Bloodwash

**Bloodwash** is a 2021 horror game developed by Black Eyed Priest and published by Torture Star Video. The full game is available on Steam and on its Itch.io page.

On October 12th, 2022, the game was released on Playstation 4, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch consoles.

## Summary

**WOMB RIPPER STRIKES AGAIN!!!**

***BLOODWASH*** is a giallo-inspired survival horror game with low-poly, PS1-style graphics.

Sara is a pregnant college student living with her alcoholic boyfriend in a run-down apartment complex. To make matters worse, a serial killer targeting pregnant women, whom many call the Womb Ripper, is terrorizing the city. One night, the washing machine in the basement breaks down and Sara doesn't have a chance to clean her clothes for an upcoming job interview. A helpful neighbor tells Sara about a 24-hour laundromat on the outskirts of town, but warns her that its a bad time to be out during the night, what with the maniac on the loose. What she finds at the laundromat might claim her life and her baby!

## Gameplay

### Prologue

The game begins with a college student named Sara. She picks up the dirty clothes in her apartment, and goes downstairs to wash her laundry, for a job interview the next day. To her disappointment, the washer is broken, so she doesn't have a chance to clean her dirty clothes. While returning back to her apartment, she runs into her neighbor, Stan. They both have a chat, and they talk about the problems with Sara's child and her boyfriend. Sara mentions that the washer's broken down, and Stan then recommends her a laundromat on the outskirts of the city, which is open 24/7. He also warns her that it's not a good idea to go out that late, because of the maniac running around, known as the "Womb Ripper". Sara thanks him and returns to her apartment, grabs her purse, and goes to the bus stop. On the bus, she spots a creepy guy getting on, who stands next to her seat. She turns to see out the window, noticing that it's now pitch black outside. When she turns back, she sees the man, now unsettlingly close to her, who asks if he can sit next to her. She finds this odd, considering there's nobody else on the bus, besides the two of them and the driver. The conversation quickly turns even more unsettling though, when he starts telling her that she, along with the child she is carrying, are going to die. It is much to her shock that he knows she is pregnant. Luckily for her, she doesn't have to listen to him anymore, as the bus arrives at her stop and she quickly gets off the bus, walking towards the laundromat.

### Plaza

After getting to the plaza, Sara enters the laundromat, gets spare change, and puts her dirty laundry into the washing machine. To pass the time, she browses the laundromat, reads comics, and watches TV. Sara also walks outside and looks around each store, talking with the employees. Sara finds an old photo of a couple, and asks the people in the various stores about the two of them. She finds out about an old laundromat that was destroyed in a fire, and that the people in the photo are Louis Kennedy and Samantha Rhodes. Samantha tragically lost her life in the accident. Some say that she skipped town, while others speculate that she may have been locked in the laundromat office before the fire was set. Sara returns to the laundromat and things start getting weird when a phone rings. Sara answers it and hears somebody breathing loudly. She finds an unseen, creepy person behind one of the bathroom stalls, and a pregnant mannequin appear out of nowhere, but she brushes it all off. After some time, Sara goes to pick up her laundry from the dryer, only to find her clothes are still wet. She goes to the front desk to get her quarters back, but doesn't find anybody. She enters the office and, to her horror, finds the corpse of the laundromat employee, which had been stuck to the roof, before falling to the floor in front of her. She attempts to call 911, but before she can finish her sentence, the call gets cut off. Terrified that her fate may be the same as the employee, Sara decides to hide in the office and wait for the police.

### Officer Burton

20 minutes after Sara's phone call, a police officer named Burton arrives at the laundromat, but is unable to enter as the doors are locked. He further explores the area and enters the income tax office, after hearing screams and cries coming from it. While exploring the place, he stumbles across what appears to be a naked person holding a bloody fetus. The person then disappears and the whole place goes dark. The officer further explores the office and finds a worker, but before he can help, the worker is killed by the maniac. Officer Burton retreats, and enters the vents. While crawling through the vents, spikes suddenly start piercing through them. The officer manages to get to the end, but the killer appears and slaughters him.

### Conclusion

Sara gathers her courage after realizing that nobody is coming to save her, and decides to make a run for it. She then witnesses the murder of “Patron”, committed by the Womb Ripper. When the killer disappears, she leaves the office, going to the front door only to see it chained shut. Unable to get out, Sara explores the place, looking for exit. She finds a secret door that leads to the old laundromat. Sara enters the desolate place and explores it. She ends up in a room full of missing persons posters, also retrieving a flashlight. The killer starts trying to get into the room Sara's in, but luckily, Sara finds a secret exit hidden behind a filing cabinet. Exploring further, she reaches a part of the building with many candles lying around, and the corpses of the missing mothers, along with their children's torn-off faces. After reading a letter that was left by one of the victims, Sara cuts open the victim's corpse and retrieves a key from its stomach, which she uses to unlock a door. To her surprise, she also finds the corpse of Louis Kennedy. Sara's luck turns around as she finds a gun, and decides to go after the Womb Ripper. Sara is chased by the killer, but shoots at it, and after a long fight, Womb Ripper drops dead on the floor. It is then revealed that the killer is actually Samantha Rhodes, who survived the fire, but suffered burns and lost her child because of it. It is also revealed that Louis locked her in her office and set the fire, after getting her pregnant. After all this loss and trauma, Samantha snapped, killed Louis, and went on a murder spree, killing pregnant women because they had something she didn't; a child. After all this, the credits start rolling.

### Epilogue

Sometime later in the morgue, an autopsy is being performed on Samantha's corpse. The power suddenly goes out, and the coroner, Doug, goes to restore the power. After restoring the power, Doug returns to the morgue, and to his horror, finds Samantha's corpse gone. Before he can escape, Samantha appears, murdering him. The game ends.

## Characters

### Playable

* Sara
* Officer Burton
* Doug the Mortician

### Antagonists

* Womb Ripper
* Creepy Guy

### Supporting

* Stan
* Liam
* Pizza Dude
* Hobo Jo
* Bus Driver
* Patron
* Peepaw
* Louis Kennedy
* Appliance Manager
* Laundromat Employee
* Call Girl
* Office Worker
* Man with Bachelors
* Junkie
* Old Woman
* Dispatch
* Operator

## Trivia

* The newspapers found scattered throughout the game are of The Mahoning Dispatch, a newspaper publisher which discontinued in 1963. This, along with the setting being in a metropolitan urban area, this would suggest, Youngstown, Ohio, to be the location. The name of Louis Kennedy's business, West End Laundry, however, point to the game taking place in West End, a neighborhood in Cincinnati, Hamilton County, although "West End" is a common name for any such district for many American cities. Bizarrely, a burger place ad on the bus and laundromat exterior features a price tag with £ rather than $.
* Besides the urban legend 888-888-8888 "Jesus Phone Number" on the plaza leasing signs and fictional 555-NOT-2DAY for the anti-Satanist pamphlet in Peepaw's, the bench advert advertisments at the plaza have the contact number 705-205-2426, which belongs to a real bus bench advert company in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada. The number connecting to the telephone sex line, 867-5309, is known in pop culture as Jenny's Number and is a reference to the 1981 song *867-5309/Jenny* by Tommy Tutone. It spawned a decade-long trend/meme where people would call the number and ask for Jenny or recite the lyrics of the song.
* Sara owns a GameToy, the in-world equivalent to a Nintendo's Game Boy, released on July 31st 1989, but also talks of the relatively recent release of Sega's Master System, released in September 1986.
* Music was composed by MXXN.
* The games sections of Peepaw's contains several indie games available on itch.io.
* The horror section of Peepaw's contains both fictional and real film covers, the most recent of which was made in 2012.
* The leftmost news vendor in front of the laundromat contains a reference to one of Jordan King's previous games, *Shotgun*. which is also featured in the games section of Peepaw's.
	+ In 2023, *Shotgun* received a spiritual successor also under the Torture Star Video publisher, *Sniper Killer*.
* The comic books found in-game were written by Jordan King in 2015 during his time as an independent comic book writer as Jojo King.
* In the early versions, the game was originally titled "*Scream Bloody Murder*".
* The Womb Ripper was originally called "The Eviscerator".
* Pizza Dude was voiced in a cameo by YouTuber Dylan Parker Russell, credited under his YouTuber name YuB.
* Voice actors Paul Hikari, Devante' Johnson, HB Gibson, and Ben Velander also voice characters in Bloodwash's spiritual successor *Night at the Gates of Hell*.
* *Bloodwash* is the first Torture Star Video title that was published on consoles.

## References

1. ↑ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1598160/Bloodwash/
2. ↑ https://torturestar.itch.io/bloodwash
3. ↑ https://twitter.com/PuppetCombo/status/1580169662179856385?cxt=HHwWgsCi8fD78e0rAAAA
4. ↑ https://twitter.com/anti666chris
5. ↑ https://twitter.com/LeggoMyGiallo/status/1437556036249038852
6. ↑ https://twitter.com/LeggoMyGiallo/status/1437556863449636866
7. ↑ https://twitter.com/PuppetCombo/status/1437945941282148354
8. ↑ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15445556/fullcredits?ref\_=tt\_cl\_sm