content warning: flashing lights, drug and alcohol abuse, nudity, sexual content, gore, foul language

An artist struggling to complete her new painting turns back to hallucinatory drugs to find inspiration. She feels like she has no choice. Her agent dropped her and her gallery dealer can’t sell her work anymore. After three months of sobriety, she returns to her dealer who gives her a new drug called Bliss that changes how she perceives the world.

Bliss is an extreme, experimental horror film from writer/director Joe Begos. I don’t know what it is about the LA art scene that’s been inspiring some wonderfully weird horror films, but Bliss and Velvet Buzzsaw both came out in 2019. The subtext of one is the plot of the other. Velvet Buzzsaw is the horror of the industry with the excess lurking in the background; Bliss is the horror of the excess that drives the business deals.

Dora Madison’s performance as Dezzy, the artist, anchors the absurdity of the film. She is living in every moment with her full body, showing how the different combinations of drugs, alcohol, and other sensations change her perception of reality. It’s a performance of extreme shifts in emotions and energy, which centers your focus in the ever-changing aesthetics of the film.

The experimental element of the film is the visual style. Each scene looks completely different from the last. There is a plot that carries through the film—Dezzy has to finish the painting or lose everything—that is secondary to the psychological horror created through the unreliable narrator. You know you can’t trust Dezzy once she starts using; Dezzy isn’t who you have to worry about. Joe Begos is the wildcard.

Bliss is the kind of film that happens when a director is confident enough to follow their own vision. The structures you expect in narrative cinema are not a requirement, and Joe Begos does what serves the story he wants to tell.

There is no moment in the story where you are meant to be certain what is happening. This is an extension of Dezzy’s anxiety about her artist block, her growing debts, and her failing reputation. Once it’s established that Dezzy doesn’t remember what happens when she uses the Bliss, all bets are off. You choose to accept what is real and what isn’t, and your choices define what happens in the narrative. It’s like a choose your own adventure story as a horror film, only you don’t get to pick what page to turn to next.

Bliss is streaming on Shudder.

My new book #31Days: A Collection of Horror Essays, Vol. 1 is available on Ko-fi.