Bled White Leverages Broken-Timeline Style and Believable Locations
Bled White creates a vision of the zombie apocalypse that begs the question: to what lengths will one go to in the name of survival?
Written by Mike “Goreboy” Blakely
January 3, 2011
Official Site
Release: TBD
Written and Directed by: Jose Carlos Gomez
Starring:
Colleen Boag as Natalie
Matthew E. Prochazka as Matt
Geraldine Dulex as Melissa
North Roberts as Ed Rosa
Isela Frausto as Kyra Zombie
Bled White screened at the Scarefest Horror/Paranormal convention in Lexington Kentucky November 2010 and conversations with the writer/director and the producer cleared up a few questions that the film left lingering. More about that later.
Bled White tackles the bleak journey through life after the (inevitable?) zombie apocalypse. The movie plays on the struggles that may occur when the “big event” happens. What happens when food supply is short? The reanimated corpses in the zombie world are hungry… and so are your fellow surviving humans. At least some of your loved ones will ultimately become infected – what do you do then? How about finding loved ones who were outside of your grasp during the outbreak but still may survive? The drama of “real life” after the coming of the zombies would certainly be next, after the excitement of initial outbreak.
Bled White also tackles the toughest question of all, should there actually be an event of such magnitude: to what lengths will one go to survive in the most inhospitable, deadly and bleak of environments?
Bled White uses unique and effective filters on their camera that create a gritty feel that works very well. Both the film quality and sound are excellent in this one, always a great thing to see in a low-budget indie horror film. The locations were excellent as well and added to the believability of the film. The abandoned motel and outdoor shots were very good.
Many points in Bled White were completely engrossing, and the story developed generally well. The performances of North Roberts as Ed and Matt Prochazka as Matt were particularly good as they created likeable characters and a sense that the audience actually cares what is happening to them. This film also includes the ever-popular zombie species, “runners”, which tend to be unpredictable… as well as have a good chance of actually catching their victims. The zombie villains are great in this film.
The film is presented in a ‘broken time line’ style, which Quitin Terinteno made popular with Pulp Fiction. It was not a surprise that Writer/Director Jose Carlos Gomez said that Pulp Fiction and Night of the Living Dead were his inspirations. Other factors contributed to this particular style as well, both to the benefit and detriment of the film.
During a question and answer period after the Screamfest screening Gomez and producer Kelli Tidmore revealed that the script was written in three 
days, and Tidmore had auditions lined up and locations selected before the script had even been started. The film was shot in roughly 20 days, weekends only, and the freezing cold Illinois locale contributed directly to filming techniques; Gomez was concerned that the actors would quit if they had to endure too many days in the frigid temperatures, so crafted the shoots so every actor was not required to be present on every shooting day.
The realities of the production and timelines were positive in influencing the “broken timeline” style, but also caused some problems. There are a few parts in the film that prompt a “Really? Why did they do that?” reaction. The entire audience joined in with wonder at one of these points, prompting a group “What the…?” These moments would have benefited greatly from one more re-write.
A great horror movie has the power to scare or startle, at least the jolt-scare type does, and that leads to the primary disappointment of Bled White. In most cases the scare-factor is achieved, but there are several moments that came close to achieving that desired moment of fright, but just missed. In a few of them it was even obvious what could have been done differently to get the desired effect.
Indie Horror on the cheap and the quick is fun, and can really open the door to some creative solutions and effective horror. Bled White generally achieves that goal, but also includes some disappointments that could have been avoided with just a few more days of planning.
3 Freak Heads (out of 5)
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