Blood in the Snow Film Festival is an annual film fest held in Toronto with a mandate to support, promote, and exhibit independent Canadian horror, genre, and underground film.
I'm here faced with a difficult task:
reviewing a movie I know is good and which everyone likes for good reason, but
one I had a hard time buying into. This is a me-problem of the first order;
there is absolutely nothing wrong with Fake
Blood. The issue is me.
Some context first. In the 1980s and early
into the 90s much ado was made about violent media. In much the same way rock
music was blamed for a perceived decline in Western civilization, horror movies
and video games have been demonized by people looking to explain why the world
is changing in ways they don't like or understand. Time and again these
theories have been proven false. Violent media does not beget more violence,
and for me, the topic has been put to bed.
And then along comes Fake Blood, part documentary, part mocumentary, which seeks to
explore the topic of movie violence in relation to violence IRL. The film
begins with real-life filmmaker Rob Grant receiving a fan video in which a guy
tours a hardware store, pointing out which tools he would use to dismember a
corpse. The video sparks a discussion between Rob and his best friend (and
leading man) Mike Kovac about the nature of movie violence and their
responsibility as filmmakers as to how that violence is depicted.
Rob and Mike decided to explore this topic
further by researching violence. What follows is a genuinely interesting and
entertaining investigation into real-world violence, and it made me recall
times in my life when I've witnessed violence of one sort or another. When Rob
gets his ass kicked by a buddy trained in martial arts, I thought about when I
trained in martial arts and got punched in the face (while wearing protection)
during sparring class. A discussion about actual fights brought back memories
of that time my friends and I witnessed a street fight outside a bar. Mostly it
was a lot of fronting, and girls yelling. Then one guy walked into a punch and
it was suddenly over. These recollections jived with what was being said on
screen. Fights in real life are short and messy. Nobody wants to see that
recreated on film—they're over too quick.
After getting his ass handed to him, Rob
and friends hit up a gun range where they shoot popular movie guns, including a
pump-action shotgun and the exalted Desert Eagle. One hilarious comparison later,
and you come away with a better understanding of just how unrealistic movie gun
play really is.
Not yet satisfied in their quest for
enlightenment, Rob and Mike make the narratively important decision to
interview John, a sort of violence consultant. John tells them harrowing tales
of murder and has some insights to offer on the topic of fake vs real violence
and their consequences. This experience takes the film in a new direction, one
which puts a great deal of strain on the filmmakers’ friendship.
And here we come to the real moral centre
of the film—the movie’s not really about violence at all but about the
obsessive pursuit of story. Rob talks himself in believing he now has a
responsibility to show the consequences of violence, to explore how it impacts
people’s lives. He goes so far down that rabbit hole that he winds up putting
himself and his friends in danger. Rob and Mike become their own subjects and the
film turns in on itself before reaching its conclusion.
Everything about Fake Blood is good, but the standout moments for me are the re-enactments
of John’s stories. These sequences are beautifully shot in dreamy slow-motion,
and I honestly can’t say if it was intentional or not to bring so much artistry
to these depictions of violence. Each sequence ends with a hard cut which most
definitely is intentional—slapping the audience back to reality.
During the Q&A, the filmmakers
explained that Rob is a sensitive guy and when he received that fan video it
sparked a crisis of conscience. He really did face an moral dilemma, and
worried about the fallout from making super gory, violent movies. Again, not
something I spend a lot of time thinking about but hearing this story did help
me get on board with Fake Blood’s
premise. It also reminded me of another Q&A I attended years ago. That film
was extremely violent and not in an artsy or stylized way. When called on, a
woman in the audience berated the filmmaker for his negative portrayal of his
country and its people, and told him he, as an artist, had a responsibility to
produce beautiful things.
“I’m a filmmaker,” he said. “My only responsibility
is to make movies.”
