Blood Fest is a 2018 comedy/horror film about fans who flock to a festival celebrating the most iconic horror movies, only to discover that the charismatic showman behind the event has a diabolical agenda.
It’s really not hard to make fun of horror movies, and for many of us older fans, we’ve become jaded, not only with the lack of innovation in the genre but also the often weak attempts at poking fun. That’s not to say there aren’t movies doing what they can to try something new. We need only look back a few decades to Scream to see what’s become the defining example. Now we get Owen Egerton‘s Blood Fest, a mix of horror and humor that does what it intends, even if it is paper thin and runs out of steam well before its end.
After a chilling, yet oddly funny, start, where a young boy witnesses his mother’s gruesome murder, we skip a head a decade where Dax (Robbie Kay) is obsessed with horror. He’s got tickets to a huge new outdoor festival called ‘Blood Fest’, celebrating all things blood and gore, though his father (Tate Donovan), who is naturally against such things, forbids him to go, cutting up the tickets. However, with some help from Ashley (Barbara Dunkelman), a friend in the business recently cast as ‘topless girl #4’, he and his two pals Sam (Seychelle Gabriel) and Krill (Jacob Batalon) get (locked) inside, but what at first looks like a big Halloween party, turns into a nightmare where all the killing is real and there is no escape.
Hosting the massacre is festival emcee Anthony Walsh (Edgerton), who has populated his 700 acres of horror with chainsaw wielding goons in pig masks and a psycho with a double-bladed knife, to name a few. We see him backstage, running the show like a real-life reality hit where death is the goal. Meanwhile, the gang figures out that they have to ‘play precisely by the rules’ if they are to survive, these being the standards set by the classic slasher movies of the past. It’s like a mix between Cabin in the Woods and Scream.
Even as it gets familiar, there are some clever twists, despite the absurdity. Edgeton is not lacking energy, both in his eccentric performance and directing style. It’s over-the-top, but yeah, it’s supposed to be. Blood is everywhere, spraying like lawn sprinklers, bodies sliced, chopped, smashed, crushed, beaten, gutted and more. We get all kinds of gore, which is pretty convincing, lightened greatly by Dax and his pal’s shenanigans who take it about as seriously as the Scooby Doo gang, with Krill looking to lose his virginity and Dax using his movie smarts to keep everyone one step ahead of the action.
While there’s certainly some fun in all the mayhem, not everything works, and the film tends to lose momentum, Edgerton maybe trying to juggle too much. What’s a bit disappointing, and naturally understandable, is that none of the movies within the movie are real, all generic titles that lack the iconography that would have elevated this to real homage, each playing on variations on classics. Still, for a few good laughs and lots of gooey gore, this fits the bill and does it better than a whole lot of cheaply-made flicks of the like stuffing digital shelves.