You haven't heard anything about it since 1998
"In the not too distant future... of 2002..."
— Narrator
49 teams of police officers have gone missing in the N-Obelisk, a combination family entertainment destination and Hell Gate research facility. Now the last three police officers in the tri-state area must enter and see if it's only because the police didn't want to leave, or if no one living was left to leave... alive.
GHOSTBLEED: The Bio Horror is a parody of PS1-era Survival Horror games, particularly Resident Evil, by Harry Partridge that was released December 11, 2022. It combines FMV-style green-screened live-action footage, PS1-style 3D animation courtesy of Hoolopee, and limited 2D animation.
The short is available here.
GHOSTBLEED: The Bio Horror provides examples of:
- 13 Is Unlucky: The N-Obelisk is 13 stories tall, and the Hell Gate is kept on the 13th floor.
- Action Girl: Naomi Blaze, one of the three officers sent to investigate the building along with Rick and Krieghauser, who is perfectly capable of holding her own in a fight just as well as her male companions, using both her gun and a ladder to deal with the ghosts.
- Affectionate Parody: Of '90s Survival Horror video games, predominantly Resident Evil, using a low-poly presentation reminiscent of the first two games along with stiff dialogue and vocal performances. It's also meant to resemble gameplay from them, with Rick Slider at one point running in place near a wall as he slowly veers right after collecting some chicken, reminiscent of the tank controls of those games.
- Americasia: Parodied. The N-Obelisk is so capitalistic that it's a combination family entertainment destination with a school dedicated to it and a Hell Gate research facility, but it was built in the "All-American Tanuki Prefecture", which is a parody of the Resident Evil setting "Raccoon City."
- And the Adventure Continues: Just before the end credits roll, after Naomi's narration claims that "Rick is in a better place now," he is revealed to have survived the Hell Gate's destruction, though he is now stuck in Hell itself.
- Artistic License – Gun Safety: During the character roll call in the intro, Rick, a police officer, uses his pistol to light a cigarette.
- Bait-and-Switch Comment: Upon seeing the corpses at the N-Obelisk's lobby, Rick remarks in shock, "Oh my god... this place is great!"
- Black Comedy: "There are plenty of dead people, but no living people to explain why."
- Body Horror: "Ghosts" are made from human skin. Also, Officer Rodriguez is still alive despite losing his limbs and a significant portion of his torso.
- Children Are Innocent: The schoolgirls Rick rescues are so unsuspecting that they don't realize that their teacher is a ghost until it's pointed out to them, even though they were intently watching it dig into a corpse just moments before. Naomi also insists at the end that Rita is innocent, even though she's the unrepentant villain and still has Krieghauser's literal blood all over her.
- Comically Missing the Point: Rick sees his daughter Rita stabbing a chained-up Krieghauser to death in front of the Hell Gate and leaps to the conclusion that this means Krieghauser must be the ultimate villain.
- Creepy Child: Rita Slider, who crafts ghosts out of human skin with the help of an ancient voice from the beyond.
- Description Cut: Krieghauser suggests Naomi be more level-headed like Rick. One loading screen later, and Rick is pointing his gun at some schoolgirls while screaming and asking if they've seen his daughter.
- Easily Forgiven: Naomi narrates that Rita is "innocent once again" despite Rita murdering their partner Krieghauser right in front of Naomi and Rick a few minutes ago with no acts of redemption, and almost certainly did it to other people, said murders commited for the purpose of "proving everybody wrong." She seemingly reaches that conclusion for no other reason than the fact that Rita looks cute while asleep.
- "Eureka!" Moment: While trying to figure out a way to kill it, Rick calls the classroom ghost on his Vibrolink. It works, causing him to realize that since the device functions through the vibrations of the skin on people's eardrums, if he's able to call the ghost, it must be made of skin too, meaning it's vulnerable to being shot.
- Evil Tower of Ominousness: Though it wasn't originally intended as such, the N-Obelisk is a seriously creepy-looking tower that ends up infested with malevolent ghosts.
- Expy: Rick, Naomi, and Krieghauser are parodies of the original RE1's versions of Chris Redfield, Jill Valentine, and Albert Wesker.
- Freudian Excuse: The villain's decision to become a murderous necromancer is motivated by the fact that she was bullied by scientists for believing in ghosts (to the extent she claimed to date one who went to another school) and that her mother died.
- Frozen Face: All the characters when rendered in low-resolution PS1 graphics, which gets lampshaded by Officer Rodrigez when he comments on Naomi's "smiling face".
- Funny Background Event: After Rick kills a ghost and converses with Naomi, the ghost can still be seen bleeding, with its blood beginning to cover much of the floor.
- Good All Along: Ernstwaffen Krieghauser is so obviously being suspicious that he seems like he's going to be a parody twist villain. Instead, it turns out he was using the Hell Gate to try and stop the actual twist villain Rita's evil plan of creating ghosts from human skin, though he ultimately failed and ended up being sacrificed to the gate by her.
- Half the Man He Used to Be: Officer Rodriguez is found with only most of his upper torso intact. He attempts to tell Naomi that the building a trap, but he dies before getting his last word out and she's too dumb to figure it out.
- High-Pressure Blood: When Rick shoots the ghost in the school zone, it sprays quite a lot of blood for a floating creature about half the size of an adult human, and keeps bleeding a fountain of blood for most of the next scene. Perhaps this is the "ghost bleed" of the title.
- Hyperactive Metabolism: Rick regains health from a whole turkey dinner that drops from one of the ghosts.
- Idiot Hero: Naomi and Rick. Krieghauser maybe to a lesser degree, though calling on the forces of Hell to stop a reanimation scheme by a murderous child is pretty dumb.
- Implausible Deniability: Krieghauser tries to discreetly brush off the monster that he, Naomi, and Rick encounter outside the N-Obelisk as just a Red Herring that is unrelated to their investigation. Never mind the fact that it's encountered in the vicinity of a dead state trooper that it almost certainly killed, or the fact that the N-Obelisk turns out to be swarming with these ghost monsters.
- Improbable Infant Survival: Surprisingly for all the video's Black Comedy, there are no confirmed dead children. The three featured schoolgirls and Rita all survive, despite being left to their own devices in a dangerous building at the mercy of deadly ghosts.
- Insane Troll Logic:
- Krieghauser warns Naomi not to trust the dying words of Rodriguez. Why? Because his brother-in-law is a known alcoholic. Fortunately for Krieghauser, Naomi is too daft to question this logic.
- Rita creates ghosts out of human skin to prove ghosts and the afterlife are real, even though she goes to school at a building with a Hell Gate research facility. Her father Rick lampshades how crazy of an idea that is, but she justifies it saying that she got it from "an ancient voice speaking to [her] from the beyond."
- Insistent Terminology: The ghosts are consistently described as being made (at least in part) from "human skin". It's never shortened down to just "skin", nor are functionally similar terms like "flesh" used.
- Intangibility: Averted for the ghosts. Naomi points out how Rita's "ghosts" suck as ghosts because they can't phase through walls and are vulnerable to physical weapons.
- Meaningful Name: Krieghauser's first name, Ernstwaffen, means "serious weapon" in German.
- Ms. Fanservice: Naomi Blaze wears shorts and a top that shows generous cleavage, apparently as part of a police combat uniform.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Ernstwaffen Krieghauser, just about the most stereotypically Nazi-esque German name you can come up with with its references to weapons and war. Except he's not actually evil.
- Oblivious to Love: Rick Slider strongly hints at a romantic interest in Naomi Blaze, saying that if his daughter Rita still had a mother, he'd want the mother to be just like Naomi. Naomi's only acknowledgement is a sincere "Cool!"
- Ornamental Weapon: Naomi carries her police-issued katana on her back at all times, but never gets a chance to actually use it, as she was denied permission by Kreighauser.
- Our Ghosts Are Different: The ghosts in this short are not the spirits of people at all, but rather bioengineered organisms made out of human skin. They do float and lack a bottom half to their bodies, but can't pass through walls and are hurt by regular weapons.
- Overly Long Gag: As Rick tries to figure out how to kill ghosts, the ghost gets closer and closer every time he opens and closes his Vibrolink communicator.
- Personality Blood Types: Parodied. Rick Slider's is "USA+", Naomi Blaze's is "DD", and Ernstwaffen Krieghauser's is "Red."
- Police Are Useless: Parodied. Hundreds of police officers are sent into the N-Obelisk, with only one who survives at all, and the most she does is rescue the villain. It's implied that many of them were killed by a single schoolgirl with no more elaborate weapons than a ceremonial knife.
- Red Herring: Ernstwaffen Krieghauser seems so obviously shady that the player will likely be constantly expecting a reveal that he's a traitor. Except he's actually trying to stop the real twist villain.
- Retraux: This short is presented as if it were a PS1 horror game from the 1990s, and as such, the short goes to great lengths to emulate that look. Not only is it done almost entirely in low-poly, PS1-style 3D animation with low-resolution textures, intentionally low framerates, and even the PS1's jittery Z-buffer being taken into account, but it also begins and ends with live-action cutscenes, not unlike Resident Evil, which are also rendered with an intentionally low color palette and frame rate to simulate how FMV cutscenes looked on the console. The short even has loading screens in-between certain scenes where the sound of a PS1 disc being read can be heard.
- Sailor Fuku: The school uniforms the schoolgirls and Rita wear are styled after typical Japanese sailor-style school uniforms.
- Same Language Dub: Naomi is played during the live-action segments by Atlantis Deep but voiced by animator Joyce Oder, while David Post plays live-action Krieghauser but is dubbed by Anthony Ingruber.
- School Uniforms are the New Black: Rita is always seen wearing her school uniform, even as she's sacrificing Krieghauser to the Hell Gate.
- Shoulders of Doom: All of the cops have massive pauldrons on their outfits.
- Shout-Out:
- The Vibrolink communication screens are directly inspired by the codec screens from Metal Gear Solid.
- "Hey, Creature, leave them kids alone!"
- The splatter sound on the main menu screen is a dead ringer for the same sound effect in The Ring: Terror's Realm.
- Talking Is a Free Action: During his encounter with a ghost in the school zone, Rick somehow has the time to strike up multiple codec conversations in a row (including with the ghost itself) asking how to kill it while it slowly inches towards him.
- Too Dumb to Live: There's no reason given for why Rick stays behind while the Hell Gate is about to explode, as lampshaded by the fact Naomi and his daughter Rita linger for one last joke and a final, overly-long laugh when they should be fleeing.
- Tradesnark™: The VIBROLINK™ communicator has one in the subtitles when Rick tries to ask a ghost how to kill them.
- Virtuous Character Copy: Ernstwaffen Krieghauser is transparently based on Wesker from Resident Evil, and much of the short repeatedly suggests he's a villain through comically suspicious behavior, but it's revealed near the end that he's actually trying to stop the real villain, Rita.
- "Ugly American" Stereotype: Rick Slider is the kind of macho soldier who lights cigarettes with his pistol and interrogates children at gunpoint.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: The three schoolgirls apparently don't notice their teacher is a ghost until after Rick points it out.
