“Can it just rain blood already?”
The young vampire’s demand is muffled by the plastic fangs in her mouth – soon to be spat out and perched, precariously, on the rim of her pint glass – but her impatience is clear, and shared by the crush of gyrating goths around her. Black-rimmed eyes have been scanning the ceiling of New York’s Terminal 5 nightclub all evening, waiting for the much-hyped main event: a torrent of synthetic blood that will drench the dancefloor, in imitation of the opening scene of the cult 1998 horror film Blade.
This “Blade Rave” – a first for New York, and an afterparty for New York Comic Con – proves an immersive spectacle from the start. The majority of its thousand-plus revelers are dressed in some sort of nightwalker get-up, all black leather or sanguine-ready white cotton. Makeup artists troll the balconies, spackling on stark white foundation and realigning sweaty prosthetics; costumed actors parry onstage, recreating fight scenes from the Wesley Snipes film. By 10.30pm, when the headliners the Crystal Method – whose music appeared in Blade II – take the stage to booming house mixes of Ellissentials and Andy McAllister cuts, the floor is packed incisors-to-elbows with spectral dancers wielding plastic cups and hugging neighbors indiscriminately, or swapping eccentric bits of comic trivia. (Blade was the first successful film by Marvel Studios.)
“Vampires are a lot more welcoming than you might expect,” says attendee Josh Jensen, 26, a barista from Boston wearing an anime T-shirt and plastic choker. “This is a pretty legit-ass rave.”
Immersive dance events in New York are a fraught gamble; their lifeblood remains novelty but, much like burgeoning EDM artists, their forecasts can be bleak if they don’t catch favour quickly. The ambitious rave Cosmic Opera suffered such a public fall in 2012; despite splashy promotion and a lofty space-meets-Cirque du Soleil conceit featuring top DJs, a disorganized first instalment hastened a sputtering end to the series. However, new experiments can thrive, and print money in the process. The Daybreaker series of sober, pre-dawn raves has expanded internationally since debuting last year, and the interactive theater production Sleep No More now boasts a thriving adjacent music club. The Blood Rave is the most ambitious offering yet from the upstart event company BBQ Films, which has previously staged Back to the Future- and Empire Records-themed socials – though the Blade concept posed its own logistical challenges.
“We experimented with six or so different blood recipes. We even talked with [the blood-spewing metal band] GWAR for awhile, but they coached us that some of their fluids may not be appropriate for this type of experience and the volume we needed,” said Gabriel Rhoads, 36, the co-founder of BBQ Films. “So we found another company and now have 1,500 litres of this odorless, nontoxic, safe, water-soluble stuff. I’ve had it in my mouth and eyes, not that I love bathing in blood.”
When this claret concoction descends at Terminal 5, it does so forcibly, with a drama apropos to the night’s simulacrum of pre-millennial rave bombast. It streams from the ceiling sprinklers onto every exposed inch of the main floor, soaking hair and running in rivulets down giddily outstretched arms. Through the Rambo-esque red mist, I see the Crystal Method DJ Scott Kirkland waggling his tongue from the decks, like he’s straining toward his own haemoglobin aperitif. (He might be disappointed to know this slick yet watery “blood” has no distinct taste.)
The mixture leaks from hair into eyes, and just as soon down shirts; within minutes, there’s not a white garment in sight. Stagehands appear, grimacing as they angle hoses into the front rows. The mix hardens into the track that scored the original Blade rave scene – Pump Panel’s chewy, acid techno remix of Confusion by New Order, to which the Prodigy owes more than a few dollars – and errant bits of the Blade II soundtrack. It’s wholly turbulent yet far from barbaric: despite the slippery carpet below, it is a politely non-jostling, giddily absurd melee of bodies.
As Terminal 5’s midnight curfew nears, the Blade actors reappear to imitate another showdown, now delicately dodging foreboding red puddles. Snipes’ sword-wielding doppelganger flexes for the crowd, intoning vaguely theatrical prophecies of doom; his well-coiffed vamp nemesis remains hilariously off-brand, puffing an e-cigarette. (Earlier, he quipped about drinking “from the veins of a Kardashian”.) The Crystal Method mix a few more minutes of frenetic big beat, then depart with arms clasped aloft, like champions savoring a latent taste of their heyday. The crowd begins to shuffle for the exits, smoothing sodden hair from foreheads; the cleaner folks at the perimeter blanch and try to evade contact with the tide.
“That was incredible,” yelps JP Murphy, 31, a bartender from Ireland, as he clutches a slimy souvenir poster. “This made up for Blade 3.”
Nearby, Kyle Valastin shrugs as he begins to wring out his pink-spattered plaid shirt. “I enjoyed every minute of it,” says the metal fabrication worker, 29. He sighs. “I feel like there should have been more blood, though.”
Humans: always a tough crowd.
