TRIBECA 2019 REVIEWS: Joe Begos’ BLISS is a dizzying horror film making the vampire/addict connection

There’s something very interesting going in in horror movies these days. While big-budget outings like The Conjuring and It deliver the same old tired jump-scare techniques, some horror is taking off in another direction. A perfect example of this is in how works like Get Out turn to a Twilight Zone type of thriller concoction. Then there are really out-there efforts like Mandy, climbing steadily in cult-following status as fans drink in its mind-crushing aesthetics. For some reason, horror is a place where filmmakers feel freer to break from the contemporary norms governing the genre and even get experimental from time to time. For those looking to take their fears out on a limb in exactly this kind of a way, look no further than writer/director Joe Begos’ frenetic and freaky Bliss.

Dora Madison Burge delivers a no-holds-barred performance as artist Dezzy Donahue, a painter who is struggling between earning a steady paycheck through her gallery patrons and her many substance abuse issues. Chaotically juggling a budding career, a dysfunctional relationship and her clique of bar-hopping LA hipster ragers, she simply hits a wall. When her creativity starts running dry as she’s late delivering her new masterpiece, she turns to a friend peddling a new drug called “Bliss.” Getting high on the weird speed/hallucinogen hybrid, she embarks on an extended run of debauchery which leads her to a whole new kick: drinking blood. That’s right, one of her hard-partying rock and roll friends is actually a nosferatu and turns poor Dezzy into a creature of the night.

But here’s the thing. This new kick is really doing the trick. Suddenly her painting is really coming together. But she’s also having insane mood swings, intense hallucinations and is losing day upon day in a haze of nightmarish psychedelic experiences. As the story builds and the tension mounts, things get crazier and crazier as her hellish journey into a bacchanal life of bloodsucking starts getting really weird…and perhaps something far, far worse. It’s as if Hunter S. Thompson was caught up in a full-fledged demonic possession, with all the terror that drug-fueled satanic visions can evoke.

While the premise here is interesting, readers may say “what’s the big deal?” After all, films like Abel Ferrara’s surprisingly understated The Addiction sort of covered this vampire-as-a-junkie ground already. But Begos takes this idea and runs wildly with it. Not entirely unlike Mandy, he employs a mesmerizing cinematic approach. Bawdy scenes of the underbelly of Los Angeles’ punk and art scenes are captured in a relentless editing style which goes from being dizzying to downright discombobulating. No joke – the film even has a warning at the beginning that viewers with certain medical conditions might need to leave the theater. And you know what? I have one of those medical conditions! And yes, my heart started palpating and I almost had to leave!

But I’m glad I stuck it out. This terrifying brew of spinning camera shots, strobe light editing, and meshed hallucinatory cinematography is indeed capable of triggering seizures. And while that’s all happening, the story bludgeons the audience with everything from a slightly Repo Man vibe to some seriously Evil Dead-esque moments, which you can kind of laugh at. But not in the same way. Here, the film’s experimental visuals, most of which are just in-camera effects spliced together just right, unbalances viewers, taking them straight into Dezzy’s increasingly unbalanced mind. It’s a tour de force of filmic madness combined with a gritty street-level, dead-end rocker ethos which is at once enthralling and disorienting.

And honestly, there aren’t many films out there like this (if any). If you’re ready to take a walk on the wild side of the horror genre, make sure you see Bliss. But not if you’re squeamish. And not if existential terror mixed with graphic blood and gore served up in a cinematic cyclone sounds off-putting. When the painting Dezzy is working on is finally complete and unveiled, the crescendo of the last act comes crashing down with all the energy and decisiveness of a heavy Beethoven symphony – or maybe a Misfits song. This isn’t even a film really as much as it is an invitation into the descending inferno of excess, indulgence and absolute personal sacrifice in the service of an urge that most of us are probably better off not having. Tread carefully and don’t say you weren’t warned of the perils the work draws the audience into.