BloodStream Wants to Be “YouTube for Horror” — Inside the Platform Built for the Films Everyone Else Drops
- Horror Movies Uncut
- 3 hours ago
- 8 min read
Inside our roundtable with founder Shaked Berenson
We hopped on a Zoom this afternoon with producer/distributor/chaos engine Shaked Berenson to talk about BloodStream, his new horror streaming platform under The Horror Collective. It was Berenson, a handful of genre press (including us), and about 30 minutes of very honest breakdown on what BloodStream is, why it exists, and why he thinks it can actually shift how indie horror survives.
Couple things up top:
BloodStream is live right now at bloodstreamtv.com.
There’s a free (ad-supported) tier, a standard sub ($6.99/mo or $69.99/yr), and a premium tier that actually ties into theatrical screenings.
They’re already onboarding over 1,500 titles.
And yeah, they’re calling it “YouTube for Horror,” and he means that literally.
Let’s walk it.
Who’s behind this?
If the name sounds familiar, you’ve seen it in credits.
Berenson’s produced or released cult titles like Turbo Kid, Tales of Halloween, Slaxx, The Aggression Scale, handled the first Terrifier release domestically, and helped launch the V/H/S franchise internationally. He co-founded Epic Pictures back in the day, ran Dread Central Presents, and helped get a lot of odd, bloody, “nobody wants to touch this” horror to actual audiences.
So this isn’t tech-bro money sniffing around horror. This is a horror lifer building his own machine.
He said it himself:
“You all have been keeping horror alive for 20, 30 years. Studios don’t care after opening weekend, but we still care two, three, four years later.”
That part is important. Because that’s actually the wound BloodStream is trying to stitch.
The core problem they’re trying to solve
Berenson basically laid out the horror pipeline like this:
A movie plays genre fests — Fantasia, Screamfest, FrightFest, etc.
It maybe gets a deal with Shudder, Netflix, Hulu, whatever.
Everyone yells about it for like 3 weeks.
Two years later? That same film is borderline unwatchable anywhere, and the filmmaker’s not seeing meaningful money anymore.
Now add this: the ad-supported streaming economy (FAST/AVOD) hates horror content that’s explicit — nudity, gore, “bad language,” etc. (He literally said, “basically everything we like.”)
Brands don’t want their soda commercial dropping right after someone gets chainsawed in half.
Result = horror gets pushed out of “safer” ad lanes, which means way less money for indie genre films after that first run.
BloodStream is supposed to be the answer to that afterlife. It’s where those films go to live once the rest of the world moves on.
What’s actually on BloodStream?
He shared screen during the call and walked through what’s already onboarded and what’s coming. Highlights:
Cult / indie / international horror from distributors like Well Go USA, MPI/Dark Sky, ITN, and The Asylum (yes, that means Sharknado lives here next to moody Euro dread and Asian splatter).
Behind-the-scenes extras, audio commentary, and special features. Not just movies, but the kind of Blu-ray extras that got stripped out of streaming years ago.
Shorts and vertical content (more on that in a minute).
Podcasts and series (first up: Horror Movie Survival Guide co-host Julia Marchese is bringing in audio).
Classic black-and-white and old-school horror that’s impossible to find elsewhere unless you’re deep trading discs.
Weird stuff. He brought up Summoning Sylvia — a queer horror comedy about a haunted bachelor party that stayed 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, but, in his words, “nobody really wanted to support because it’s LGBTQ+.” BloodStream wants to be the place where that film and that audience is normal, not niche.
He’s blunt about the curation philosophy:
“We don’t look down at anything. Some people want A24 slow-burn sorrow horror. Some people want tornado sharks. We’re serving both.”
So yeah — arthouse trauma spiral and trash-fire splatter live on the same shelf. That part feels very HMU.
The “YouTube for horror” thing is not marketing fluff
This is maybe the biggest swing.
BloodStream isn’t just a library. They’re letting creators upload their own work directly — shorts, features, verticals — without begging a distributor.
On the call, Berenson literally demo’d it live:
You log in to their creator portal.
You upload your film (short, feature, vertical episode, whatever).
You set territory, release timing, artwork, etc.
You accept a straight 50/50 rev share.
BloodStream’s internal team (curation heads Clark Collis and Julia Marchese) reviews it.
If it’s a fit, it goes live on the platform and starts monetizing.
That’s it. No “send me a Vimeo link and wait six months for a ghosted response.” No “we don’t do shorts” wall.
And here’s where they’re taking a shot at YouTube:
YouTube will demonetize or bury horror for gore, nudity, or violent content.
BloodStream… won’t. In fact, Berenson said they’re aggressively inviting that material.
He called it out directly:
“Creators put their work on YouTube, but YouTube doesn’t take nudity, bad language, violence — or if they do, it’s limited ads or no ads. We built BloodStream so horror creators can actually get paid for horror.”
They’re literally trying to become the safe haven for “the stuff YouTube won’t touch.”
And it’s not just horizontal “normal” footage — they’re actively chasing vertical storytelling. Think TikTok/Reels style narrative horror built for phones, but uncensored. He said they’re already getting pitches specifically for that lane.
So if you’re a filmmaker grinding shorts, micro-series, or just something gross and personal that would get insta-flagged elsewhere — this is the lane they’re trying to own.
The theatrical trick is wild
This is the part where the model starts to feel interesting, not just nostalgic.
BloodStream is partnering with Look Cinemas and other theaters to do event screenings of select titles. Cool, right? But here’s the twist:
If you’re on the higher-tier subscription, you’ll be able to:
Watch the film at home or
Go see it in an actual theater as part of that same sub.
And BloodStream will still pay the filmmakers and the theater “as if someone bought a ticket.”
They’re basically trying to build a world where:
indie horror can play theatrically,
theaters get paid,
you don’t have to live in L.A. or Austin,
and you don’t have to pray A24 adopts you.
He said it flat:
“We’re trying to serve everyone. If you’re in Dallas and the film’s only screening in Austin, you shouldn’t be locked out. If you’ve got kids and can’t get a sitter and spend $30 on popcorn, you shouldn’t be locked out. But the filmmaker should still get paid like you were in a seat.”
If they actually pull that off at scale, that’s a real shift.
Global reach and language access
They’re also working with a company called Incantor AI for localization — dubbing and subtitles.
Why that matters: a ton of indie horror never leaves English-speaking territories because translation is expensive. BloodStream is planning on using AI-assisted dubbing/subs to cheaply open those films to other languages and regions.
That’s good for filmmakers (more eyes = more money), but it’s also good for horror fans who are sick of geo-locked trailers they can’t legally watch without VPNs.
Discovery and curation
A reporter asked about organization and navigation, because “horror” is not one thing.
Right now, BloodStream breaks films into broad buckets — slashers, body horror, vampires, horror-comedy, etc. They’re also doing themed programming (“Shark Week”-style runs using The Asylum stuff, retrospectives like “remembering Tony Todd,” festival spotlights, etc.).
But the bigger bet is personalization.
They’re tracking how you watch — zombies, slow-burn atmospheric, found footage, black-and-white classics — and feeding you deeper cuts in that lane. Basically horror-flavored algorithm work.
He also confirmed playlists are in there, with plans to eventually let users build/share their own themed lists. So yes, you’ll eventually be able to make “Found Footage Set In One Room Where Everyone Screams ‘Did You Hear That?’” and send it to your friend at 1 a.m.
Originals: are they making their own stuff?
This was our question.
Short answer: Yes — eventually, and aggressively.
Longer answer:
In the short term, they’re still ingesting a mountain of existing films (there’s a backlog of ~1,500 titles already).
But they’re already acquiring exclusives for monthly “BloodStream Originals.”
And they’re actively talking to creators about building specifically for BloodStream — especially in two areas:
Vertical horror series
Actual long-form horror TV
And when he says “TV,” he does not mean the current prestige model where you get 8 episodes, then vanish for 3 years.
He straight up said his dream is to bring back old-school 26-episode seasons with real consistency.
“I’m tired of watching eight episodes, waiting three years, then getting 10 episodes, and I don’t know if it’s ever coming back. I want full seasons. I want 26 episodes. Two seasons. 52 weeks in a year. You and your friends can log in every week, guess who dies next, and it’s actually there.”
He said they plan to greenlight in blocks of 26 episodes — not just pay for a pilot and “see what happens.”
So yeah. He wants to build horror TV like it’s 1998 syndication meets Discord culture meets Prime Video’s “people actually show up Friday night to watch this thing.”
That part honestly sounds fun.
How do they plan on building an audience?
Berenson didn’t pretend discovery is magic. He knows you can’t “if you build it, they will come” horror in 2025.
Some of the levers he mentioned:
Heavy community signal-boosting (press, horror media, fan sites). “I have you guys,” he said, and he wasn’t joking. They’re clearly leaning into horror press and horror fandom instead of ignoring it like most platforms do.
Social footprint from filmmakers they’ve already worked with (The Horror Collective, Dread Presents era people, etc.).
Billboards and physical marketing (yes, physical — not just “algorithm promo”).
Live events and watch parties with filmmakers.
An affiliate program: he straight-up said if you cover/drive traffic to the service, they want you to be able to participate and get paid off your audience — not just “thanks for the free promo.”
He framed it like this:
“We don’t have to be in a million homes like Netflix. We just need to connect the right films with the right people and remove as many middlemen as possible between you and that filmmaker.”
That’s honestly the cleanest mission statement.
Where it is right now
BloodStream is live. Like, right now live.
Web, iPhone, Android, Roku, etc.
You do have to register even for the free tier because it’s all 18+ by default.
They’re already measuring 15,000+ minutes watched in a day and ~1,000 early adopters across the first two weeks.
They’re adding movies constantly, but they’re also onboarding extras: commentaries, BTS, interviews, podcasts, vertical horror, even silent horror.
And they’re already talking about doing in-app live events — like Adam Green hosting a live viewing of one of his films and interacting with fans in real time.
There’s also merch. There’s a mascot (“Mr. Smiley”). There’s swag. And if you were on the call, you got told flat out to email sizes and addresses. So they’re absolutely leaning into culture-building, not “faceless tech stack.”
Why HMU is into this
We’ve been watching the indie horror streaming space get real quiet unless you’re a franchise or an algorithm-friendly subgenre. A lot of truly weird films vanish after their first cycle. BloodStream is basically saying, “Cool, we’ll take those. All of them.”
We asked Berenson whether the platform plans to actually fund and originate horror — not just collect it. He said yes. We asked about theatrical for indies that never make it past one scre/en in L.A. He said yes. We asked if they’re going to stay in touch with the horror press and not just chase influencers. He said yes and then asked everyone for shirt sizes.
It still has to scale. The tech still has to hold. The catalog still has to feel alive and not just dumped. And horror fans are savage when they smell hollow branding. So we’ll see.
But here’s what’s true right now:
They’re live.
They’re paying creators 50/50.
They’re not scared of gore, queerness, exploitation, or “unmarketable” subgenres.
They’re trying to bring back horror TV that actually shows up every week.
And they’re out here saying, “Upload your film. We’ll watch it. We’ll put it up. You get paid.”
In a landscape where most platforms talk about “discovery” and then quietly disappear your movie behind six menus, that’s… different.
We’ll be covering BloodStream as it evolves, and we’ll keep you updated on premieres, exclusives, and who bleeds first in those 26-episode seasons.
In the meantime: bloodstreamtv.com. Go poke it.
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