Review: ‘Bliss,’ a harsh vampiric rager

With 1981’s The Hunger, author Whitley Strieber registers a science-fiction lean to the classic adventure tale. Elegant, wealthy, and stoic, Miriam Blaylock is a vampire originally from Egypt, and when her lover John begins to show shines of aging – after only 200 years – she seeks out a new companion. A young doctor named Sarah Roberts becomes the object of renewed blood thirst, and Strieber’s exploration of vampirism dabbles in the notion of the vampire-human hybrid. In the following passage, Roberts fails to comprehend her new form: “Somebody was lying under the bed, still and silent. Sarah sighed, all that escaped of a scream. It was not a peaceful face, but a sad one. So this was Miriam’s ‘food.’ Sarah gagged at the memory of it. And yet it sang in her veins. Slowly she extended her hand. Her own eyes closing as if she were under the influence of some opiate, she stroked the forehead of the person whose life she had taken.”

Filmmaker Joe Begos situates his new film, Bliss, his third feature, in the same hellish realm. Dezzy, played by Dora Madison Burge, is ballsy and abrasive, a true bohemian artist who soothes her creative block with drugs, booze, and sex. She combs dirty downtown Los Angeles for her next fix, a vampire in her own way, slithering through dark alleyways, orgies, and sunken hotel rooms to satiate a deep, animalistic appetite. Her rockstar lifestyle may soon be catching up with her, though – she’s late on her rent again, her would-be lover Clive (Jeremy Gardner) has had just about enough of her shit, and her latest artwork (for which she was paid a $10,000 advance) is just not going anywhere.

That is until her friend and fellow mystic Courtney (Tru Collins) gives her the ride of her drug-riddled life in a hallucinatory-laden threesome with her boyfriend Ronnie (Rhys Wakefield). It’s a mind-altering sequence, bleeding crimson casting a psychedelic glow, and Dezzy assumes her terrifying memory flashes are the result of a new drug called Diablo. Her artistry then appears to thrive off her re-energized late-night binges, a vicious cycle she doesn’t pick up on, at first. Following each strung-out bender, punctuated with grueling blackouts, night sweats, and the shakes, her painting grows and grows and grows until Dezzy’s thirst for blood becomes so uncontrollable, those close to her are in far more danger than they realize.

Bliss is a sledgehammer. The imagery suffocates – from the coarse character sketches to the biting metal soundtrack to torturous violence – and that’s its charm. It’s a brisk 80-minute watch, and, for better or worse, it feels like much longer. Begos drowns the viewer in aggressive storytelling and grainy, guerrilla-style camera work, and Dezzy’s drug trips and transformation into a savage, voracious blood sucker becomes your own. It’s a tough pill to swallow, and one we’d gladly take any day of the week.

Bliss officially hits Shudder this week.

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