Since mid-2011 filmmaking outfit Bloody Cuts have been diligently building towards an anthology of 13 horror shorts "For the love and tradition of UK horror". Whilst the previous four instalments have been pretty standard fare -- covering the lone late night worker, the baby sitter on the phone, a sexual predator turned prey and of course a zombie attack -- their latest entry, Suckablood is an impressive fairytale horror which will cure even the most ardent of thumb suckers instantly:
Not members of the Bloody Cuts "Franklin Family" team, writer/director partners Ben Tillett and Jake Cuddihy of Half Baked Films pitched their gothic fairytale script and earned their place helming the fifth film of the compendium project:
We met Ben Kent and Ben Franklin at an independent networking event and recognised each other from our entries in the 2011 SciFi London 48hr film competition. They mentioned they were putting together an anthology of horror films, and that they would consider collaborating if they liked what we had to offer.
We went away and came back with a script, got our foot in the Bloody Cuts door, and like a rabid cross between door-to-door evangelists and commission-based salesmen, we weren’t leaving until they’d read it. Thankfully, they said they liked what we wanted to do.
The extensive making of video below shows the amount of work across departments that went into the project, with Millennium FX creating impressively creepy prosthetics make up for both Suckablood and the equally terrifying step mother character.
You can also compare the finished film to this After Effects built pre-production storyboard animatic:
Not only has Suckablood seen a boost in Bloody Cuts' production values (a Stephen Fry donation helping to boost the short's budget), it has also resulted in increased exposure for the project with the film selected as a Vimeo Staff Pick, resulting in 12K+ views over 48 hours and its 25.2K views on the site to date being an eight fold increase on the total Vimeo views of the previous four films combined. We'll have to wait to see if Bloody Cuts continue to build their audience with episode 6, but if they manage to maintain this level of quality over the next eight shorts it should make for terrifyingly delightful viewing.
Should web series be a continuation of a story or is a genre alone enough to bind episodes together and build a loyal audience? Is this something you've done with your own projects?
Link: Bloody Cuts
