Four Nights in Fear Forest – review

Director: Mark Polonia

Release date: 2024*

Contains spoilers

*2024 according to IMDb, however the Blu-ray came out in 2025 and the copyright on the film says 2025

I’ve generally not held the work of the Polonia brothers in high regard, as pieces of cinema, they are definitely at the low-budget end of the spectrum. However, they have a place and a fandom and, I have to admit, I participated in the crowdsourcing of this film. The Blu-ray perk recently arrived and from there comes my review. It does need noting that there isn’t actually a vampire in this – rather an animatronic of Dracula (Jeff Kirkendall, Shadow Tracker: Vampire Hunter, The Temptress, 3 to Murder, Bloodlust & Sharkula).

animatronics

Animatronics is a good place to start as the film title clearly apes Five Nights at Feddy’s, and the plot apes the recent rash of AI gone bad/possessed animatronic slashers. What causes the four monster animatronics to go bad isn’t definitively explored. They are at a Haunt called Fear Forest (we get a lot of documentary guest comments on the place, too many perhaps) and there is a flashback scene to 1995 where there were a group of kids killed and that is put down to satanists but, whether they managed to have the animatronics possessed is debatable. They are noted for random (dangerous) movements beyond that, mention is made of the genius builder of them (and so it could be down to him) and we also get a lightning strike in the contemporary timeline that seems to bring them to life.

prisoners

The contemporary timeline sees Fear Forest shutting down and park owner Malachi Bones (also Jeff Kirkendall) is working with prisoner rehabilitation to remove the exhibits. To that end Emma Brown (Yolie Canales, also Sharkula) has brought a group of prisoners to the theme park and their four days at the park will end or knock time off their sentences. They are Serenity (Greta Volkova, Tales of Dracula), Luca (Tim Hatch, Terror of the Master, also 3 to Murder, Shadow Tracker: Vampire Hunter, The Temptress & Sharkula), Skylar (Jamie Morgan, also Sharkula) and Caleb (Michael Korotitsch, also The Temptress & Sharkula). Because of their prisoner status, and because Skylar plans on running, the threat of the killer animatronics does not come immediately to light.

Dracula

I’ve mentioned that Kirkendall also plays the Dracula animatronic but the others are also played by one or more of the central cast. So, Greta Volkova and Michael Korotitsch both play the Mummy, Jamie Morgan plays the Bride and Tim Hatch plays the wolfman. The animatronics look rubbish (replete with cheap Halloween masks) but, other than comments on the exquisite craftmanship, that doesn’t matter – you can imagine them in a cheap end Haunt. The film is pretty much a slasher and it is only the fact that it is styled after a vampire that gets it onto the TMtV radar.

Jeff Kirkendall as Malachi Bones

Now I mentioned the Polonia brothers’ films at the head of the review and, startlingly, this turned out to be one of the better ones that I've seen. It doesn’t make it good cinema but it flowed that bit better. There are issues that could have been avoided; Michael Korotitsch gave an admirable performance despite the awful fake facial hair, as a for instance. Talking about performances, Jeff Kirkendall gave a weird but deliberately understated performance as the odd Malachi Bones (and the reason he looks the same age as a video from 30-years before is addressed), which was perfectly suited to him and one of the best I've seen from him. There is a place for low budget filmmaking such as this, there is a market for it. If you are part of that market I suspect you’ll get a kick out of this. 3 out of 10 reflects a realistic score but the film remains ideal for that z-grade malarkey.

The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon US

Ambrogio: The First Vampire – review

Director: Alex Javo

Release date: 2025

Contains spoilers

There is something interesting about the “legend” of Ambrogio, something that might be said to be in the realm of post-truth. This is cited as a vampire origin “myth” and yet it was a piece of creative writing that, as far as I have been able to ascertain, was published online anonymously and associated with a non-existent manuscript – the author must now be kicking themselves as they would definitely have a copyright claim. I saw this creeping into the vampire megatext in the film Girls Just Wanna Have Blood and director/star/co-creator of this film, Alex Jarvo, is clearly taken by the story having previously directed a short film and tried to create a web-series based on it (both listed on his IMDb page).

Ambrogio meets Selene

The film's back story follows the creative-writing story with a minor tweak – Ambrogio (Alex Jarvo) – is now shown as a Roman soldier, where the original story suggests an Italian, which no one in that era would have identified as. That said he speaks with an Italian accent and uses Italian rather than Latin (I am sure the filmmakers can argue he later lived in the Italian region and thus his language developed as the Italian language developed), though he does say “veni, vidi, vici” at one point. The film has him sent to Greece by Consul Marcus Brutus (James B. Potts) – dating the origin to around 41 BCE (the year Brutus became a consul).

Hades' offer

The oracle makes a prediction for him, “the blood, the moon, the blood will run”. He then meets Selene (Angelina Buzzelli), for whom Apollo (Ford Nelson) has a thing, they fall in love and so Apollo curses them by making Ambrosio condemned to never walk the day. This comes from the creative writing story with a tweak to Greek myth. In it, Selene eventually becomes a moon goddess (not mentioned in this film – which uses a different trope) but Selene was always a moon goddess, not a mortal, and the story should have used Helios (her brother) not Apollo. Nevertheless, in this Apollo curses him, Hades (Mitch Lemos) then offers him immortality (in exchange for his soul) and then Artemis (Caylin Sams) teaches him survival – by consuming animal carcasses but the blood strengthens him and, eventually, he turns to human blood. All this background is offered in a short flashback that eventually Sarah Apollo (also Angelina Buzzelli) narrates.

wanting the house

However, when we first meet Ambrogio it is at a house he wishes to purchase, not that it is for sale. He offers the owner a large sum but, having shown him round, the owner informs him he can’t sell. With a cry of “veni, vidi, vici”, Ambrogio attacks and kills him – which, given his casting as a victim and a good man regretfully killing to survive, gave a side to the character that is both criminal (he murders an innocent to steal a house) and not reflected in the rest of the film. It is at this point that we also meet Roland (Zane Pappas), Ambrogio’s day servant.

Angelina Buzzelli as Sarah

Sarah Apollo, mentioned earlier, is a student who aspires to be a professor and is in an abusive relationship with Paul (Tony Ohara), who is violent towards her – the domestic violence is portrayed powerfully but more could have been done with it, I felt. She is writing a paper on Ambrogio (it seems) and sees him on a daylight walk (he stole the ring of Apollo), recognises him and follows him. At one point, he mentions how she resembles Selene, a clear reference to the megatext's reincarnated love trope.

Niko'a Salas as Dracula

Also in town is Count Dracula (Niko'a Salas) – turned by Ambrogio, subsequently thought killed by Ambrogio but saved by Hades who wants to destroy Ambrogio (I think for being a whinger, and going on about his lost love). One mistake the film makes is hiding Dracula when we see a kill, implying therefore it was Ambrogio – they didn’t capitalise on this and then just revealed the character not much later. Niko'a Salas’ Dracula looks a little like the version portrayed by John Carradine for Universal. I wasn’t keen on the accent used, it was a tad off – conversely Alex Jarvo’s accent worked well enough (perhaps because of the amount of screen time that bred a familiarity). Hades and Dracula actively work to end Ambrogio.

victim

And this was ok. I went in with a bit of a chip around the story they used because of the post-truth nature of it (in terms of folkloric veracity and age of the story). The film moved me from that, but it has flaws, not least the pacing, which seems a tad off, and yet strangely it was perhaps shorter than it needed to be. I think the biggest issue was the tone. The film feels like a paranormal romance (and, of course, the love of the two is front and centre to the point that a dream of a gazebo dance seemed cribbed from Twilight) but the domestic violence, the preying on townsfolk (Dracula bites a girl who wanders off in a daze and dies in the middle of the street with noticeable fang marks and Ambrogio mentions the locals catching wind of deaths as a recurring theme of his life), and the hatred of the two vampires might have led to a decent horror/thriller when the film feels unfortunately tame. There is good in here that might be developed. 4 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Handbook of the Vampire: Chronicling the Critical Reception of True Blood

Written for Handbook of the Vampire by Lauren Rosewarne, the Chapter Page can be found here.

There is no doubt that True Blood (I have linked to my Season 7 review, which in turn links reviews for the other 6 seasons) was a TV phenomenon. A series that started strong, and whilst it lost its way for a couple of seasons, it built back strong (only for the very coda of the series to fall flat, for me at least – and one part of this chapter is called An Unsatisfying Ending). As such I think that the series deserved a chapter within the Handbook.

Roseworne looks very much at the series’ critical reception, how the series came to be, its place as a prestige series for HBO all the way to Alan Ball leaving the series as showrunner and a perceived decline – to be honest I thought season 5 (his last season as Showrunner) began to pick up where it had lost momentum in season 4 (and 3 to a degree) and Season 6 and 7 stepped the game up from 4 and 5 (bar the ending of 7) – but that’s just me. Specifically mentioned is Sookie being revealed to be of fay blood as a jumping the shark moment, but the series just followed the direction of the books.

There isn’t much in the way of analysis of the show itself – gendered analysis is touched on – and so it doesn’t touch as much on the outsider aspect, perhaps quoting Ball talking to the analogy of vampires to the lgbtq+ community but not exploring the ideas within the series to any depth. This was not a miss, as such, the chapter explored its intended topic but shows a gap where another chapter might look into that in more depth. Nevertheless, for a media student that presents an interesting case study.

Short Film: It Gets Dark Too Early

Released in 2022, this short film by Rebeca Spiegel comes in a under 10-minutes and is a great piece of short film making. It does, however, have a dark theme around sexual assault that some might find triggering.

It starts with a spooky looking house and a whole lot of knocking. Eventually the owner, Chrysanthemum (Carlos Diehz), opens the door to find Valerie (Genevieve Guimond) there. He doesn’t want saving, assuming her reason for being there, but she gets her foot in the door and produces the flyer for a vampire support group.

Chrysanthemum and Valerie

They talk for a while. He explains that he was turned in 1850. She tells a tale about being in bed and something attacking her, the sequence for her flashback in black and white. He notes that she doesn’t have fangs, she suggests they might be growing in. He does some arts and crafts, and she used to film stop-motion with her sister, and we get a 'becoming friends over a shared hobby' montage (including their own little film). However, when he orders in dinner the truth starts to emerge.

As I said, this is a neat little trope playing with the useful simile that is the vampire, here representing the self-Othering of the victim. For a student effort it is well shot, well acted and on point with its screenplay. The imdb page is here.

Fangs Out: Blood Apocalypse – review

Director: Chris Schwab

Release date: 2024

Contains spoilers

Originally billed as Fangs Out 2, I can see little connectivity between this and Fangs Out bar them being about vampires, and Randy Oppenheimer (Blood Moon Rising, Arise of the Snake Woman & Ammityville Vampire) and Marlene Mc'Cohen (The Boneyard Collection. Vampire Boys & Vampire Boys 2: The New Brood) being in both films, but playing different roles. As the title suggests this is a vampire apocalypse film and yet, despite this, it somehow feels much smaller than the previous film.

city during the vampire war

We get background to begin with of the last days before the war. The vampires took the children and then blackened the sun before waging war on humanity. It suggests three sisters as the vampire originators and that war has been raging for six years. We then move to Thompson island, an inhospitable island with a research lab. One of the residents is outside, wearing protective gear, and finds a man, Ray (Brenton Jones), washed up on the shore. He is taken into the facility but then bound.

the facility team

The facility has an all female staff. Head researcher is Davis (Ginny You) and the other, I assume, researcher (it’s never clear) is Starling (Marlene Mc'Cohen). The commanding military officer is Cross (Harmony Smith) and she has three soldiers with her; Hartt (Isabela Penagos), Parker (Andrea Martina) and Collins (Kennedy Anderson) – it becomes readily apparent that boredom has set in amongst the military. Also on the island, captive, is one of the three sisters, Sariel (Siomara Rubio). She is in a non-corporeal form and Davis’ job is to find out how they can kill her as the sisters seem invulnerable. Davis, who lost her family to the vampires, is determined to achieve this but the presence of Ray seems suspicious.

captured Sariel

He suggests he was on a ship, one of very few survivors, looking to get to the Falkland Islands. He says that humanity has lost and tells a tale of a desperate launch of nuclear weapons, and thus the fallout would soon come to the island. This fits with the last supply run not turning up but local instruments don’t detect radiation. There is a better sensor on the other side of the island, though it needs fixing, and so Cross determines to go. Whilst Cross is out of the facility Starling releases Ray, feeds him and then takes the dubious decision to take him to see the secret bit of the lab. Following this Ray manages to persuade the women that partying like there is no tomorrow is the order of the day…

Starling fights back

And, this is ok, but character decisions made are poor, and whilst the set up could be likened to Romero’s Day of the Dead with researchers and military cooped up together, this film lacks the nuances, acting chops and emotional tension that Romero’s zombie flick absolutely had. That said, we do get a flashback to the night the children were taken and Starling losing her daughter and it was surprisingly effective emotionally. Not a lot of lore on offer – a bite turns, and the sisters, they discover, are vulnerable when feeding.

Siomara Rubio as Sariel

All in all, this is pretty much throwaway fluff. It didn’t experiment with lore like the pervious film did (no nun blessed blood or apotropaic tattoos) and it avoided too many close up sfx moments, where the other film had some really shoddy ones, though there are city wide air attack scenes that you know are matted CGI. That said, the filmmakers did add an unexpected emotional core by adding in the flashback I mentioned. Not great but positive aspects make it nose ahead of the earlier film 3.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

City of Demons – review

Director: Charles Band

Release date: 2025

Contains spoilers  

It really seems like the guys at Full Moon Features have given up trying. That’s somewhat unfair, there is some original material coming out, but the mash up of other films continues. This time, a little like Haunted Hotties, it takes from a variety of films and splices them together in a Frankensteinian nightmare (and by that I mean a mess, not a thing of terror). For the record I spotted footage from The Dead Want Women, Trophy heads, Killer Eye: Halloween Haunt, Evil Bong 666 and Decadent Evil 2 - of course, there might have been others.

red vampire eyes

The IMDb blurb says: “Hollywood realtors Danni and Reese close the biggest deal of their lives and throw a party. But the previous owners still occupy a tunnel system beneath the house and are having a party of their own. The bad news? The hosts are vampires.” This is mostly inaccurate to the lumbering monster they have created and mostly lifts from the footage carved from The Dead Want Women (which hasn’t got vampires in it). Danni (Ariana Madix) and Reese (Jessica Morris) are realtors and have just sold a mansion that no-one has been able to sell. They are cleaning it up as they wait for the buyer and then…

bite

Then we start flipping through scenes from the different films. Some of them feature recurrences of Madix and Morris as a variety of characters. However, the stories don’t gel generally and the scenes from any one film might be moved out of sequence to the source narrative. It is a big old mess. Now, I do like a good non-linear narrative – emphasis on good. To achieve this, in a way that holds your viewer, requires excellent writing, direction and editing. This film is edited in a butcher’s shop. It makes so little sense that it genuinely might give a viewer a headache. Still, there are vampires, thanks to the Decadent Evil 2 footage used, which comes towards the end of the film. I cannot recommend this and suggest that you would be better seeking out the original films. 0 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Full Moon via Amazon UK

Hungerstone – review

Author: Kat Dunn

Release date: 2025

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: FOR WHAT DO YOU HUNGER . . . ?

Lenore is the wife of steel magnate Henry, but ten years into their marriage the relationship has soured, and no child has arrived to fill the distance growing between them. Henry's ambitions take them from London to the Peak District, to the remote, imposing Nethershaw estate, where he plans to host a hunting party. Lenore must work to restore the crumbling house and ready it for Henry's guests - their future depends on it.

But as the couple travel through the bleak countryside, a shocking carriage accident brings the mysterious Carmilla into Lenore's life. Carmilla, who is weak and pale during the day but vibrant at night, Carmilla who stirs up something deep within Lenore. And before long, girls from the local villages fall sick, consumed by a terrible hunger . . .

As the day of the hunt draws closer, Lenore begins to unravel, questioning the role she has been playing all these years. Torn between regaining her husband's affection and the cravings Carmilla has awakened, soon Lenore will uncover a darkness in her household that will place her at terrible risk . . .

Set against the violent wilderness of the Peaks and the uncontrolled appetite of the Industrial Revolution, HUNGERSTONE is a compulsive sapphic reworking of CARMILLA, the book that inspired DRACULA: a captivating story of appetite and desire.

The review: Whilst this is a retelling of Carmilla (and I note the blurb mentions it as a sapphic retelling, which forgets that the original – whilst not as direct or graphic as this – was a sapphic tale anyway), it is so subtle around the vampirism that a reader unfamiliar with the original novella or not deeply invested in the vampire megatext may well miss the fact that it is indeed a vampire novel.

And it has a couple of vampiric themes in it, not least that of capitalism as a vampire as the industrial revolution literarily bathes in the blood of the worker to extract the capital. But Carmilla is a vampire and the book connects vampirism with appetite (as well as hunger), which was interesting as Orlok in Eggers’ Nosferatu says “I am an appetite, nothing more.” I am not suggesting there was any read across between the two texts but it was a nice trope, used in both, where the vampire is drawn as having (and offering) a psychological desire to consume as well as a physiological need. Jumping ahead, we only see attacks on Lenore – with sleep paralysis, a (potentially imagined) cat form and, at one point, a blood soaked Carmilla at the end of the bed (mirroring a scene from Le Fanu) but we can read into at least three other women visited by Carmilla (the appetite), which unleashes a hunger that manifests as one eating hair, another eating a live chicken and a third eating flesh from her husband’s arm. The hungers awakened in Lenore are much more complex.

The book moves us from Styria to the Peak District for location (offering an immediately Gothic landscape to play upon), in 1888, but whilst Carmilla still enters their lives through a carriage crash, the reader does not see the crash, rather the aftermath as Lenore and Henry come across it on their journey to the Nethershaw estate. Indeed, the more graphic description of a carriage crash comes in flashback as Lenore recalls the crash that left her orphaned as a child. Lenore is, of course, very different from Laura in the novella – as well as the trauma from her childhood, she is married, sexually active (though she has not during ten years of marriage become pregnant), with Carmilla awakening her bisexuality, and whilst naïve in some respects she is wise in the way of society and etiquette. This brings in other dimensions that Le Fanu could not explore. Her marriage allows for an exploration of misogyny widder than the patriarchal exploration in the original novella.  

I did wonder whether the book was aimed at the YA audience but the themes it explores certainly do not seem to be. However, I very much enjoyed the book, found it a satisfying revisit to Carmilla through an interesting lens. I enjoyed the subtlety of the vampirism and overall think this deserves a strong 7.5 out of 10. I need to add a thank you to Gary who posted about this volume on Facebook, which brought it to my attention.

In Hardback @ Amazon US

In Hardback @ Amazon UK