Patrick Breen
THE BLEEDING HOUSE (Philip Gelatt, 2011)
Wednesday, April 27, AMC Loews Village 7, 9:00
Thursday, April 28, Clearview Cinemas Chelsea, 11:30
Friday, April 29, Clearview Cinemas Chelsea, 11:59
Saturday, April 30, Clearview Cinemas Chelsea, 11:30
www.tribecafilm.com
www.thebleedinghouse.com
There’s something not quite right about the Smiths, and first-time writer-director Philip Gelatt isn’t about to share their deep, dark secret until he’s good and ready in the psychological horror-thriller The Bleeding House. Mother Marilyn (Betsy Aidem), father Matt (Richard Bekins), eighteen-year-old son Quentin (Charlie Hewson), and sixteen-year-old daughter Gloria (Alexandra Chando), who only responds when called Blackbird, are living a cloistered life in a lonely house in the Texas woods, exiled by the community ever since a neighbor’s place mysteriously burned down, with the family inside. When a very odd southern gentleman named Nick (Patrick Breen) shows up at their doorstep one evening, asking to stay for the night because his car broke down, Marilyn at first refuses to allow a stranger into their midst but soon changes her mind, deciding that it might be good karma for the Smiths to help out a person in need, and boy do they need some good karma. But when they ask Nick, who is all dressed in white and speaks in an affected voice, what he does for a living and he says he cuts up people, well, things do not necessarily appear like they’re about to go the Smiths’ way. Gelatt provides plenty of twists on the slasher genre in The Bleeding House, eschewing sudden shocks, chase scenes, loud music, and ear-piercing screams in favor of a relaxed, calm pace, a subtle score by Hildur Guðnadóttir, and more intellectual thrills and chills reminiscent of the Showtime series Dexter. It doesn’t get much more creepy than the way Nick addresses Blackbird, saying her name in a way that is both menacing and mothering as he comes to learn that she is at the heart of the family’s secret. Making its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival, The Bleeding House is bloody good fun. (Gelatt will be at the Apple Store on Prince St. on April 25 at 6:00 for a free Meet the Filmmakers program.)