Blood Fest
Director: Owen Egerton
Writer: Owen Egerton
Cast: Robbie Kay, Jacob Batalon, Seychelle Gabriel, Barbara Dunkelman, Chris Doubek, Nicholas Rutherford, Tate Donovan, Rebecca Lynne Wagner, Owen Egerton, Gavin Free, Zachary Levi
Part of: the Secret Society Screening at the /slash Filmfestival
Seen on: 30.9.2018
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Plot:
Dax (Robbie Kay), Krill (Jacob Batalon) and Sam (Seychelle Gabriel) are absolutely excited: Blood Fest – the mega fun fair slash fan convention about all things horror is coming to their town. And they know that they have to be there. But Dax’ father (Tate Donovan) is dead-set against it, as he is against everything horror-related since Dax’ mother was killed. Dax manages to go anyway, but once there, it turns out that something sinister is going on at Blood Fest.

Blood Fest is no masterpiece, but it’s fun and entertaining. Horror movie fans will feel a little like watching a bobble head with all the nods the film throws at them and that makes most of its charm. I enjoyed it.

Blood Fest is made by somebody who is obviously genre savvy and who has a lot of love for it as well. And so it pays hommage to many great horror movies, but more than that, it pays hommage to the way we tell horror stories. It would have been nice if it had been more critical of those narrative conventions, if it had tried its hand at subversion of at least a couple of things. But that’s not what the film is.

Instead it’s a fun genre exercise, built in a way that allows for maximal acknowledgment of horror as a genre. It is entertaining and has very cute characters, making it nice to watch every second along the way. There is not a boring moment to it, and I enjoyed the twists and turns along the way.

Towards the end, the film does get a bit to twisty and the ending is a little out of control, but that was completely fine. It’s not like the film was a picture of rationality and realism up until then anyway, so the reveals at the end may have been out there, but they didn’t come out of nowhere.

The only thing that didn’t work for me was the music that was a little aggravating at times. But it wasn’t so bad that it really pulled me out of the film, so I was still able to bounce along. Blood Fest may not be a favorite, but it’s definitely fun.

Summarizing: Enjoyable.