Soho Horror Film Fest 2025 Coverage
Blood Shine review
A religious horror movie with some bite.
Festival movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
Blood Shine
Directed by Emily Bennett and Justin Brooks
Written by Emily Bennett and Justin Brooks
Starring Emily Bennett and David Call
Blood Shine Review
There was only one short film attached to Blood Shine…but it has the distinction of being the longest of the shorts accompanying a feature I am covering this year. The Angel is, more or less, what it sounds like it is. It’s a perfect fit for Blood Shine given the religious themes. Doug Jones pops up as the titular angel…and he’s got a heck of a task for a pregnant wife in a polyamorous marriage. She must spill her husband’s blood or there will be a curse on her baby. Some angel, huh? The Angel is a strong short with a bit of an abrupt ending. It’s a good looking film with some nice performances. And, again, you couldn’t have asked for a better thematic fit to precede Blood Shine.
Blood Shine came with an introduction from its filmmakers. They mentioned the blood you can expect to be shed and they weren’t kidding. Despite its slow burn façade, Blood Shine isn’t afraid to spend that time sticking its hands into the filth. This is a religious horror movie…but it avoids the pitfalls of most religious horror stories by being about a particularly messed up belief system. One where its members inflict incredible violence on others attempting to bring their God forth…and ascend upon their own deaths.
The opening scene of Blood Shine sets the stage perfectly. After a man’s car breaks down he ends up knocking on the door of Clara (co-writer/co-director Emily Bennett). He’s respectful and aware of how nervous a woman living alone would feel in this situation. He asks her to call for help and says he will go sit in his care until they arrive. Instead, she invites him in for tea. After a brief conversation where Clara is clearly trying to seduce him…we cut to how his story ends. It isn’t a happy ending.
Then we watch the pattern repeat itself with a different man over the rest of the film. It’s a neat trick. Showing us the beginning and ending of what Clara is up to…and then circling back to give us an entire arc. I like it as a storytelling concept a lot. We know not to trust anything about her by the time the next man falls into her trap…but we aren’t exactly sure what gets her from point A to point B.
I did wonder, however, if it wouldn’t have worked better to double back and fill in the gap with the same character we see in the opening. He’s a likeable guy with hints of a dark past…and it feels like there was a lot more to explore there. The character we watch instead, Brighton (David Call) is intentionally not as likeable. He’s a director who seems very full of himself.
They have whatever the opposite of a meet-cute is. He watches her bathe in the river when he takes a fall. Brighton wakes up in her home…already caught in whatever trap she’s planning to unleash on him. This is why I question turning to a more unlikeable character for the main course of Blood Shine. Some horrific things happen to Brighton here…and it’s still hard to get on board with his side. There are narrative reasons that this works just fine…but it might have worked better with a character who is likeable with questions about them…not unlikeable and sure they’re not a great guy.
Blood Shine has some effectively violent scenes. It isn’t the blood that gets under your skin, however. It’s Bennett’s performance. She plays Clara as the truest of believers…which is troubling when what you believe in is so awful. Conversations cut deeper than knives in Blood Shine. Clara’s spiritual guidance comes from video tapes with Larry Fessenden giving sermons. That’s pitch perfect casting. Clara’s idea of ascension comes at a high and bloody cost. We learn all about it throughout the story. Even if the religion itself is incredibly messed up…it still makes for one of the better religious horror movies we’ve seen lately.
Scare Value
Blood Shine presents some brutal religious beliefs and then tries to talk you into them. It might work a bit too well, honestly. While I didn’t think that I could find true happiness by doing what Clara does…I did root for her in a weird way. Some of that is the result of setting her against a character who, himself, isn’t meant to be liked. Some of it is because a Larry Fessenden lead cult is probably something I’d end up buying into anyway. Blood Shine gets its hands dirty…which keeps the story engaging even when it’s unfolding slowly. Bennett’s performance gives it just about all the momentum it needs.
