for his

"mockumentary" about a legendary horror-freak serial killer who

just might be starting up again on the campus of Tampa Bay

College. (Most film-geek first-timers use their friends in acting roles, with disastrous results.)

Leading the cast is Amanda Beck, as the breathlessly frothy communications major who's doing her senior documentary project on the serial killer. She comes off as a total bimbo at first, gushing and preening in her amateurish standups, but as the plot thickens, she reveals layer after surprising layer. She's supported ably by her squeamish roommate, played by Liana Morrison, whose job is to follow her friend around with the camera and indulge her monomaniacal obsession with killers and scary stories.

Equally solid is the veteran police detective played by Dave Alspach, who has all the cop mannerisms down perfectly, and comes across as intently engaged on the case even though he appears almost exclusively in talking-head interview

shots.

"Bleed" has some problems -- it repeats itself, it withholds key information, it switches points of view way too often, it relies too much on voiceover narration, and it often describes action instead of showing it -- but it still holds attention from beginning to end and comes across as a big ole sloppy masterpiece that doesn't always know exactly where it's going but is determined to get there in the most stylish way. It's a gore flick AND a comedy AND a whodunit.

I wouldn't really call it scary, though. The moments when you would normally be scared all happen in flashback or off-camera. Some of them are done up so well with special effects, though, that you COULD call them repulsive, especially a nail-through-the-eye shot. And of course I mean "repulsive" in only the best way.

There are 18 murders in the film, which Woods calls

autobiographical. (Whoa!) What happens is that a young filmmaker

from Utica, N.Y., moves to Tampa to go to film school, starts

calling himself Vic Van Viper, and attracts a lot of attention

with his goth cable access show "Creeping Death," starring a

bearded weirdo called "The Red Freak." His popularity goes to his head, he starts liking the Marilyn-Manson-style special effects a little too much, and pretty soon his whole crew is dead and his body is missing.

Fast-forward three years, and the murders are happening again. Is crazy Viper alive? Nothing is what it seems

to be.

As it turns out, filmmaker Chris Woods is himself from

Utica, N.Y. He went to Tampa to attend film school. And yes,

at one time he had a cable access show called "Creeping Death."

(Footage from the show is used in the movie.) Who knows -- maybe it WILL be an "E! True Hollywood Story" some day, right after the episode on the Manson-Tate killings.

In the meantime, a gem of a flick that shows off a filmmaker with enormous promise.

Eighteen dead bodies. Four breasts. (Chris Chris Chris,

these are obvious stunt breasts.) Throat-slitting. Strangulation. Multiple tongue-ripping. Impalement, Machete to the brain. Ax to the skull. Bullet to the groin. Nail through the eye. Two charbroiled bodies. Necrophilia. "Texas Chain Saw" ripoff introduction. Gratuitous ghost stories. Heads roll. Leg rolls. Guillotine Fu. Drive-in Academy Awards for Amanda Beck, as the strawberry blonde film student who wants to be the star of her own violent fantasy, for saying "This is our school and we should be allowed to go wherever we want!"; Dave Alspach, as the tight-lipped cop; Liana Morrison, as the brunette sidekick who doesn't mind living in the serial killer's house as long as they buy a throw rug to cover up the blood stains; and Chris Woods, the writer, director, producer and Vic Van Viper himself, trying to become "the greatest horror icon who ever lived," for doing things the drive-in way.

Four stars.

Joe Bob says check it out.

"Bleed" Web site: iconfilmstudios.com

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To reach Joe Bob, go to www.joebob-briggs.com or email him

at [email protected]. Snail-mail: P.O. Box 2002, Dallas, TX 75221.