Type Till You Bleed is a horror-comedy short film and directional debut for Richard Jackson. This short film sees retro-technology and supernatural forces combine to taunt a night security guard.
A computer museum in England has been given permission to display The Jupiter P55, a text-based Soviet computer. The condition is the museum has to hire a security guard. Doug (Duncan Casey) is the only applicant and he has taken on the night shift. The computer soon starts to call out to Doug and his sanity is soon tested.
I have been following Richard Jackson and Duncan Casey for a long time. They are known online for their Youtube channel Val Verde Broadcasting where they talk about films, TV, and filmmaking. They are knowledgeable, informative, and funny which makes their videos fun to watch. They work professionally in the film industry: Jackson is a videographer and Casey is an actor. I was interested when they announced they were going to make a short film. I even interviewed Jackson about Type Till You Bleed for Pop Culture Maniacs’ podcast.
Type Till You Bleed has some of the hallmarks of a director’s first short film. There were only two characters and filmed in one location. It’s a good starting block for any first-time filmmaker. However, Type Till You Bleed was 20 minutes long, which was on the longer side for a short. Jackson and Casey admit they had called in a lot of favours to get the film made and during a Q and A session in Cambridge, they admit they wouldn’t be able to do it again.
Jackson and Casey did use their connections as well as their own skills to get the film made. Jackson consulted with Toby Venables, a lecturer at Anglia Ruskin University and a credited writer on the excellent horror film His House. They also worked with Rob Meyers, visual effects artist who has worked on Hollywood films like The Amazing Spider-Man and Avengers: Infinity War. Even though Type Till You Bleed had a skeleton crew, everyone involved aimed to make the best film possible and it looked like it cost more than it really did.
Whilst Type Till You Bleed was classed as a horror-comedy, it was really a comedy that turned into a horror film. Jackson described the role of Doug as a ‘dipshit’ and the character did live up to that. Casey was great at playing a numpty who lounged around playing retro video games and mobile gambling games. There was great comedic value in Casey’s performance as he doesn’t take his job too seriously.
The setup of the short was like the Five Night At Freddy’s video game series. The stories they all tell are about night guards facing things that go bump in the night. In Type Till You Bleed, Doug gets drawn to a machine and plays its creepy game. Making the game a text adventure with a robotic voice made events more eerie. Adding to the atmosphere was the machine being in a dark room, away from the well-lit main hall. I loved the use of greens and reds during these scenes, especially the green lighting since it added to the machine’s retro feel. If the story was rejigged it could have worked as a Black Mirror-style story.
I enjoyed the reveal towards the end of the short. It felt like something that a horror-themed Doctor Who episode would do as a twist. It was horrific but it was the fun kind of horrific. Jackson and Casey made the most out of their contacts for the visual effects for the conclusion.
Type Till You Bleed was a solid debut that looked like it cost more than it really did. It was a project of commitment and professionalism. Even though Jackson planned to make Type Till You Bleed as a one-and-done short, it would be interesting to see it adapted into a feature film, similar to what happened with Oculus. It would be a unique offering because of the mix of supernatural and technology. It will be interesting to see what the Val Verde crew does next.
Type Till You Bleed is available on Youtube
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Writing
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Acting
