'Blood Cell' Scores WB.com, Jessica Rose Thrills Again

Almost a year after its sizzling teaser trailer went up on YouTube starring the original lonelygirl15 Jessica Rose, Blood Cell from web studio 60Frames has finally found a mass distribution deal. The horror-thriller web series has found a home on Warner Bros.’ online network TheWB.com for release later this year.

Back in October, we wondered what happened to Blood Cell, which seemed to have squandered its healthy web buzz. The trailer (above), which was released on April 1, 2008, netted some 5.2 million views. The eighteen episode series was produced by Jeremy Bell and written-directed by genre director Eduardo Rodriguez.

Rose plays Julia, a striking young ingenue who is jolted awake by a mysterious cell phone call. Being a web series, the media-rich phone shows a video friend Susan—crying and scared. She’s been  kidnapped by a disturbingly grotesque thing (think Saw’s tricycle riding clown and you wouldn’t be far off), but there’s a catch: Julia can’t turn off her phone – if she does, her friend dies. A text message hits the phone moments later: “Dead Cell = Dead Friend.”

“I’m excited Blood Cell is going to the WB,” Rose told us, “I haven’t seen the latest edit but am eager to get my hands on it! I think Blood Cell fits well on TheWB.com. It’s the right demographic and they don’t have anything similar to it yet.” She would know, having starred in last fall’s Sorority Forever which essentially launched the online network as its first major original web series.

Rose herself has built quite the career in online series, having come of age just as the industry itself is finding its footing. “I’m happy that such a well respected company (Warner Bros.) is attaching it’s name to Blood Cell,” Rose added. “It’s crazy to see how far things have come in the past 3 years!”