BleadingLady

Bleading Lady (2010)

This is the latest from director Ryan Nicholson. The movie follows the exploits of a professional driver named Donald ferrying cast and crew back and forth between the set of a low budget horror movie and their hotel. One of the people that he is driving back and for is a scream queen named Riversa Red. Donald is a big fan of Riversa and when he finds out she has a stalker there is hell to pay. Mostly because as we see in the first set of scenes Donald is a homicidal maniac, who takes care of the stalker in his own special way. But after he gets fired from the job for arguing with the director everyone is in for some trouble.

I’m a big fan of Nicholson’s movie Gutterballs, so I really wanted to like this one. But there are just too many issues with Bleading Lady for me to enjoy it. Let me say that in spite of only being 75 minutes long, it seemed like a much longer movie. The narrative is disjointed to the point that at times I felt like they had edited out some scenes that were establishing characters and who was where. So we suddenly have characters showing up out of nowhere for what seems to be the express purpose of getting killed off. Then for no real reason the main character, Donald, breaks the 4th wall and speaks directly to the audience. Other then a brief voice over this is the only time this happens. Basically he apologizes because we haven’t seen the gore yet and then jumps right to a set piece of him killing an entirely new character that shows up out of nowhere. This just feels like a cheap trick to skip on establishing the victim and I didn’t like it. This is the most obvious example of what I think is an underwritten and developed script being shot, but no the only one.

Since I’m on the topic of writing I’m not sure if some of the dialogue was improvised or if it was written that way. If this was how the dialogue was written then shame on Ryan Nicholson the writer. On the other hand if the actors were allowed to improvise the dialogue then shame on Ryan Nicholson the director. I think you get the picture. I’d complain about the cast, but I’m thinking their performances were supposed to be awkward and clumsy. Though in the case of the actors playing the actors in the movie being shot in the movie… You know just forget it. The acting is bad.

A Ryan Nicholson movie is always good from some gore and nudity. Here Bleading Lady delivers the goods. There are some lovely ladies in various states of nakedness and the kills are solid. Though I was bummed that some of the kills aren’t show on screen, the copious amounts of arterial spray more then made up for that. So if you watch Nicholson’s flicks solely for the kills then this one will give you want you want.

Nicholson gets a lot of heat for some of the content of his movies. Because of that I know that a lot of reviewers are going to trash whatever the guy makes, based on his reputation alone. But this also works both ways. Some fans/reviewers are going to defend him no matter what. Let me say that my review is my honest opinion, and again I really dig Gutterballs and wanted this movie to be as much fun. For the reasons above it just didn’t work for me. I recommend that you pass on this one.

1 ½ out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer