Drawing Blood – review

Directed by: Sergio Lapel

First released: 1999

Contains spoilers

This is released on the Troma label, which is synonymous with low budget films of dubious quality. When I started watching it, therefore, I started off being pleasantly surprised. Low budget it certainly was but there was a stately, artistic aspect that pleased me. I was hugely disappointed, therefore, when that unusual but artistic film suddenly switched half way through into rubbishy weirdness. This is a film of two parts and a film with a bizarre twist of vampire lore.

It begins as a woman (Amie Childers) strips. It is clear, through the dialogue, that she is modelling and the artist is a woman named Diana (Dawn Spinella). The girl admits that she is homeless –a run away. Diana comes to her, stroking her face and then positions her on the floor – a new pose.

Suddenly she bites and the camera pulls back to show the woman spasming with pain as she is attacked. Diana stops eventually and the girl tries to crawl away. Diana places a bowl beneath her neck and captures the spilling blood. Then she poses the girl and begins to paint – in blood. We see that the title of the film is doubly clever.

Edmond (Kirk Wilson) and Conner (Leo Otero) walk the street. Conner wants to get a prostitute but Edmond has to go to Diana. A young whore named Dee (Eric Smith) offers herself to both for $20. Edmond refuses but Connor takes her off. Edmond reaches Diana’s home – he is late. She wants him to get rid of the body and feels he should be “one of us” – he refuses vampirism. Diana says she wants an older model and reminds him that it is two days until her show and she still has two pictures to paint.

Conner is getting his money’s worth out of Dee when he bites her neck drawing blood. She runs, not being paid, but he seems to revel in drawing blood. Meanwhile Edmond has buried the girl’s body and, on the way back, picks up older hitchhiker Debra (Linda Catoe) – he suggests that she spend the night with his friend.

Whilst Debra showers, Diana becomes seductive to Edmond, trying to get him to stay the night and repeats the offer to turn him. When he refuses she implies a threat to his father (Larry Palatta) and then forces him to watch as she attacks Debra – chewing her cheek off and spitting it at him but not painting her. He has to bury her.

Once at home Edmond puts on the TV and the channels all seem to be the same – missing person pictures of girls he has supplied to Diana. He falls asleep and remembers his mother asking him to look after his father when she died. He dreams she became a vampire. Out on the street there are missing person flyers everywhere. A father approaches – have you seen my daughter – then another and another. I assume this was a guilt manifestation.

Suddenly he sees Dee and, though she just wants to blow him for $5, he takes her home in order to help her. It becomes clear he has fallen in love with her Diana walks into his house – we note that it is daytime – and she makes comment about the open door being an invitation to anyone, a nod to the invitation lore although the film does not explicitly state that one is necessary. She tries to lure Dee and Edmond, to save her, straps her to the bed and binds her mouth… and here things fall apart.

So far the film has been a clever, artistic movie that tries to ignore the low budget roots. The performances have been solid, the dialogue natural. Edmond’s father comes into it now and this marks the collapse of the film. I do not think it was the fault of Larry Palatta or his performance. More it was that the filmmakers lost their way. From here on in things became painful to watch.

Edmond decides he must kill Diana and illicit Conner’s help. Conner, however, is a psychopath with a vampire fetish and we have just seen him kill a girl to satisfy his blood fixation. It is also clear that Edmond has no clue how to kill a vampire and this is not surprising as the film switches all the rules.

Crosses, garlic, sunlight and stakes through the heart. None of them work. The only thing that can kill a vampire is another vampire. So to be staked means nothing unless the stake is wielded by another vampire. It is not thought through. Diana states she does not want to take over the world, all she cares about is her art, but another vampire would probably have gone for world domination… seeing as they couldn’t be touched by humanity.

So, how does one become a vampire? Firstly you have to be bitten. The bite makes you half vampire and leaves the victim incredibly horny. They turn when they take a life (and possibly drink blood during that taking of life… the film hints as much but is frustratingly blurred on this aspect).

As I began watching this I was quite taken by the film. Once we hit the second part I became more and more despondent. The second half of the film pushes the score down, a lot. The score might seem unfair to the first part of the film, but the first half fails to reach conclusion and is, thus, fatally flawed. 2 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Vampire Slayers – review

Directed by: Mike Mahoney

First released: 2005

Contains spoilers

This film was available to watch as a free stream. As such, this would normally get an honourable mention on the blog. However, it is also available to buy on DVD via Amazon (US) and, as folks might part with money for it, I feel it is only right to give it a review.

That said, I’m rather glad that I am reviewing this. Clearly done to a budget, they did quite a bit and – though it isn’t perfect – this was a lot of fun to watch. There is a basic story that suggests that “In the year 2015 vampires are housed in a maximum-security prison. When ten vampires escape and threaten to infect the city, the only way they can be stopped is by slayers Christian (Russell Clay) and Dalton (George Nelson). After seeing their father killed by these demons, the only chance the city and doctor Danner's (Melissa McGabby) daughter (Lindsey Huey) has to survive are these two vampire slayers”

To be fair that about sums the film up. A world a few years on in which vampires are a reality and imprisoning them is the solution. However, vampires have a tendency to escape and go on the rampage. Christian and Dalton have some minor celebrity because of their slaying exploits and according to the dialogue they didn’t just see their father killed – they killed their vampire daddy.

There are some holes and/or questions that appear within the film. Should someone be bitten a virus is transmitted to them. The virus will take complete hold after 5 hours but should an anti-viral agent be injected before then, the victim will be fine. The problem with this as a concept was centred on those bitten. We see a husband with his throat ripped out – inject him and he’ll be fine but… well he’ll still have his throat ripped out.

It also should be said that for a future in which there are vampires and a warning has been released of a breakout, well folks don’t seem too keen on closing and locking doors. Just a thought, but if I were in such a world the blooming door would be shut and locked constantly – breakout or not.

The vampire slayers (blue collar and ass kicking) tend to beat their prey to unconsciousness rather than immediately slay. Why? Because the vampires are bar coded and they have to scan the code prior to staking – as they combust when staked. This will obviously lead to a cash per stake situation. I assume the vampires are also tagged with tracking devices of a sort as a little holographic map of vampire location appears in the brother’s truck.

Other than that we discover that fire seems to be a good vampire killer/deterrent. Despite the virus aspect they appear to be undead – the main vampire, Victor (Don ‘Hollywood’ Yates), is three hundred years old. They are stronger and faster than us and have a funky sort of vision.

There are not just the two slayers – at the end of the film we see another two. However their presence only served to consolidate a question I had and was, in itself, conceptually jarring as they should have been introduced, if only in passing, earlier on. However the question was about back up and casts a shadow over the world created for the film.

A group of vampires are on the prowl, heading for a secluded house where a group of teens are partying. Given the fact that the kids are all out there and there are a large number of vampires heading their way I was surprised that the brothers didn’t contact the authorities. When we discovered that there were other slayers, you had to ask why you wouldn’t call them in on a job so vampire heavy? There is a lack of both police and paramedics through the film (and paramedics would surely carry stocks of the anti-viral).

Having said all that, I really enjoyed watching the film. The effects were pretty darn good for a film of the budget although, admittedly, the cracks will have been less obvious on the free stream. There were actually extras in shot – lots and lots of extras – so the film never felt devoid of life. The direction wasn’t perfect but it had some nice moments. Unfortunately the pacing and narration seemed to go off kilter towards the end of the feature.

The action sequences, I thought, worked rather well with Mahoney not shirking when it came to slamming an actor into a windshield or have a gore soaked moment. You know what though; the real reason to watch this was Clay and Nelson as the vampire slayers. They just work so well, humour that could have been poor in other hands worked as the pair bantered so well.

I enjoyed this. It was, of course, great watching it for free but I’d happily part with money for it. The film is far from perfect and, despite itself, the story is fairly standard throughout and confused/disjointed towards the end. But we watch films that we enjoy and I enjoyed this. 5.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Honourable Mentions: Immoral Tales

Known, in its original French, as Contes Immoraux, this 1973 film directed by Walerian Borowczyk was made up of four erotic shorts that had an element of the grotesque or the taboo to them. Our reason for looking at this is that the third tale is based upon the tale of Countess Erzsébet Báthory (Paloma Picasso). Since reviewing Hammer’s Countess Dracula I have been of the opinion that anything with a Báthory reference deserves either a review or a mention on this blog.

If the film has a supernatural element to it or, obviously, a vampiric element it should have a review. Such is the impact, however, of the actual tale/legend of the historic Báthory that reference to her deserve a mention. If it has physical regeneration then a review it is, if it is indicated that the blood bathing is due to a psychotic belief in blood rejuvenating the bather then we are at least in mention territory.

This segment, however, nearly broke that mould and, quite frankly, I found myself bored. The film tells us that we are in Nytria, Hungary and it is 1610. We see the Countess upon a horse and then cut to a village and see village life. A couple rutting in a barn, the treading of, well it looked like cabbage, and the milking of a cow.

Soldiers arrive and round up the young women. The soldiers make an announcement about those who please the Countess will be permitted to touch her magic pearl dress, an artefact that brings bliss. The rutting girl runs but is soon captured. The Countess inspects the girls and then has them all taken to her castle. It is here that things went wrong for me.

Firstly, what happened to the rutting girl and her defensive lover. She is lost within the morass of naked female flesh and he vanishes from the film. There was a narrative set up and no follow through. Also the remainder of the film is primarily the preparation of the girls, essentially having them shower and soap each other. Aside from being impressed at the idea of mass showers in 1610 and soap in regular use, this failed to be erotic and also failed to carry a narrative.

Eventually the girls are placed in a bedchamber and the Countess enters with a see-through, pearl encrusted dress. The girls begin to touch and then rip at the dress. They fight over the pearls, as the countess backs away, scratching at each other. Though we do not see the deed it is clear that the handmaiden uses her sword.

This frenzy seems to be how the blood is gathered (a most inefficient method to my way of thinking) as the next scene sees the Countess blood bathing. After a short moment of this we get the hint of a lesbian tryst with the handmaiden and then the Countess' arrest by a soldier – and it is clear the handmaiden sold her out.

I don’t know, perhaps I was expecting some horror. Perhaps I was expecting the segment to actually be erotic – given the film’s reputation. Perhaps it was the fact that the blood bathing was almost an afterthought and the film offered absolutely no reasoning for the act. All in all this segment bored me.

The imdb page is here.

Blood Noir – review

Author: Laurell K. Hamilton

First Published: 2008

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: “Jason is a werewolf. He’s also one of Anita Blake’s best friends and sometimes her lover. And right now he needs her – not to be a vampire hunter, or a federal marshal, or a necromancer, but because his father is dying. Anita can make him look like a regular guy, helping him say goodbye to the abusive father he never loved.

“The fact that Jason is not ‘everyday’ and Anita is far from being just a pretty woman is something they figure they can keep under wraps for a couple of days in a small town. How hard can that be? Really, by now, Anita Blake should know better.

“And this is the weekend that Marmee Noir, ancient mother of all vampires, picks to make a move. Somehow she has cut the connection that binds Anita and vampire Master of the City Jean-Claude, leaving them vulnerable. Dangerous even as she sleeps, buried in darkness for a thousand years beneath the old country of Europe, Marmee Noir reaches out towards power – she has attacked Anita before, but never like this.

“Anita has what she wants – and now she’s going to take it.”

The Review: Blurbs sometimes distort, if not down right lie about, a book’s plot. This is book 15 of the Anita Blake series (though for some reason it isn’t numbered as such on the spine) and those who know the characters might be forgiven for wondering “What the Hell?” Let me confirm then, Jason doesn’t want to pass off for ‘regular’ – his estranged father believes him gay and he wants to pass Anita off as his girlfriend to prove his heterosexuality – at the request of his mother.

Sound a little soap opera? Well you’d be forgiven for thinking so as, quite frankly, that aspect is. What the blurb doesn’t mention is a senator’s son and a case of mistaken identity – that adds some peril but is soap opera in its own way.

Before I get onto the potentially interesting aspect of the novel, let me talk sex. Those who have read my reviews of other Anita Blake books will know that I was getting a little fed up with the endless sex scenes – not for prudish reasons but if I wanted an erotica novel I’d buy one, I buy these for supernatural adventure.

You’ll know that my worries were waylaid to a degree with the last volume, The Harlequin, but at the head of this novel I began to be worried. The first four chapters are essentially one sex scene. However, having got that out of the way the rest of the book actually glosses over sex – including a complete gloss over of a two day 4-way orgy – perhaps Hamilton really has got it out of her system.

What she hasn’t got into her system, necessarily, is solid storylines. The interesting storyline with Marmee Noir, promised within the blurb (although reading said blurb, one wonders at the poor English that is meant to be advertising a novel) is a bit of a damp squib. We again get some power tussles and some regrouping/revising of main character powers and that’s about it. The mistaken identity story has more teeth but is concluded almost as an afterthought.

The Harlequin promised that Hamilton’s Anita Blake novels were back on track. This fell short of that track and one can’t help but wonder (after at least three of the last four novels not really going anywhere) if Hamilton has just run out of steam and doesn’t know where to take her characters – the posturing is soap opera and, no matter how strong the technical side of the writing is (and it is), it is a poor excuse for novel writing and betrays a lack of heart. 4.5 out of 10.

Some thanks and some kudos

Yesterday the very lovely Caroline Munro was at Who in Blackpool and, of course, I wandered along and got her to sign my Dracula AD 1972 and Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter DVDs. I also got the rather snazzy looking picture of her and Christopher Lee from AD 72, which heads this blog entry.

Caroline’s homepage is located here and many thanks to her for coming to Blackpool.

Whilst I am saying thanks, I really must thank Paul B. He is someone who I work with on occasion and was in Brighton when I was there for the week in May. One evening we were talking and he mentioned the Vampire – the Eternal Struggle collectable card game. I had heard of it but hadn’t actually seen any of the cards.

I was up in London a couple of weeks ago and bobbed in to see Paul, he not only very kindly had said cards with him but gave me the starter deck as my gothic need, as he put it, was greater than his. Sir, a public thank you.

I also thought I’d mention the creative activities of a couple of friends. Their work isn’t within the vampire genre but they are friends and so I think deserving of some kudos here. First of all there is Emma Brown. Emma’s first book is “The Legend of Billy Davies.”

This is the tale of a disturbed young man, a horror obsessed man. A man just released from a psychiatric hospital with a very definite idea of how he wants to spend the next Halloween.

Emma’s MySpace page is here, and you can read an extract from her book in the MySpace blog.

Also a mention to Debra-Lyn Williams, who’s first comic “War Wounds” – written by Debra-Lyn and drawn by Peet! Clack – was published in the Girly Comic and can be viewed online over 4 parts (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4). This is a chilling look at post traumatic stress and some of the unseen victims of war.

Lost Boys – The Tribe (Uncut Version) – review

Director: P J Pesce

Release date: 2008

Contains spoilers


Making a sequel to the classic 1987 vampire movie the Lost Boys was always going to be a virtually thankless task. The fact that this was directed by P J Pesce would, depending on your point of view, be worrying. After all he directed from Dusk till Dawn 3: the Hangman’s Daughter. Now that was a film that did not stand close to the original (though I thought it the better of the two sequels in that franchise).

Of course the fact that it has been 21 years since the last film and one of the main stars of the original (Keifer) is now in the stratosphere, career wise, and probably wouldn’t do a straight to DVD movie – and even if he did, he looks 21 years older and his character was an eternally young vampire. None of that could help. So, if we look behind the rather groovy hologram slipcase and into the film, what do we get?

The Tribe is somewhat of a re-imagining, or a homage if you prefer, to the original film. It does boast an original character, the story line is familiar and yet changed and there are conceptual nods that fans of the first film will notice. Not in the least that our primary vampire character, Shane, is played by Angus Sutherland – half brother of aforementioned Keifer.

The film begins with him and his surfer buddies, Jon (Kyle Cassie), Kyle (Shaun Sipos) and Erik (Merwin Mondesir) breaking into private property to surf on the beach below. They are spotted and confronted by property owner Van Etten (Tom Savini). Van Etten vamps out and they vamp in return – the three henchmen fall on Van Etten and Shane reminds them to take the head.

Chris (Tad Hilgenbrink) and little sister Nicole Emerson (Autumn Reeser) have fallen onto hard times. Their parents died a few years before and Chris, a professional surfer, managed to get himself kicked off the circuit. Running out of funds they have moved to Luna Bay to stay with their Aunt Jillian (Gabrielle Rose) – a realtor who rents them a really crappy house. If you are wondering about the surname, yes it is the same as the family from the first film and, according to the Official Site they are cousins to Sam and Michael. Hmmm… not good… there is no indication in the film that Edgar Frog (Corey Feldman) even makes the connection. Better to have had them unrelated.

Chris is looking for work as a surf-board shaper and is directed to the Frog Brothers place – but no one appears to be home. Nicole is already attracting male attention. As the sun sets Chris sees Shane – who was on the surf circuit himself – and he invites Chris to a party that night. Nicole wants to attend but Chris is against the idea, that is until Aunt Jillian appears with the Goonies to watch. Incidentally there is a man on saxophone as they walk the town and I thought, hmmm… reminds me of a 21 years later, fat version of the beach star from the first film. As he was played by Timmy Cappello and Cappello is also credited as a homeless man in this I guess it was the same guy!

At the party Chris hooks up with a girl named Lisa (Moneca Delain) but, despite leaping in a shower with her, is uncomfortable with regards Nicole. It seems that he knew Jon (and ended the surfer’s career) and there is no love lost between them, he also does not trust Shane. Meanwhile Nicole has drunk the wine – in other words ingested Shane’s blood.

Chris punches Shane and takes Nicole home where she starts to vamp out – that is until she is knocked out by a surf board round her head courtesy of Edgar Frog. He is going to stake her but is prevented by Chris. Frog leaves and Lisa turns up, comes onto Chris, vamps out and is thrust (accidentally) onto antlers. I’ll return to her death shortly.

Of course, Chris goes to Edgar and discovers that he must kill the head vampire before Nicole drinks blood. The problem is finding the nest in time and he may have to ‘drink the wine’ himself and go undercover to root the vampires out for Frog. Will the enticement of everlasting youth, and the idea that his sister will never die, be too much of a temptation?

There was much talk about Corey Haim reprising his role in this as Sam. He does appear in a 'during the credits coda' and, more interestingly, in an alternate ending. In the credits coda he is now a vampire and the film ends with Sam and Frog rushing at each other. In the alternate ending he is human and has come to warn Frog about the return of his brother Alan (Jamison Newlander, who is seen oh so briefly), a master vampire. During the film proper we hear that Edgar has lost his brother but Newlander does not make an appearance.

Lore-wise things are fairly much to the original with a major exception. The idea that garlic does not work has been scrapped (remember it was a main point in the first film) and Edgar has a garlic bulb bolas. He also drinks a daily concoction (Frog Juice) made of raw egg, crushed garlic and holy water. A DVD extra has a talk by Frog on weapons and methods of vampire destruction.

Holy water wise, it is worth mentioning that it is prepared by Edgar himself who is ordained (he went on line, filled in a couple of forms and clicked ordain me). Of course the Lost Boys should be about spectacular slays (Frog repeats his ‘ways vampires go out’ line from the first film) and I had two particular favourites. Lisa, having been antler staked (reminiscent, of course, to David in the first film) turns to stone and then shatters.

I was also impressed by the death of Jon, staked he begins to puke blood, but it is like a stream, his entire innards liquefying and evacuating. We get a beheading later that was not so good as the flames escaping the neck wound were terribly cgi. We also have another couple of kills that I’ll let you discover for yourselves.

Acting-wise there is nothing too terrible. Feldman laps it up as Frog and

perfectly reprises a character last seen as a child but, as an adult, exactly the same. The character is great for fans of the original; one wonders how someone watching the film cold (as it were) would take him. Sutherland reminded me very much of his dad in mannerisms at least, no bad thing. Whilst there was no real problem with the performances from Hilgenbrink and Reeser, I had no character sympathy. To be honest that was a writing issue, and the characters – all in all – were fairly cardboard cut-out. Aunt Jillian was an exceptionally pointless character who, I guess, was meant to remind of Grandpa – but clueless as to the vampires, unlike her predecessor.

Any sense of tension or wonder was lost – we knew what was happening from the moment the film started – and so the film went for action (there is an adrenaline junky chase through town on bikes and skateboards, followed by police cars, which works rather well as an action sequence) and full on gore. The film opens with an attack and beheading. The famous track “Cry Little Sister” is our main theme again (slightly modernised) and brings its own level of branding to the film.

As a tribute to the first film (for it is more that than a sequel) this works as well as could be expected – given that what ever was done, it was always going to be criticised. Some of the tie-ins work (Edgar Frog and the reliance on comic books as a vampire slaying manual), whilst others fall flat (having Chris and Nicole related to Sam, and not even mentioning it in the film).

As a stand alone vampire movie this floats around average, with some nice slays but ultimately an obvious storyline and flat, unexplored characters and motivations. 5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

The Reflecting Skin – review

Director: Philip Ridley

Release date: 1990

Contains spoilers

The vampire is, in my opinion, one of the most flexible icons, or even archetypes, that a filmmaker has to play with and this avant-garde look at the horror nestling in the heart of mankind is a prime example of this. This is also a prime example of a vampire movie that does not contain a vampire. What it contains is the belief in a vampire, in this case by nine year old Seth Dove (Jeremy Cooper).

I suggested that this film peers into the dark heart of humanity and it does so by using 1950s rural America as its setting and, to be honest, there isn’t a nice character portrayed (actually, that is probably unfair on some of the characters, but it is certainly true of our main character who is Seth himself).

The film begins with Seth walking across the prairie holding a rather large frog, which he shows to friends Kim (Evan Hall) and Eben (Codie Lucas Wilbee). They are aware that *she* is approaching – she being English widow Dolphin Blue (Lindsay Duncan). The boys inflate the frog and then hide in the prairie grass. When Dolhpin stops to inspect the distended frog, Seth lets loose with his catapult, exploding the frog over Dolphin.

Home life isn’t great for Seth. His brother Cameron (Viggo Mortensen) is away with the armed forces. His father Luke (Duncan Fraser) tries to make a living running a gas station and his mother Ruth (Sheila Moore) is a harridan, who is clearly abusive to both the boy and her husband.

His father is reading a book about vampires. Seth asks and is told that they bite necks and drink blood, thus they are not very sociable. They drink blood to stay young and those they drink from grow older and older until they die. They like to sleep in coffins during the day and turn into bats at night. Seth asks if there are any round these parts and his pa says he wouldn’t be surprised. Incidentally, for the audience, the book cover clearly represents Seth, Dolphin and her house.

During the conversation Seth has seen Dolphin approach Ruth and he is sent to her home to apologise for exploding the frog over her. Dolphin seems less angry than one would expect and I think the clear reason is that she is lonely, to the point that even talking to this young boy is better than the loneliness she feels.

However, as she speaks, and in her own way explains this, her conversation is lost on the boy. She tells him how her husband made her feel young and how he is now dead – he committed suicide. She asks Seth how old he thinks she is and he suggests fifties, rather than be offended she suggests she is two hundred. Of course all this feeds into what his father had told him.

Seth gets hold of the vampire book and makes the connection – Dolphin Blue is a vampire. He even breaks his catapult to build a makeshift cross. When it is discovered that Eben has gone missing, and is subsequently found in the Dove’s water store, Seth assumes that Dolphin fed off him. The police have other ideas. Twenty years before Sheriff Ticker (Robert Koons) caught Luke Dove with another man in a barn, (I wondered if it was Adam Blue, Dolphin’s husband?)

The discrimination and intolerance at the heart of petty minded man comes to the fore. There is a leap from Luke being gay (albeit pushed firmly back into the closet) to he must be a paedophile and child murderer. The guilt Luke feels (due to his own urges) forces him to suicide – he swallows and douses himself with gasoline and immolates himself.

The death of the father draws Cameron back home to look after his little brother (Ruth has completely lost it by this point) but, of course, there is an attraction between Cameron and Dolphin – something Seth fears as he still believes her to be a vampire. There is also, still, a child killer on the loose.

Interestingly, Cameron’s condition is taken by Seth to be evidence of Dolphin’s vampirism. Cameron has been at the atoll’s watching the atomic tests. Now home, his hair is beginning to fall out, his gums are bleeding and he is loosing weight. As the audience we know he has radiation poisoning but Cameron seems unaware of what is happening and Seth is convinced of Dolphin’s involvement.

The film is, in many respects, reminiscent of David Lynch’s work. It pries back the lid of small town America and shows the contents to be dark and rotting. The cinematography is wonderful but I have read some complaints centred around Jeremy Cooper’s performance as Seth.

Of course, having a child actor carry so much of a film is always going to be difficult but I didn’t find his performance too bad at all. There is a disjointedness to it that, for me, worked. Seth is a sociopathic little git – we can’t forget that. There is a scene, having broken into Dolphin’s house, where he finds a conch shell. He comments on its beauty and then decides to smash it (and the room). The dissociative element of Cooper’s performance feeds into this aspect of the character and one cannot help but wonder whether Ridley pushed the performance in that direction deliberately.

This is not a fun movie, but it is a good movie. Far from feel good it aims for horror, but real horror born of petty-minded humanity where the fantasy figure of the vampire juxtaposes to highlight the real evils of the world. 7 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.