The best horror movies delve into life’s rawest and most unfiltered situations. One of the genre’s latest entries, ‘Bleeding,’ explores the painful truth of addiction and the heartbreak that accompanies it. The drama uses classic horror imagery to explore the arduous reality of growing up during America’s opioid crisis.

‘Bleeding’ marks the feature film directorial debuts of Andrew Bell. Beside helming the movie, he also served as a producer with Bofan Zhang, Nicholas Payne Santos and Kenneth Green, several of his classmates from his alma mater, Columbia University. The drama stars John Robert Howley, Jasper Jones and Tory Wong.

‘Bleeding’ follows Eric (Howley), a 17-year-old grieving the overdose death of his brother. When his cousin Sean (Jones), the hot-shot son of an alcoholic cop, gets pulled into the lucrative, deadly world of using and selling Blood, Eric will do whatever it takes to save him from the same fate that swallowed his brother whole.

With a debt to a vicious dealer and no way to pay it back, Eric and Sean break into an empty house and find a sleeping girl locked inside. What seems like an answer to their prayers brings new danger, a link to their past and revelations that will test the bonds of blood and friendship.

‘Bleeding’ had its North American Premiere on Friday, December 6 at 10:30pm during Dances With Films: NYC 2024. The screening was held at Regal Union Square during the festival’s third annual event in New York. To help promote the movie, Bell generously took the time to talk about scribing, directing and producing the project during an exclusive interview over Zoom the day before the premiere.

Film Factual (FF): You wrote the script for the new horror movie, ‘Bleeding.’ What was the inspiration in scribing the screenplay?

Andrew Bell (AB): Well, ‘Bleeding’ started out being my short film thesis at Columbia when I was about to graduate in 2019. I don’t know if you know where this is going, but it ended up being one of the COVID casualty films. We got put on the back burner for two weeks, and the two weeks turned into two years.

So I left New York to stay in the woods of the Pacific Northwest with my parents. while I was there, all this stuff from my teenage years came rushing back.

So I started examining some of the things I went through from tha time, which aren’t exactly what happened in this movie. But some of those relationships did end up in the movie. along the way, I started thinking about how I could use horror as an allegory to talk about some of that stuff.

I had a ton of connections from Columbia that helped me make this movie. All my producers are old classmates and people I worked with on things previously. We gathered all the resources we could and said, “We’re making this thing.”

FF: Besides penning the script, you also made your feature film directorial debut on the project. How did writing the screenplay influence the way you approached helming the drama?

AB: So I come from an undergrad theater background. I call myself a recovering actor. So to me, getting on set and directing isn’t the easiest part of the process, but it’s the part where I feel most at home and natural. It’s all about being able to get in there and work with actors. So that was really nice.

Writing is really hard. Post (production) is also really hard. but they‘re both also really rewarding. Overall, etting into scenes and getting to work really intimately with actors like we did here is where I feel most comfortable.

FF: ‘Bleeding’ stars John R Howley, Jasper Jones and Tori Wong. What was the casting process like for the film?

AB: We didn‘t have a casting director, but we still had access to some casting websites to our old graduate program that we probably shouldn’t have had access to anymore! So we were able to cast the movie through those programs.

Like with John, he was on Columbia Casting. He hadn‘t done any short films; he’d only done like a scene or two. But he was this young actor who was studying in the theater department there. He’s really, really good and looked really good.

I thought he looked like my cousin, who passed away when he was young. My heart skipped a beat when I saw him at first. I was like, “Oh, there’s my guy.” It felt like oh, this might actually happen.

Then Jasper had been in a short film that another Columbia student had made. We saw him and he was really good.

He lives in Texas though, so he sent in a tape. We’re like, “Oh, he lives in Texas. That’s going to be hard.”

But when he sent in his tape, he was wearing one of those muscle tank tops, and he’s got big arms. We’re like, “He’s reading for Eric, who’s a little more soft-spoken.” So we were like, “You are not Eric at all, but you are our Sean.”

So we got the two of them to read together online because they’re across states, but the chemistry was still palpable. So when we found those two, we felt amazing.

I think we also found Tori through Columbia Casting. She came in and she was tough but sensitive and commanded the room a little bit. She had smart questions for us. So it was like, “Oh, this is it; we found our cast.”

The adult roles are all people that I worked with before on short films. Jeff, who played one of the bad guys, was my friend from back in undergrad; we’ll just say that was over a decade ago. (Bell laughs.)

FF: Once the actors signed on to star in the movie, how did you work together to build the characters?

AB: I was in Seattle, while Tori and John were in New York. Jasper’s in Texas. Chloe Sirene, who plays Eric’s mom, was in London, I want to say.

So got together over Zoom. I talked to them one-on-one and had really in-depth conversations about their characters. We got them to do some Zoom readings.

We didn’t want to rehearse too much in that traditional way of running the scene over and over. So I was really just answering questions for actors. I was also asking them questions to get them thinking about things I wanted them to be thinking about. That way we could get on the same page before we got to the set.

Then the weekend before the shoot, John, Jasper and I all got together in a cabin location that was one of the spots where we filmed. We just hung out for the weekend and got really close. We swam in the river for hours together and became friends.

We didn’t want to run the scenes a lot. We talked about character a little bit, but it was more like, we’re in this really hard thing together, so let’s get to trust each other and kind of develop a relationship before we jump into this crazy thing we’re about to do.

FF: Speaking about the locations, you shot the drama in Upstate New York. What was the experience like in deciding where you would film, and how did you secure the locations?

AB: It’s kind of a small film with a couple characters. They tell you if you don’t have a ton of money, you should write something with three characters in one location. We have a couple characters, but probably too many locations!

Those locations were all over upstate New York. We did multiple location scouts – we spent many, many hours on

Airbnb and other similar websites, trying to find the right places. Once we found the spots, it was like, okay, we can actually do this.

FF: Once you secured the locations, how did you work with the actors to create their physicality in those environments?

AB: Well, the actor who plays Sean’s dad, Jay Dunn, was also our movement director or movement coordinator – I think that’s what we called him. But he’s a New York actor, just like Jeff, who plays another kind of baddie in the film. They studied in the UK together, and did all this physical theater stuff together.

So we had Jeff as our kind of stunt coordinator and Jay as our movement coordinator/director. They worked together, and had a lot of conversations together and with me.

They really tried to give identity to the way that different characters move because we had to deal with them kind of in monster mode. We wanted to show how people who are afflicted move when they’re in that state.

We were also dealing with drug-induced states. Not to give anything away, but there was some overdose kind of stuff.

We wanted to be really respectful of that, so we did a lot of research.

Then once we came up with a shared language, I let Jay work one-on-one with these actors mostly on set. We took what they brought and worked with it and shaped it just a little bit. So he did really awesome work. I don’t think we could have done it without him.

FF: Besides scribing and directing ‘Bleeding,’ you also served as one of the producers. How did you approach working with your fellow producers to start and continue production on the movie?

AB: So they were all Columbia grad students with me, five plus years back, as I’m realizing as I’m talking to you. We had worked on things together before.

Nick had helped me with my short film, ‘Let Me Play,’ which I think was probably my best short film that I made. He’s a great filmmaker in his own right.

Bofan had been the producer on the short film version of this story that was never came to be. So I brought her into this version.

Then Kenny, who came on at the last minute, was our saving grace on set. He had been a fellow writer with me in the program at Columbia. He turned more into producing after graduating.

We used to  teach classes together, and we all met that way. We all gathered all the resources together we could.

Bofan was so amazing in pre-production, Kenny was the guy that was there in the trenches with us on the shoot. Nick’s been there the entire time, especially as we went into post (production) and festival life. He’s been the right-hand man in all this stuff. So it’s been really amazing getting to work with my friends on this film.

FF: Speaking of the proect’s festival run, ‘Bleeding’ (had) its North American premiere at Dances with Films: NYC New York. What does it mean to you that the drama (screened) at the festival?

AB: Well, we had our international premiere, I guess you’d call it, in the UK first with Grimmfest, which was an amazing experience. We had a sold-out house, and we got to meet all these really cool people who work in addiction services with youths and homeless populations.

They responded in such an amazing way to the film. It felt like we had found our audience. That’s kind of an uphill battle a little bit when your film is a genre piece and you’re in this weird no man’s land.

Then Dances With Films found us, and they’ve been so supportive and amazing. Everything we’ve talked about with the festival (was) amazing. Communication (went) great, and everyone (was) really kind.

It (was) exciting to be back in New York because it’s is our old stomping grounds. So it (was) nice to have a New York premiere.