Fake Blood

They try to make this over artsy mockumentary point of view tight movie. Nothing actually happens it's all talking there was no blood or horror whatsoever. It's another one of those movies where you realize there's only five minutes left and nothing has happened yet and nothing will.

It is what it is.. realized it was fake.. still watched till the end. It's not bad actually. Haters gonna hate. Keep doing what you're doing fellas.

This is another terrible attempt at a fake documentary!!! Nothing believable from start to finish

FAKE BLOOD begins by firmly establishing the real-life credentials of its two protagonist film-makers, and then explores, within the framework of a fictional documentary or mockumentary, a question related to the extent to which movie violence influences real-life violence. However, by the end of the film, there are still enough connections to the real lives of the protagonists that there is plausible deniability as to whether this is really a work of fiction and not an actual documentary of real-life happenings, after all.

There is a relatively recent movement in the arts and in philosophy which has been proposed as a successor to modernism and its successor movement postmodernism, and which has been called meta-modernism. Before connecting it to FAKE BLOOD, let me briefly summarize it.

Whereas modernism in fiction is grounded on an essentially idealist worldview according to which there are definite values and certainties in the world which, for example, permit us to consider things as definitely "right" vs. "wrong" or "good" vs. "bad", postmodernism is grounded in a worldview according to which all these values and certainties are based on narratives we make up in our minds, and our goal should be to "deconstruct" these narratives in order to reveal how we mistook a particular story about reality for reality itself.

The problem with modernism is that sometimes the values and certainties it espouses do indeed turn out to be more problematic than recognized at first, even to the extent that deeper reflection or revelation of new facts may lead to a complete reversal, such as when we realize that something we thought was was an unmitigated "good" turns out to be an unmitigated "bad" (and vice versa), and we can never be sure that for any value or certainty we hold, such reversal, which implies that we were mistaken, won't happen. The problem with postmodernism is that it is self-defeating: applied to itself, it has to also be considered just a narrative, which leaves the question open of whether beyond this narrative there are not definite values and certainties, after all.

Since the beginning of the 21st century, several candidate movements have been proposed to succeed postmodernism, of which one of the most prominent is meta-modernism. The basic idea is that elements of both modernism and postmodernism are combined in a single work, so as to, in a sense, transcend either approach. Often, this combination takes the form of an "oscillation": for instance, a work may explore a question based on the assumption that there is a set of definite certainties and values (modernist), then deconstruct these (postmodernist) in order to reveal that the question can be regarded to be based on assuming a different set of certainties and values (modernist again), and there may be multiple cycles like this which indicate that, ultimately, neither approach is adequate.

Okay, so what does all this have to do with FAKE BLOOD?

The central question the film explores is "do makers of violent movies have an obligation to the audience?".

This question assumes, at minimum, that there is a definite answer: either they have an obligation or they don't, and whichever answer we arrive at has to necessarily presume a set of certainties about "how things really are" and values which determine the importance of each "thing that really is" to the answer. This is a thoroughly modernist point of view.

They ask various people and obtain different opinions and insights. One raises the issue that movies which depict violence in a bloodless way might actually have a more harmful effect on real-life violence because they hide its literally bloody implications from the audience. Another concludes that, if there is such an obligation, then makers of romantic comedies have an even greater obligation because the fantasies they present are ultimately more harmful to the audience if mistaken for reality.

They eventually contact two people connected to what is purported to be a real-life crime case, the murder of a drug dealer's sister, in order to explore the question in greater depth.

The postmodernist deconstruction begins when the movie presents a re-enactment of the murder which it then reveals to be a re-enactment because it shows "behind the scenes" footage of it. This is our clue that the account of the murder we were just given is merely a narrative of reality, not reality itself.

As they delve deeper, they discover that the narrative is completely inconsistent with the court records of the case. But since the court records are also just a narrative, should they not be treated with the same kind of skepticism? Here, the movie veers back to a modernist approach by treating the new narrative as a true account of reality.

A break-in into the apartment of one of the protagonists, interpreted with this new understanding of reality and entailing a re-assessment of one of the people involved in the murder, leads the main characters to go into hiding, only to find out eventually that their interpretation of the break-in was wrong.

The new interpretation seems definite, quite in line with a modernist conception of the world again, except that, in order to accept it, we have to take a set of assumptions for fact, and the protagonist this time is quite is explicit that he has constructed a new narrative based on an incomplete set of facts: a body is found with a note connecting it to the protagonist, but there is no footage, confession or other explanation as to what "really" happened, and the protagonist essentially says "I believe this is what happened", as opposed to the movie showing us what actually happened.

Thus, all we are left with in the end is an explicitly stated belief about reality, instead of either a pretense to a claim about reality, or a pretense to deconstructing a claim about reality. This is how FAKE BLOOD transcends both modernist and postmodernist approaches in a meta-modernist way.

In keeping with this approach, the movie ends such that it maintains plausible deniability about whether it is a work of fiction or a work of fact, unlike other comparable works where the question is settled in a definite manner, such as works in which a semi-fictional characters dies, in contradiction to our understanding that, in reality, they are alive.

Lastly, I am not sure to what extent the film-makers set out to implement such theoretical ideas in this movie, but I think that spending any appreciable amount of time thinking about what is real and what is merely a narrative about what is real leads to the conclusion that while we may not be absolutely certain about what reality is, we can be certain about what we believe about reality and be explicit that our certainty only extends over it being a belief. In this age of misinformation, which has fostered countless conspiratorial cults, such as flat earthism, moon-landing hoaxism, Qanon and others, this is a natural fallback position that can help protect us from false narratives. I believe that this also provides the context against which the rise of meta-modernism in the early 21st century has to be considered. In that light, FAKE BLOOD's meta-modernist approach can well be regarded as reflecting the current Zeitgeist.

The impact of violence in movies on audiences has been somewhat of a hot topic since the dawn of its introduction to film. There are many examples of crimes in which the perpetrator (or the media) have attributed the real trigger to them being exposed to excessively aggressive acts on the big screen; one of the most infamous cases being the 1990 James Bulger killing in Liverpool, England and the subsequent blame being laid on one of the killers having watched Childs Play 3. While the claim was later disproven, the question of the influence of graphic violence raged.

Independent filmmakers Rob Grant and Mike Kovac never really considered the consequences of their gory, low budget movies on the people who watch them - until they receive a chilling video purporting to show two men in a hardware store browsing the power tool section, discussing the best way to dispose of a corpse in an eerily similar scene to one of their movies, Mon Ami.

In Fake Blood, Grant and Kovac reassess their responsibilities as content creators while exploring the realities of their work on the general public. Over the course of the documentary, they encounter people who should never be crossed - and the terrifying consequences of doing so.

Fitting firmly into the incredibly difficult to pull off category of meta-horror, Fake Blood is the most refreshing thing to happen to the genre in years. The line between reality and fiction doesn't simply become blurred, it is well and truly erased - which is ironic, considering said line is something the film sets out to explore. Grant and Kovac are thoroughly believable as the duo who set out on a well-intentioned investigation, along with the rest of the filming crew, all playing every twist and turn entirely straight-faced. The ever-escalating reveals and problems are never exaggerated to a point of becoming far-fetched either, which adds to the feeling of not being able to determine what's real from manufactured, and generates a genuine fear for the safety of everyone involved.

Fake Blood is blazingly original in its structure too and instantly draws you into its world of uncertainty. The first half an hour or so is an engaging albeit surface scratching insight into the realities of violence, and include examples of the friends participating in various activities such as Grant and Kovac comparing the difference between being punched in a movie versus being actually hit in the face, and an eye-opening visit to a gun range.

By including the variety of examples and comparisons, it becomes more and more difficult to distinguish whether this is a genuine honest-to-goodness documentary that ultimately puts the unsuspecting players in a wrong place, wrong time situation or if it's all for entertainment. It certainly doesn't seem fun for the unfortunate group, who at one point find themselves holed up in a hotel for weeks after a credible threat on their lives is made. Remember, this is supposed to be a documentary on the impact of violence, so prepare for the unpredictable.

With so much grounded in reality and an unshakable air of uncertainty, Fake Blood is one of the most original films of the decade. It never feels anything less than genuine and carries an important message while leaving you to make your own decision about its authenticity. This is an essential watch for those who are tired of the usual tropes and a real standout release of 2017.