A Slow-Burning Nightmare

Alright, folks. Bloat is one of those movies that sneaks up on you. It doesn’t kick in the door screaming, it seeps in, like water through a cracked foundation, until you realize you’re waist deep in something profoundly unsettling.

A Haunting Beginning

Pablo Absento wastes no time. The movie opens with a birth, and not the kind you celebrate with balloons and cigars. It’s tense. It’s tragic. A child is lost. Cut to Japan, and our protagonist’s new son is almost lost too, this time to drowning. And this, my friends, is where Bloat digs its hooks in.

YouTube Horror Vibes & Digital Dread

The whole thing plays out like one of those eerie YouTube camping horror videos. You know the ones, shaky footage, whispered warnings, and the gnawing sense that something is off. Within the first fifteen minutes, the film establishes an atmosphere thick enough to choke on.

Jack, the father, is stuck on military duty, reduced to playing detective through video chats, which only adds to the film’s suffocating paranoia. He stumbles into an online group for parents of possessed children, which is exactly the kind of internet rabbit hole I love, and suddenly, things spiral into madness.

The Strange Transformation of Kyle

Kyle, the formerly drowned child, is suddenly Michael Phelps. He’s swimming like a pro, devouring raw cucumbers, and stashing them like a squirrel hoarding for the apocalypse. These small, bizarre details, combined with the film’s patient dread-building, turn Bloat into something uniquely unnerving.

There’s an almost Kubrickian attention to psychological unraveling, with Jack mirroring the descent of another famous “Jack” in horror history.

Horror Highlights & Unforgettable Moments

But let’s talk horror moments. Because Bloat has a few doozies. Possessed people and household blenders should never mix, and yet, here we are.

The film is a pressure cooker, tightening its grip scene by scene. The cinematography is restrained but effective, the performances are stellar, and the horror isn’t just in the supernatural, it’s in the isolation, the helplessness, the creeping realization that your child may not be your child anymore.

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The Kappa & Cultural Horror

As for the demon in question? The Kappa. A Japanese entity with a thing for drowning kids and munching on cucumbers. I love when horror films tap into international folklore, and this one does so with a quiet reverence that makes it all the more unsettling.

Final Thoughts

Now, I won’t spoil the ending, but let’s just say the door is wide open for a sequel. If they bring the horror stateside for Bloat 2: American Currents, I’ll be first in line.

Until then, Bloat is streaming now so dive in if you dare.

ED: Erm, is that a brightened image of Gollum from Fellowship of the Ring‘s prologue on the poster? New Line will love that.

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