Bloody Ballet: Written Review

Welcome everyone to MyIndie Review Vlog, sponsored by AngerMan Distribution! I’m Asaf Angel from MyIndie Productions and today I’ll be tackling 2018 horror thriller Bloody Ballet, a.k.a. Fantasma directed by talented U.S. indie filmmaker Bret Mullen!

This will be the second project from Brett we review on the show, having reviewed his 2014 horror feature Bloodshell Bloodbath a.k.a Dead Inferno earlier this season.

Thank you, Brett for sharing yet another project with us.

Adriana, a beautiful young Ballerina, portrayed by Kendra Carelli is on the verge of a blooming dancing career, as she lands the lead role in a local production of The Nutcracker. While there are good things in her life, Adriana also suffers from nerve-wracking hallucinations, for which she is treated in therapy session with Dr. Carlina Cassinelli, played by horror legend Debbie Rochon. Another horror legend to make an appearance here is Caroline Williams, who plays Ms. Valli, Adriana‘s Ballet coach.

Adriana‘s sessions with Dr. Cassinelli deal with the burden of her tragic past as she lost both her parents at a young age at the hand of a brutal killer.

Things rapidly go south after Adriana is cast in the lead role of the Ballet production, as something horribly sinister rises and wreaks havoc on the people in her life.

In a parallel storyline, McCabe, a journalist, played by Rob Springer, investigates a rundown decommissioned mental institute in town, that looks more like a prison, which is infamous for its horrific past and is rumored to be overrun by supernatural entities. We are left to decipher how the two storylines come together as the plot progresses.

From the script Brett co-wrote along with Matt Cloude, we are introduced to a horror thriller governed by uncertainty and mystery regarding its characters, the connection between them, and the connection between pivotal events in the plot. From an early point, different events happen in the film with ambiguous connection to one another, which successfully ignites our intrigue. Mullen and Cloude cleverly give us a puzzle to solve.

Mullen gives us a Giallo-style film, which gives homage to films like Dario Argento‘s Suspiria and Lucio Fulci‘s Murder Rock, to name a couple. Bloody Ballet is loaded with breathtakingly aesthetic visuals, characterized in precise framing, rich thematic colours and well-engineered lighting. Brett also helms as director of photography, on the project along with co-D.O.P. Tony M. Collins. Similar to my observation in the Bombshell Bloodbath review, Mullen stands out as an exceptionally skilled cinematographer with an acute sense for proper framing, compositions and textures.

A couple of small issues I had with the film, and yet still worth mentioning, are that some scenes deliver information in a fairly direct fashion which felt would have been more interesting were they expressed in subtext and that some decisions which were made regarding some gory elements felt to somewhat unnecessarily defy logic.

Having said that, Bloody Ballet is yet another impressive feat from Mullen and his team, which it is amplified by the simple fact that this is only Brett‘s second feature film as director. Production value is very high for any film, let alone an indie project. Cinematography as mentioned earlier is exemplary. Special FX, hair, makeup and wardrobe by Matt Cloude, Joh Harp, Amber Michael and Katie Carpenter with the aid of Deanna M. Jones and Matthew Patterson felt near studio grade, and all in all, it is a fun film to watch and draw inspiration from.

Bloody Ballet scores an 8/10 on the Look at me, I’m a Film Critic scale!

Thank you again to AngerMan Distribution for sponsoring our show.

If you’d like to catch-up on our past reviews you can find them all on our website, as well as our reviews AND promos on our MyIndie Review Vlog Vimeo channel. Links included.

Until next time, keep supporting indie film. Watch, share, spread the word, my name is Asaf Angel, I thank you for tuning in to MyIndie Review Vlog. I’ll see you next Thursday!