Blood Fest (2018)

Rooster Teeth produced a horror film?  Yea, that isn't a good thing.  Blood Fest is an annoyingly bad horror movie that tries way too hard to be all witty and meta.  Unfortunately the movie lacks the directing chops of Wes Craven and feels like a film made by a teenager creating horror fan fiction.

 If oompa loompas come out, I'm leaving

So Blood Fest is a story centered around a teen who was witness to a traumatic event at a young age, and has grown up since as a huge horror fan.  He adores horror, he talks horror, and even hangs out at a video store covered in fake horror movie posters.  What year is this movie set in?  Video stores?  The cliche cast of teen friends we are introduced to are all so hip, but it feels like an old person writing dialogue for the gamers did all the script work here.

The lead's best friend for example is introduced talking about staying up late kicking butt at a video game he hacked.  Leet speak and all kinds of fun dialogue is had.  Kill me now, or someone please start killing off characters.  The lead girl of the group clearly is the match for our main character but he's an idiot nerd and doesn't see it that way cause they are totally friends and it's not like at the end they are gonna realize they like each other.... no who would do something so cliche... oh.  So you get to look forward to some tired old teen romance in this film.  It does involve black vomit at one point so that is a plus I guess.  Anyways, the teens beg their way and sneak into Blood Fest despite the parental protest because it's the event of forever or something like that.

 Hey gamers, want some mountain dew and Doritos?  No I'm not kidding the movie says this.

All the kids are excited for the event of forever called Blood Fest, which is a Halloween Horror Nights style of  attraction full of haunted houses and interactive festivities.  The festival is so over the top and silly in concept.  A huge part of a forest is walled off and people who purchase tickets at a certain time are locked into the festival, with of course no police presence at such a huge gathering of hundreds from all over the nation and even some celebrities.  The festival quickly goes wrong as the audience at the grand opening ceremony are informed that they are all part of one giant horror film, and that is when the killing begins.  Buckets of CG blood are spilled as chainsaw wielding maniacs are unleashed on the crowds.

Yep, the movie is for dummies 

So Blood Fest is essentially a giant amusement park of death, with areas themed after popular fake horror films and common horror tropes.  This is where our teenagers and their knowledge of horror films is supposed to make the movie fun as they are all so meta with their understanding of horror and that will help them survive.  Now Blood Fest is supposed to be a horror comedy, but again the writing is so cringey with how it feels like it's being written down towards a young teen audience.  Meta horror is nothing new, but it's awful when a movie just tries way to hard at it.  The humor is just one miss after another, and I can't even remember cracking a smile at anything in this movie cause all the jokes fall flat and in many cases done countless times before in better films.  The movie is also not very intense on the gore, with the bigger gore moments typically done using CG so it just adds to the disappointment.  Despite all the horror themes present in the movie, the movie comes off feeling like a teen drama at times.

 Clowns?  Yep throw everything at the screen and see what works

The film presents parody zones based on stuff like your typical summer slasher, zombie films, killer clowns, spooky houses, vampires, and even a rip off of SAW with a puppet that taunts players in torture porn like games.  Our teens using their knowledge make their way through the various zones seeking a way out of the attraction as the body count of patrons rises.  As this is happening the plot of the movie slowly unravels to the audience.  Why is Blood Fest happening and how everything comes together is incredibly stupid, which the movie tries to play off mostly with jokes.  To be fair I doubt anyone really was taking this stuff seriously but it doesn't lessen the pain in watching this turd.  Gamers are clearly a target for this film, as they make gaming a major part of how the park works with the various killer characters in the park actually being remote controlled by gamers who don't realize they are playing a game.  I think that was a plot for another movie......

Groovy

Blood Fest is a juvenile effort, which does make sense considering it's produced by Rooster Teeth.  The young teen audience that Rooster Teeth attracts might eat this shit up, but when I was that age, I was watching real horror films.  Blood Fest?  More like Crap Fest!  #sorrynotsorry