Sean Parker
Horror fans have been hearing a lot about Bliss of Evil. Right around the time of Panic Fest, there were a lot of reviews from other websites saying great things about the music-based slasher film. I didn’t cover Panic Fest, but I did buy a virtual ticket and stalked the movies playing through my Apple TV device, with Bliss of Evil at the top of my list. Here’s the thing: I didn’t like it. I kept my thoughts to myself, and when the film played Salem Horror Fest a week later, I managed to stay out of the Bliss of Evil conversation. That is, up until a week or so ago when the film’s producers reached out with a “new cut” that would be seen for the first time at Sohome Horror Pride Festival, happening this weekend.
You may be thinking, “What could possibly be different in this cut that would add to your experience?” Honestly, not a whole lot. There may have been a couple of things, but I also felt that I was far more receptive to the film than I was on the first go-round. Maybe I wasn’t in the right headspace for the movie when I watched it the first time. I did not remember the intro to this film, where killer Bloodface (Corrie Hinschen, who also co-wrote the film) creates a murder-suicide scene detrimental to the film’s plot, and, on this viewing, it seemed to suck me in from there.
As the film continues, it documents a punk-metal rock band making a record in an Australian studio, where we get hints about the tragedies they’ve been plagued with while pursuing the creation of their next record. From the tension of watching sound engineer Isla (a spectacular Sharnee Tones) awaken in a state of dream paralysis to the awareness surrounding how the new drummer Lee (Jordan Schulte), interacts with Jamie (Michaela Da Costa), a mystery begins to unfold. When Isla finds Jamie dead and Lee standing over the body, the traumas inflicted by a former thought-to-be-dead sociopathic drummer start hurdling back.
Subduing Lee and seeking an exit, the band discovers they’ve been locked in the gated studio. Isla becomes the focus of the film, and the Laurie Strode to Bloodface’s Michael Myers, as he begins to kill the band members off one by one. Who is he? And why them? These questions become clearer as Isla’s history with the killer begins to play out.
I won’t sugarcoat it. Bliss of Evil deals with some heavy subject matter with hefty trigger warnings for portrayals of suicide, brutal death scenes, and sexual assault. The movie is made even more harrowing and resonates with the audience by alerting them that the story is based in truth, taking place in Brisbane, Australia, in 1997, and that the events are being presented just as they happened. I would be curious to know more about the events that inspired the film, but so far, my research efforts have yielded very little.
Bloodface as a slasher is haunting, coating his face in the blood of his victims and inexpressively cocking his head with a steely-eyed stare containing only the blackness of the pupils consuming his irises. As the full embodiment of a character in the film, he’s a bit more hollow, helping to show the audience how monstrous his actions are. The motivations behind the character seem rooted in the shallowness of his ego, looking to assert his dominance after being rejected.
Bliss of Evil makes an interesting choice in how it tells the story. It centers the audience on the record recording day and then jumps around a little, first to earlier in the evening after Jamie’s body is found, and then even earlier than that to a house party. I have never been a huge fan of this mechanic. Preferably I like a linear storyline, though there are occasions, like Pulp Fiction, where it works thematically with the film.
Being a film that is placed in the music industry, the film operates like tracks on a record or individual songs on Spotify playlists. Sometimes a band has to inject a faster or slower song for the album to work. Bliss of Evil does this, too, with the titular song setting off a tidal wave of emotions for Isla and the survival events for the band. The film finds a suitable temperance to handle the back and forth through ethereal components and excellent pacing –the way to produce a great album too. Hinschen and Morris set the audience’s curiosity on fire as the killer inches his way into the studio before cutting back each time.
The music industry is also full of legends, from Robert Johnson’s crossroads deal to the haunting theory behind the “twenty-seven club,” about talented musicians who took their lives at the age of twenty-seven. The film uses a conversation about the twenty-seven club as a foreshadowing event early in Bliss of Evil, which speaks to the nuanced nature of the writing and creates characters that feel like they’re a part of the rock’n’roll community.
The presence of film posters offered some intriguing hints as well. One Exciting Night, a silent film from 1922, plays into the movie’s past, as the dietetic title concerns a woman forced to court a man she doesn’t like until she meets a stranger at a party. The other poster shown multiple times, Why Men Leave Home, is another silent film from 1924 concerning a married couple who divorce after the wife discovers another woman’s perfume on her husband. The husband subsequently marries his mistress until the divorced couple is forced to spend a night under the same roof and rekindle their romance. The idea of silent films in Bliss of Evil may relate to Bloodface, who says very little outside of singing, speaking only in whispers, and the assault of muffling Isla’s screams during her attack. The content of the movies may also subtly relate to the killer’s archaic, misogynistic, and maligned view of women.
Ultimately, Bliss of Evil is an intelligent and well-executed white-knuckler that doesn’t get overly creative with kills or gore. The writer-director duo build genuine horror thrills and chills in a tight space with an even tighter budget. Sharnee Tones is utterly captivating, becoming an immediately likable character to root for, and should be a name to watch out for in her future film endeavors. I’m still not completely sold on non-linear storytelling, and that may be my main nitpick on the film, but Bliss of Evil is an Aussie slasher surprise worth checking out.
Bliss of Evil is playing Sohome Horror Pride Festival this weekend. The virtual festival operates on pay-what-you-want donations, so as little as £1 will get you into a weekend of horror films featuring queer characters and themes. See Soho Horror Film Festival’s Facebook page for more information on how to gain access to the festival.
