Watch Them Come Blood announces its intentions from the very first frames. Obscure violence, disorienting screams and a sense of immediate threat pull the viewer straight into Mike Cuenca’s latest descent into chaos. The film carries the unruly spirit of an early punk gig, where danger feels as present as the performance itself.
Cinematographer Jessica Gallant leans into an eighties grindhouse aesthetic, saturating the screen with colour and grime. The texture recalls The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, not only in its visual language but in its lingering sense of decay. Cuenca’s influences stretch further. There are flashes of Freddy vs Jason in a frantic chase through the woods, a nod to Psycho in a shower sequence and the unsettling presence of a white van that evokes the roadside menace of The Hills Have Eyes.
Co written with Joaquin Dominguez, the film opens with a group of young people stealing a birthday cake from a vegan bakery. One is dressed like a chaotic version of Super Mario. The moment is absurd and funny, especially when paired with erotica styled animations that look as though they were lifted from an archival reel. What begins as road trip comedy quickly mutates into a collage of influences, grime and grindhouse sleaze, supported by a rock and roll score that gradually shifts into an eighties tone.
The ensemble is deliberately odd. Auggie and Emilio are ex bandmates whose strained history resurfaces when Emilio reveals a remix of their old songs. Flor, wearing a Bela Lugosi’s Dead tee, grows increasingly threatened by Pia, a Myrna Loy obsessed goth who feels plucked from a Gregg Araki fever dream. Gwen enters as a wildcard, possibly the final girl, possibly the first to fall.
The rhythm fractures through flashbacks and sharp dialogue that occasionally disappears into the sound mix. When the group arrives at a seedy bar, the tone darkens. Warren, played by Cuenca, appears with an entourage that radiates trouble. The strangers lure the group to a gothic Victorian mansion, a decaying brothel that shifts the film into full nightmare mode. Practical effects drive the brutality of the deaths, grounding the horror in physicality.
The film then introduces Charlie and John, a couple who share a tender sunrise moment before plunging into carnage reminiscent of Natural Born Killers. Their suicide pact and blood soaked conversation deepen the film’s chaotic energy.
The arrival of the Nihilists brings crime caper into sex horror. Camila, Ida, drug dealing oddball OZ and Warren intend to rob the brothel. Ida’s line that people come here to get fucked to death captures the film’s ethos with blunt clarity.
Watch Them Come Blood refuses structure. It feels like a collection of ideas stitched together with instinct rather than order. Yet that is part of its unruly charm. Like a raw punk show, you either resist the noise or surrender to it.
