''Bliss'' is a 2019 horror film written and directed by

Joe Begos Joe or JOE may refer to: Arts Film and television * ''Joe'' (1970 film), starring Peter Boyle * ''Joe'' (2013 film), starring Nicolas Cage * ''Joe'' (TV series), a British TV series airing from 1966 to 1971 * ''Joe'', a 2002 Canadian animated ...

. Described as a vampire film, it concerns an artist named Dezzy (

Dora Madison Burge Dora Madison Burge, sometimes credited professionally as Madison Burge and Dora Madison, is an American actress. She is known for starring as Becky Sproles on the NBC/DirecTV drama '' Friday Night Lights'' from 2009 to 2011. She starred as Jessic ...

, credited as Dora Madison) who descends into madness after taking a hallucinogenic drug to overcome a creative block.

Cast

Dora Madison Dora Madison Burge, sometimes credited professionally as Madison Burge and Dora Madison, is an American actress. She is known for starring as Becky Sproles on the NBC/DirecTV drama '' Friday Night Lights'' from 2009 to 2011. She starred as Jessic ...

as Dezzy * Tru Collins as Courtney *

Rhys Wakefield Rhys Wakefield is an Australian actor and director, known for his roles in Australian TV series '' Home and Away'', the feature film ''The Black Balloon'' (2008) and in season 3 of HBO's ''True Detective'' in 2019. Wakefield's debut feature ...

as Ronnie * Jeremy Gardner as Clive *

Graham Skipper Graham Skipper is an American actor, director and screenwriter. He is best known for his roles as Herbert West in '' Re-Animator: The Musical'', Seth Hampton in '' Almost Human'', Zack Connors in '' The Mind's Eye'', Gordon Hardesty in '' Beyond ...

as Hadrian * Chris McKenna as David *

Rachel Avery Rachel Avery is an American film and television actress known for appearances in '' Scrubs'', HBO's ''Big Love'' and more recently Ben Stiller's ''Tropic Thunder''. Avery was born in Chicago, Illinois. She graduated from the UCLA School of Th ...

as Nikki St. Jean * Mark Beltzman as Lance *

George Wendt George Robert Wendt Jr. (born October 17, 1948) is an American actor and comedian. He is best known for playing Norm Peterson on the television sitcom '' Cheers'' (1982–1993), which earned him six consecutive nominations for the Primetime Em ...

as Pops *

Abraham Benrubi Abraham Rubin Hercules Benrubi (born October 4, 1969) is an American actor. He is known for his appearances as Jerry Markovic on the long-running medical television drama '' ER'', for his first role as Larry Kubiac on the series '' Parker Lewis C ...

as Abe

Release

Begos showed ''Bliss'' at 2019's

Fantastic Fest Fantastic Fest is an annual film festival in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 2005 by Tim League of Alamo Drafthouse, Harry Knowles of Ain't It Cool News, Paul Alvarado-Dykstra, and Tim McCanlies, writer of ''The Iron Giant'' and ''Secondhand ...

in Austin, alongside another current film of his, ''

VFW The Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), formally the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States, is an organization of US war veterans, who, as military service members fought in wars, campaigns, and expeditions on foreign land, waters, or ...

''. It was also shown at

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

's Overlook Film Festival.

Reception

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

the film has a "Certified Fresh" rating of based on reviews from critics, with an average rating of . The site's the consensus states: "''Bliss'' maybe too narratively and visually intense for less adventurous viewers, but should trigger the titular state for those with a taste for hard hitting horror." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

it has a score of 53% based on reviews from 6 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". ''

The A.V. Club ''The A.V. Club'' is an American online newspaper and entertainment website featuring reviews, interviews, and other articles that examine films, music, television, books, games, and other elements of pop-culture media. ''The A.V. Club'' was cre ...

'' reviewer Katie Rife said that it "represents a stylistic leap forward for its director" and compared it to the work of

Lucio Fulci Lucio Fulci (; 17 June 1927 – 13 March 1996) was an Italian film director, screenwriter, and actor. Although he worked in a wide array of genres through a career spanning nearly five decades, including comedies and Spaghetti Westerns, he ga ...

Gaspar Noé Gaspar Noé (, ; born 27 December 1963) is an Argentine filmmaker based in Paris, France. He is the son of Argentine painter, writer, and intellectual Luis Felipe Noé. In the early 1990s, Noé along with his wife Lucile Hadžihalilović were ...

, and

Abel Ferrara Abel Ferrara (born July 19, 1951) is an American filmmaker, known for the provocative and often controversial content in his movies and his use of neo-noir imagery and gritty urban settings. A long-time independent filmmaker, some of his best kn ...

References

External links

* {{2010s-horror-film-stub 2019 films 2019 horror films 2010s American films 2010s English-language films American splatter films American vampire films