FANTASTIC FEST 2020: ‘Bloodthirsty’

Bloodthirsty, a film directed by Amelia Moses, made its world premiere at this year’s Fantastic Fest. The film centers around Grey (Lauren Beatty), a popular indie singer who is in the process of recording her second album. Under immense pressure and not wanting to lose the momentum she has, she decides to work with Vaughn Daniels (Greg Bryk), a notorious music producer. He invites Grey to his remote house in the woods to work on her album, which she accepts. However, Grey is harboring a secret that not even her girlfriend, Charlie (Katharine King So), knows about. Grey has been having visions of her becoming a wolf, which only get worse as she begins her work with Vaughn. As she gets deeper into her work, Grey begins to discover who she really is.

The overall premise of Bloodthirsty was both intriguing and unique. A main character having visions or turning into a wolf throughout the film is something that’s been done before, but the way that the film went about having Grey going through that was incredible. It appeared as if the making of her album and her visions were two different aspects of her life but the film found a way to blend them together. The she worked on her album, the worse her visions got. Her visions and wolf-like urges were a way for Grey to release that added pressure from the album’s success. The way Beatty was able to execute the scenes where her visions were at their worst were incredible but also uncomfortable to watch. That sense of uncomfortable added to the level of true horror in the film, which is always great.

Bloodthirsty is one of those rare films that doesn’t have a lot of scares but still manages to bring out various moments of horror. For one, the opening scene of the film shows how far the film will go to make viewers feel unsettled and scared. The opening is one of Grey’s visions of her becoming a wolf and is out hunting. The close ups on Grey as she’s devouring the animal she hunted put the tone of how gory and intense her visions would be. They also put into perspective as to why Grey is worried about these visions. Change of one’s self is the real horror of the film, which is what makes the film stand out from other werewolf films.

Although watching Grey’s journey throughout Bloodthirsty was enjoyable, any scene that she had with her girlfriend felt rather bland. A part of it had to do with the rather lack of chemistry between Beatty and So, but there also wasn’t enough focus on their relationship to warrant any sort of attachment with me. There were scenes of the two together, but nothing about the dynamic of their relationship was really shown. I would’ve cared more about them as a couple if it had to do more with the plot. Throughout the film, it often seemed like Charlie was just a background character rather than a character of any real substance. The film tries to create moments that could make viewers care about their relationship, but they ultimately fall short.

Bloodthirsty‘s unique premise and the way it was carried out through the character of Grey was executed well. Though there weren’t many moments in the film that used practical scares, the way Grey’s visions were shown were enough to bring moments of true horror. However, Charlie was one character that the film could have gone without including. I try to stay away from werewolf films since they all follow a very similar pattern, but after watching Bloodthirsty, I realized that this wasn’t the case. This is a film that I will definitely watch again once it becomes available for home viewing.

Bloodthirsty had its world premiere at the 2020 Fantastic Fest and is available now on Freevee.