Bleed with Me is a hazy, isolating, slow-burn horror movie drenched with distrust—and it freaked me the hell out.
Shudder’s latest analyzes female friendship—as well as its potential of toxicity and gaslighting. Stylistically reminiscent of the horror streamer’s earlier bone chiller, Violation, Bleed with Me sticks with you.
Beautifully shot in the snowy mountains of Canada, the ethereal film focuses on Rowan (Lee Marshall), an insecure young woman who joins her coworker, Emily (Lauren Beatty), and Emily’s boyfriend, Brendan (Aris Tyros), on a trip to Emily’s isolated family cabin for a short vacation. Emily and Rowan have been friends for only six months, and it’s clear they don’t have a normal friendship.
From the beginning, Bleed with Me harbors an uncanny sense of dread that’s shrouded in the film’s hazy, low-lit shots. In Rowan’s vulnerable eyes, Emily is everything she wishes she could be—well-dressed, confident, and in a relationship with someone who loves her.
This may all be a façade for something more sinister, however, when Rowan starts having hallucinatory dreams in which Emily is stealing her blood in the middle of the night.
These dreams seemingly become Rowan’s reality when she wakes up in the morning with fresh, gory slices in her arm. Knowing her own past of self-harm, Rowan questions herself—is she doing this to herself without remembering, or is Emily really snatching her blood?
Lee Marshall in BLEED WITH ME.
The women’s relationship is creepy and unsettling. It made me squirm; their strained conversations are easily one of the most unnerving aspects of this sleepy, eerie flick. They’re polar opposites, and their dialogue is startlingly genuine for two characters who haven’t been friends for long. The small cast Moses has put together really shines here.
Emily and Rowan resemble that of an unhealthy mother-daughter dynamic rather than any semblance of friendship. Emily is controlling and forceful, hidden behind doe eyes and a sad smile, constantly saying creepy things, such as “good girl,” to Rowan and forcing her to take unlabeled white pills. Rowan, on the other hand, is meek and mild-mannered, eager to be as good as Emily, and all you want to do is reach in and help her stand up for herself.
Bleed with Me is a beautifully shot horror that builds tension and terror with ease. Beatty stands out among the rest of the cast as Emily, with her curt, snippy lines one minute and her gentle, seemingly caring coos the next—it’s downright sinister.
The film is an enjoyable watch, one that burrows deep in your veins and chills you to the bone—but it left me with far more questions than I had answers to. I would’ve loved to see it developed more.
From the validity of Rowan’s “dreams” of Emily being a vampiric creature, and Emily’s leg injury to Emily’s sister’s death, and Brendan’s sudden departure from the house, it was hard to decipher was a hallucination and what was reality.
In a way, I loved that about the film; I loved the haziness, the altered perception of reality, which is symbolically akin to being gaslit, something Emily was doing consistently to Rowan.
I just wish the ending had given me an insight into what was truly going on.
Bleed with Me
2021
dir. Amelia Moses
79 min.
Bleed with Me streams on Shudder 8/10.
