Bloodthirsty: Writing and recording pop music is a beastly business
By Jim Slotek
Rating: B
One frequent cognitive dissonance in horror movies is that the characters usually don’t share our pop-cultural knowledge. E.g.: If you or I were gradually turning wolf-like, we’d know exactly what to suspect, thanks to the movies.
But lycanthropy doesn’t occur to emo singer-songwriter Grey (Lauren Beatty) in Amelia Moses’ darkly atmospheric Bloodthirsty. And it’s certainly not a diagnosis she is going to get from her physician Dr. Swan (Michael Ironside), whose answer to everything is to increase her meds.
Canadians already made the definitive young-woman-turned-werewolf movie, with 2000’s Ginger Snaps, which is a bar to clear if Bloodthirsty is to make an impression on veteran horror fans.
But the pop music angle, an LGBT angle, and a studio Svengali who lives in a mansion in the woods, gives Bloodthirsty some points for fresh twists.
The dropped hints are nicely handled. A vegan since childhood, Grey suddenly has nightmares of eating raw meat, and hallucinations of hairy transformation. This is naturally an impediment to her sitting down and writing new songs, and a concern for her girlfriend Charlie (Katharine King So).
And just at her low point, Grey receives a fortuitous, albeit strange career opportunity. A reclusive super-producer named Vaughn Daniels (Greg Bryk) invites her to his isolated manse to record an album.
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And, oh yeah, seems the last anybody had heard of him, he’d been accused but not convicted of murdering another young singer at the very same studio-mansion. Thanks for the opportunity, Mr. Spector!
So off to the woods Grey goes, with a dubious Charlie in tow.
Despite being filmed in Alberta, there’s an almost Gothic horror feel to the scenes in the dark, oppressive mansion. There are awkward dinner scenes, with a vaguely sinister servant named Vera (Judith Buchan) serving up dinner (presumably between heavy bouts of housecleaning, since they seem to be the only people ever in this Dracula-like milieu).
As for the recording sessions, they are tough, as you’d expect from a genius producer gone off the rails in the woods. There’s an obvious metaphor here between creativity and anguish, as Grey takes multiple ego-bruisings on route to writing ostensibly the best music of her life. (Bloodthirsty was written by the mother-daughter team of Wendy Hill-Tout and singer/songwriter Lowell The movie features decently written and listenable songs by Lowell, including the title song.)
But despite the weird and intriguing atmosphere, the mordant music plot must eventually make way for werewolf tropes. Transformations will complete. People will die. And there will be a “shocking” plot twist that anyone paying attention will see coming a mile away.
Still, there is enough originality in the execution and atmosphere to make Bloodthirsty an interesting addition to the lycanthrope film genre.
Bloodthirsty. Directed by Amelia Moses. Written by Wendy Hill-Tout and Lowell. Starring Lauren Beatty, Greg Bryk and Katharine King So. Rebased in Canada by Raven Banner releasing. Launches on VOD May 21 - Bell, Rogers, Shaw, TELUS, CineplexStore & VimeoOnDemand