REVIEW: Bleading Lady (2011)

Canadian-native Ryan Nicholson, indie horror film director and special make-up effects extraordinaire (which he may be better known for in the film industry), comes at indie horror fans with another low-budget film production starring well-known collaborator to Nicholson, actor Dan Ellis, in the film Bleading Lady a.k.a. Star Vehicle. I actually am not sure what the film’s name goes by right now-the screener I received is titled Bleading Lady, but when I interviewed Dan Ellis not too far back on my radio show, Ellis referred to his upcoming project as Star Vehicle. I looked up the word, bleading, and I came up with zero results because I was curious if it really was, in fact, a word, until I realized that the title is a play on words. The culmination of bleeding and leading due to the fact that the lead actress in Bleading Lady portrays a lead actress in a B-Horror film who is portraying a respected Scream Queen. She (Sindy Farguna playing Riversa Red) is going to get bloody, hence bleeding, as well as being the lead in the film’s production. Well, I believe I just made the explanation of the film FAR more complicated than it needed to be.

I have great respect for Nicholson and his craft, the craft of making indie horror films loaded with a great amount of gore, carnage, and usually a fair amount of gratuitous nudity. Unfortunately, with Nicholson’s latest, I felt that much of the aforementioned was absent. Not to say there was zero gore and nudity, but the amount of bloodshed relevant to the actual plot of the film itself and not the “movie within the movie” was a far cry from what I was expecting from Nicholson and his crew. It pains me to say this, but when I hear that a new film from Ryan Nicholson is out, I expect the film to be extreme in nature and full of copious amounts of sex, nudity, vulgarity, and awesome gore. With Bleading Lady, I felt the film fell short in all areas and instead attempted to create a dialogue-plagued, whodunit-style, drama that focused on Dan Ellis’ character, Donald Q. Cardini, whom I felt did not have the depth as a character to keep one interested in watching as the main focus for the duration of the film. Sadly, I was bored with the lack of action going on during the film.

Dan Ellis as Don Q. Cardini

Nicholson is at his best when the levels of raunchy nudity, explosive gore, and the plot moves along at a speedy and swift pace. Unfortunately, Bleading Lady lacked the aforementioned characteristics of his films at the amount I generally enjoy them to come in. The film takes a well-known scenario involving a group of indie filmmakers making a B-Horror film who have to deal with a stalker that has taken a particular liking to the lead Scream Queen of the film. Cardini, the driver for the cast and crew of the film’s production, has a raging hard-on for Ms. Riversa Red and has decided to make it his duty to see that no one inflicts any harm or distress to her throughout the movie. Of course, Cardini’s (Ellis) love for the actress goes beyond a natural obsession and infatuation and ultimately leaves viewers wondering if Cardini is the actual stalker, a crazy fan, or a jealous crew member working on the film. I believe that the less than stellar performances from much of the cast, sadly including the lead actor Dan Ellis, could have been overlooked if there had been far more gore and titillation to distract viewers and keep them entertained. If a film is going to have fair amount of dialogue between actors and actresses, it had better be interesting and delivered decent. I was getting low-budget performances from a low-budget production. Sadly, the scenes being filmed for the “fake” film within Bleading Lady (which happened to be atrociously performed on purpose), were not much more awful than the scenes shot for the actual movie.

The fault in the film is its seriousness. There were too many scenes that were meant to be dramatic, tender, and filled with a little bit of care and emotion-WRONG! This viewer did not care about the relationships developed (on a mediocre level, I might add) between the various cast members and crew working on the phony film. This film is not going to work with a sappy romantic interlude anywhere in it- it is going to work with obnoxiously crude humor, vulgarity, action, and loads of gore and over-the-top violence. Nicholson knows no other way. Leave the stupid dramas with tender scenes of affection and emotional interludes to the professionals who thrive at doing so on a daily basis, thus making the kinds of films that I loathe and rarely find any point in watching. The music throughout the film, courtesy of Gianni Rossi, was absolutely horrendous! I felt that the soundtrack of the film was, quite possibly, the most annoying aspect to the whole film. It made every scene feel incredibly cheesy somehow. The music really belonged in a bad, ’70s porno film and not in a horror film. I believe that was the problem with the film- I just couldn’t tell if things were meant to be cheesy and unrealistic for comedic purposes or if there was any seriousness to this film at all. Sadly, if the entire production was tongue-in-cheek and supposed to be humorous, it failed miserably. I don’t think I chuckled once throughout the entire film.

Scream Queen Reversa Red as portrayed by Sindy Faraguna

The good points to the film were the gore and nudity- although the scenes of nudity were sparse (Faraguna got totally naked once if I recall correctly) and the gore that actually occurred in the film was for the faux-film and not actually for the real action. I usually find nothing good coming about films that have a film created within it. They tend to suck. Bleading Lady did not completely suck, but based on the last couple of films I have seen from Nicholson (Gutterballs, Hanger), I was thoroughly disappointed. I think that if Dan Ellis and Sindy Faraguna were not the lead characters in this film, it would have been a total bomb. I think Dan Ellis has generally been strongest actor in the few Nicholson films I have been privy to and it was the case again, but Ellis did not have too much to work with in terms of dialogue delivered. The film was written by Nicholson, as well as directed, and the dialogue could have been a bit more realistic and there should have been far less of it. The film lacked an overall intensity that should have been present as scenes were delivered.

By the end of the film, I really could care less who the stalker was and what his or her reasons were for stalking the Riversa Red. Mass suicide by all characters in the film at its conclusion would have been acceptable to me at this point. I am more-so interested in Nicholson’s upcoming Grindhouse-throwback feature Famine. The trailer for Famine was far more interesting than the whole film Bleading Lady was. Sadly, I think fans of Ryan Nicholson’s films are going to be very disappointed with Bleading Lady.