Blood Fest is the third feature-length film by Rooster Teeth Productions. It is a Horror Comedy.
Written and directed by Owen Egerton, it centers around three horror fans (Dax, Sam and Krill) who attend a horror movie-themed festival.
Things going downhill as they (and the hundreds of others in attendance) quickly discover the weapons and monsters are real, and they're all trapped inside.
Blood Fest contains examples of:
- Actor Allusion:
- Technically Creator Allusion - at one point Walsh signs off by calling someone a "cockbite". What's a literally translation of cockbite? Rooster Teeth.
- When Gavin Free dies in cameo, for a few seconds the blood spray from his death slows down into slow motion.
- All Part of the Show: Red murdering two women on stage is treated as this by most of the audience, though Dax isn't fooled. Then Walsh reveals that it's all for real, at which point the chainsaws come out.
- Always Save the Girl: During the last act, Dax's main motivation is saving Sam.
- As Himself: Zachary Levi, who Ashley insists on calling Flynn Rider and telling her opinions about Tangled.
- Asshole Victim:
- Lenjamin Cain, an uptight, obnoxious wannabe horror director who has no idea what he's doing yet expects everyone to bow down to him as the second coming of Christ. Naturally, his early death during Blood Fest isn't mourned by anyone besides his girlfriend, Ashley, and even in her case it's Played for Laughs. Downplayed to a degree, however, in that the group is still horrified by the way he died.
- Trapper, a Blood Fest employee the group meets at the beginning of the event seems relatively chill, but upon their later encounter with him, he tricks Sam into taking his place in a deadly trap he had gotten stuck in at Tortureville, and after meeting her after she escaped the trap, he not only feels no guilt for his actions, but tries to weasel his way out of any consequences. He only reaffirms his apathetic personality when he urges on Dr. Conway to shoot Sam when she's held at knifepoint by Red. Expectedly, nobody cares about his fate when Dr. Conway shoots him dead on the spot.
- While largely Played for Laughs for much of the film, Blood Fest's support staff (Mac, Amy, and Billy) were still perfectly willing to go along with Walsh's plans to kill most of Blood Fest's attendants, which makes it hard to sympathize with them when the wristbands are activated and they're all quickly killed.
- Dr. Conway, the hypocritical, controlling father of Dax who was in all actuality the true Big Bad of the film and Walsh's partner, willing to kill thousands of people just to prove a point and convince himself that his hatred of horror movies is morally correct, and convinces his daughter to go along with it as well against her will. When she later betrays him, nobody sheds a tear at his demise.
- Bad Boss: Walsh and Dr. Conway set up their subordinates to die over the course of the film, too. This continues to happen even after one group arranges for the deaths of the others.
- Big Bad: Horror director Anthony Walsh may seem like this at first, but he later mentions a partner, revealed later on to be Dr. Vaughn Conway, making it a Big Bad Duumvirate.
- Catchphrase: The Arborist has one ("You're about to be pruned, punk"), which diehard fan Dax tries to get his actor to say. He finally does it near the end. Slightly odd is when the serial killer portraying the Arborist is seen later in the film, he is mostly The Speechless in the same vein of Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees.
- Closed Circle: Enforced. Cell phone calls are even intercepted by the overseers of the game, most of which are just shut off, but a few of which are given a brief glimmer of hope by lying that police are on their way.
- Destination Defenestration: After Jayme stabs him in the chest, Dr. Conway goes flying out the window of Walsh's control tower.
- Foreshadowing:
- A moment early on in the film where Walsh and Conway both describe Bloodfest as 'a gathering of degenerates and freaks' (one as a positive, the other as a negative) originally just seems to be a Description Cut joke. It's actually a hint that they're working together.
- Red's name foreshadows that they're a redhead — i.e. Jayme.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: Pausing during the Bloodfest advert near the start of the film shows multiple fake movie posters with Rooster Teeth alumni on them.
- Genre Savvy: Zig-zagged. Director Walsh does promise that those who "follow the rules" might have a chance of escaping the park alive, but it's largely a lie. As he explains to one of his underlings, he needs to give his characters "motivation" to try and stay alive. However, horror film enthusiasts Dax and Sam do survive to the end of the film, thanks in part to their knowledge of how horror films are supposed to work (along with a healthy dose of dumb luck and Parental Favoritism).
- Hate Plague: Towards the end of the film, the wristbands allowing entry to Bloodfest are used to trigger psychotic episodes in anyone wearing one, making them just as violent and deranged as any of the previous monsters in the park.
- Karma Houdini: Jayme is the only person involved in running Blood Fest who manages to survive and escape in the end.
- Knight Templar: Dr. Vaughn Conway, father of the protagonist Dax, is a psychologist with a firm hatred of the horror genre, which he feels glorifies blood and gore and encourages people to act out such fantasies in real life with dangerous consequences, such as the maniac who killed his wife. Thus he works with Walsh to create Blood Fest in order to wipe out everyone who loves and/or makes horror films in an attempt to destroy the industry.
- The Load: Lenjamin Cain, who beyond having a massive ego and being obnoxiously rude, knows absolutely nothing about horror movies (despite being a horror director). As a result, everything he does during his time in the group actively endangers them, from attracting the attention of the pig butchers to waking the literal living dead. The latter of which gets him killed, taking the group's passkey (their believed only hope of survival at that point) with him.
- Malevolent Masked Men: Red, the main killer employed by Walsh who turns out to be Dax's sister Jayme. Also the guys in the pig masks with the chainsaws.
- Monster Clown: A whole circus full of them. Walsh found them on Craigslist.
- Mood Whiplash: Typical when the movie alternates between genuine horror and the more traditional comedy that Rooster Teeth is known for.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Dr. Conway realizes his son is trapped in Blood Fest after it becomes a literal bloodbath, and is likely to be killed. Double points for him being the direct cause of Dax being in danger.
- Not Afraid of You Anymore: In the climax Dax finally stands up to his horrible father, the thing that has always scared him, and declares this. It was never about the blood and gore, just a really awful parent figure.
- Redemption Equals Death: Roger Hinckley, while not a complete villain, is something of a self-centered jerk who is more of The Load to the rest of the group as they try to escape Blood Fest. Eventually, he sacrifices himself so that Sam is able to survive a horrible death trap. He even gives his signature catchphrase for die hard fan Dax before he goes.
- The Reveal: Dr. Conway, noted psychologist and father of the protagonist, is in on the whole Blood Fest massacre, and indeed even helped Walsh by supplying a lot of the killers involved. He did this in order to "kill" horror.
- Samus Is a Girl: Red turns out to be Dax's sister Jayme.
- Shoo Out the Clowns: Ashley, Krill, and the Blood Fest support staff are all killed off just before the final act of the movie, giving way to its darker tone.
- Small Name, Big Ego: Lenjamin Cain, a new horror director who thinks he'll be the next big thing in horror and brags about as much at every opportunity, despite knowing nothing about the genre.
- The Stinger: A post-credits scene shows Anthony Walsh's hand emerging from the rubble clutching a broken remnant of his walking cane.
- Unwitting Pawn: The people remote controlling the zombies think they're playing a realistic video game, and have no idea they're killing real people.
- Villain: Exit, Stage Left: Jayme flees after the final showdown.
- Villainous Rescue: Just as the protagonists are about to be killed by the clowns, the zombies show up and slaughter them, giving the group a chance to escape.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: When he decides he doesn't need them anymore, Walsh kills all the gamers controlling the zombies by means of grenade. Later, when the situation is reaching his climax, he lets his subordinates get wiped out by the above-mentioned Hate Plague. And then he himself is killed by Dr. Conway when the latter decides to end things and make him a scapegoat.
