“There’s no sign of slackening off on Sunday 6 October, either, as Grimmfest have another day packed with guests attending from around the world, starting with actors Jasper Jones & John Howley, director Andrew Bell, and producer Nicholas Santos, who join from the US for the World Premiere of the visceral vampire drama BLEEDING.”

“Grimmfest previews, ‘It might seem a strange claim for a narrative ostensibly about vampires, but this is a film with a rare, raw authenticity; a stark, grim, utterly unsentimental exploration of the nature of addiction, which keeps its genre elements dialed down low, focusing instead on the day to day existence of the small-town, small-time addict; the petty thefts and betrayals of friends and family, the desperate hustles, the confrontations with vicious but low-level dealers and their brutal head-busting goons.

‘The protagonists could just as easily be junkies or crackheads or tweakers as vampires, and the film’s clear-eyed but compassionate and sympathetic depiction of suburban teenage desperation and nihilistic despair owes as much to films such as River’s Edge as it does to more overtly horror-themed narratives, and grounds the film’s more fantastic elements within an all-too-unnervingly real world, making it all the more harrowing, horrifying, and emotionally brutal.’

John R. Howley, Jasper Jones and Tori Wong star.”

“Andrew Bell offers an extraordinary contemporary spin on vampirism, in BLEEDING. A stark, grim, utterly unsentimental exploration of the nature of addiction and teenage desperation, it's harrowing, horrifying, and emotionally brutal.”