The Bleed

The Bleed The Bleed is written and constructed as a female horror/psychological thriller. It is constructed as this for a variety of reasons, including It’s vogue at the moment so it’s culturally relevant A irritation with so called feminist horrors like the remake of Black Christmas in which feminist was mutated into ‘all women great, all men wankers’ A desire to do a concept similar to The Thing whereby The Thing was all Male characters, The Bleed deals with all female characters, (even the descent still had a male character appear at the start) The Bleed deals with a genuine unpleasant experience many women experience in their lives that of getting a termination, I say this as a pro-choice person but I acknowledge that termination is a particularly harrowing experience for a woman regardless of why she does it there will still naturally be feelings of guilt and regret, particularly as women only have a narrow window by which to conceive. Also despite only having three late 20’s early 30’s actresses in the story none of them are in anyway sexualised. In fact I see this story as ‘post sexual’ in that it deals with the fallout of the sex act. The Bleed has also been constructed to be made for as cheaper budget as possible with one main set, another that can easily be filmed in someone’s home and some external shooting which can be filmed easily. There is also some stock footage I’ve included in the script that you should be able to acquire for free. The cast is limited to three actresses. The Bleed deals with various Cronenberg themes and in the writing style reflect this, (note the name ‘the Bleed’ deliberately evokes the brood’). In fact if I had to explain the The Bleed I would say a cross between Rabid and Dead Ringers. The story is about a new form of abortion, a holistic abortion that the lead character experiences. This new method involves a mental process to terminate the foetus rather than using a medical procedure to breakdown the matter. The mental procedure is described by the doctor as being similar to ‘forgetting something’ the mind obscuring and tossing away a memory. So the lead character enters a public toilet with her two friends, unbeknown to her she is already asleep and the process of termination is beginning. You will notice various symbolism in the story. For example, the lead character is called Autumn, autumn naturally being the season where nature begins to die. Her two friends represent her two foetuses as she is pregnant with twins but the framing of her in the middle with the two also represents the two eggs and the uterus and finally the discussions between Autumn, Katy and Michelle is deliberately designed to reflect the ID, Ego and Superego the three facets that make up our consciousness.