My notes on Bliss of Evil (2022)
A low-budget Australian slasher movie with a bit of an edge. It opens with a ‘based on a true story’ caption – which, by now, is a tad needless since it tends to lump genre exercises like this in with actual true crime pics like Hounds of Love or Snowtown to their disadvantage – and the brutal murder/fade suicide of just-about-to-break rocker Jace Quid (Eamon Kingston). It’s Brisbane, 1997, before mobile phones and the internet fucked up so many suspense situations, and grunge band Prom Night turn up at a recording studio in a bad part of town (more depopulated than overrun by urban crazies) for a session.
Engineer Isla (Sharnee Tones), whose uncle (Wayne Bassett) owns the studio and is amusingly blunt about the quality of the band who’ve just finished a session, is obviously getting over a trauma – as are the whole band. New-to-this-crew guitarist Lee (Jordan Schulte) is replacing someone who’s mysteriously left the band (and perhaps the planet) and he ploughs on with playing the title song – which we don’t initially hear – though it sends Isla into shock. The rest of the crew are nicely sketched – guitarist Roy (Brandon R. Burman-Bellenger) who’s only just heard of the ’27 club’ and realised he qualifies to join if he dies this year … leader Nic (Shanay De Marco), who’s Isla’s girlfriend … plus drummer Rhea (Emily Rowbottom), Isla’s best friend Jamie (Michaela Shuttleworth) and lone non-stereotyped (and non-binary) groupie Courtney (Chenaya Aston). Of course, someone is soon found murdered – and the studio is chained up – and a hoodied killer called ‘Bloodface’ (Corrie Hinschen) is on the premises, working off some major grudges. Yes, it’s the former band member – but is he pissed off for being chucked out of the group, back from the dead after a tragedy for which the band is culpable, just a murdering nutter or some sort of slasher movie archetype wannabe?
A long flashback near the end provides explanations, and touches on some hot-button #metoo issues in a fairly tactful way – but it’s less effective at making the menace unusual than the device of having him not speak any dialogue but at one point perform an acoustic version of the (pretty good) title song. Director Josh Morris – who also co-wrote with Hinschen – gets good work from a cast who are all way above average for this sort of quickie, possibly because everyone is given material to work with. Too many cheap slasher movies mistake constant arguing and insulting for character development and present friend groups who can’t bear each other and who we want to die soon – but I believe this bunch as a band, and though there are tensions and squabbles in the group, there’s also a credible, quite affecting solidarity. You don’t want them to die, which makes the (mostly offscreen) kills more affecting. We spend almost all the film inside the studio, with rare trips out to the parking lot, and Morris shows invention in getting the most out of the single location (the end credits suggest it’s a real recording studio).
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