Lonelygirl15 Returns, with a Vengeance

Internet hoaxes of 18 months ago: how quaint they look in the light of today's knowledge? It wasn't all that long ago that we were all naively following along with the heart wrenching exploits of LonelyGirl15. Truly a lonelier girl there never has been! Well, now that forlorn, helpless fawn has returned, only this time, she not so lonely anymore.

In a new web-based episodic movie-thing (is there any better sign that this medium remains immature than the lack of a universally agreed upon term for it), actress Jessica Rose (the lonely one) will star as Julia, a young woman who finds herself the only thing standing between her best-friend Susan and a grisly death. The catch: her friend is being held hostage, a cell-phone call away, by an unseen tormentor, and Julia must stay on the line to keep her friend alive. And what, pray tell, is the name of this riveting drama? How about "Blood Cell." Yes. Blood. Cell.

A website is up now, with the even more hilarious URL of DeadCellDeadFriend.com. I wish that I could make stuff like this up. At the site, you can watch a trailer, which is about as tedious as you'd expect. The cherry on top though, is that this tedious web-based episodic movie-thing trailer has a horrifyingly annoying jump-scare in it. So watch out!

All joking aside though, we're getting to the point where online distribution is going to start to click. It has already a handful of times (Christ, LonelyGirl15 is getting work). But there still seems to be more misses than hits, and some ideas really shouldn't have gotten off the ground in the first place. "Blood Cell," while it may be unfortunately titled, is one of the first full-bore attempts to make horror work in this kind of manner. My expectations are low right now, but it won't be too long until someone captures the popular sphere with a web-based horror experiment along these lines.