By Terry Sherwood
From the very first frames of obscure violence and screams of Watch Them Come Blood, it’s clear we’re not just and we are thrown into the unsettling world of Mike Cuenca’s latest work to date. Like an early Sex Pistols gig at the 100 Club—where the threat of chaos felt just as real as the music
Cinematographer Jessica Gallant channels ’80s grindhouse with saturated color and texture, evoking The Texas Chain Saw Massacre not just in aesthetic, but in its unshakable sense of decay and dread. But Cuenca’s influences are far from that. There are shades of Freddy vs. Jason a chase through wood, Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho in a shower moment and echoes of The Hills Have Eyes in the looming presence of a white van that promises not freedom but freakshow terror.
Co-written by Joaquin Dominguez, the film opens with stealing a birthday cake from a vegan bakery by a game of young people with one dressed as a sort of Super Mario. It’s absurd, funny, especially when spliced with archival-style erotica animations that feel like they were ripped from a reel in the Museum of Sex. What begins as road trip comedy quickly mutates into a collage, stitched together with influences, grime, and grindhouse sleaze with some understated rock and roll score that mutates to an eightie’s tonality
The cast is odd. Auggie (Eric Aguilar) and Emilio (Allyn Moriyon) are ex-bandmates with frayed history, and their shared past is rekindled when Emilio unveils a remix of their old songs. Flor (Rebecca Lynne Morley), decked out in a “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” tee, becomes increasingly threatened by Pia (Arko Miro), a Myrna Loy-worshipping goth girl who could’ve walked out of a Gregg Araki hallucination. Gwen (Kayla Cummings), meanwhile, enters as a wildcard—possibly the “final girl,” possibly the first to go.
The film’s rhythm shatters convention with flashbacks and sharp dialogue that sometimes gets lost in the sound mix, When the people arrive at a seedy bar, the tone shifts. Warren (played by Cuenca) appears with an entourage that screams trouble, including a parasol-wielding creep
Soon, the gang follows these strangers to a gothic Victorian mansion, a decaying shrine to the macabre with Psycho or Last House on The Left look depending on your era. They’re welcomed inside—though “lured” might be more appropriate—and discover it’s a brothel. From this point on, Watch Them Come Blood erupts into nightmare territory. The deaths are done with practical effects and somewhat brutal in nature .
The picture then introduces Charlie and John, a couple who have just spent a romantic night and stayed together to watch the sun come up. whose slow, tender dialogue momentarily channels Before Sunrise later to be fused with Natural Born Killers that adds more carnage. They make a suicide pact, pray for gory deaths of themselves, and talk to each other with blood splashes on their faces and clothing.
The chaos thickens with the arrival of the Nihilists: Camila (Lillian Solange Beaudoin), Ida (Kat Yeary), drug-dealing oddball OZ (Joey Halter), and Warren. They’re here to rob the brothel—a setup that brings crime caper into sex horror “People come here to get fucked to death,” Ida says, perfectly encapsulating the film’s ethos: sex, death,
Watch Them Come Blood doesn’t play by the rules as it may seem at times to be a series of ideas cobbled together. It does fly by the seat of its pants with threat at every. Like an early punk gig, you either tune out, or you surrender to the noise.
Bloody Flicks 