Addicted to Murder 3: Bloodlust Vampire Killer – review

Directed by: Kevin J Lindenmuth

Release date: 2000

Contains spoilers

A third outing in the Addicted to Murder series. The first film confounded expectations by being actually rather better than one would have thought it could be. The second film, unfortunately, was not so good. In fact it was downright poor. Alas the third film doesn’t fare much better.

We begin with Joel (Mick McCleery), the character that was in the first two movies, in New York. He tells us that he can sense them and that he hates them for what they made him into – cut to footage of the second film and him telling Angie (Sasha Graham, who only appears in footage from previous films) that he feels nothing – other than the obvious anger he’s displaying! It seems then that Joel is killing them as they have condemned him to a life of not feeling.

Not quite, he goes on to state that they created him and made him what he is… which is a move away from the previous films’ concept that people are born vampires (it strays back there soon) and that he learnt how to kill them (stake through the heart, which may or may not do it but will hold them pending decapitation) through the dark ones who come to him in his dreams and it was *they* who gave him his purpose, preparing the way for their return. Looks like we have a full on Lovecraftian sub-story appearing.

In the credits, which follow this revelation, we discover that Angie had a surname… Karnstein. Certainly I didn’t notice this on the previous two films for if I had I would have been bitterly lamenting the idea that Lindenmuth couldn’t leave the classics alone and had to borrow a name from Carmilla.

Anyway, we then get into a bizarre sequence where two vampires, Tricia (Sarah K Lippmann) and Karen (Cloud Michaels) are being interviewed and being fairly candid about what they are. They give us a background of a vampire society who fear Joel as he is killing his own kind. From Tricia specifically we get the story of a human boyfriend, Dan (Joe Zaso), who wants to be changed but she refuses – he doesn’t have the right aura. This moves back to being born a vampire, almost, but does tie in with the Dark Ones' story.

It seems, on refusal to change him, he went searching and found a vampire hunter (presumably Joel) who got him power from another source. He tries to kill Tricia but a passing vampire recognises him as a reanimate and throws salt on him. This makes a light flash over him as the demon is driven out and leaves him as a skeleton on the floor.

The interview is a trap set by Joel and he kills the vampires. He then turns his attention to another vampire, but he is hidden in a prison, where Joel can’t get to him.

I am sure that he could if he wanted to but we get a long and badly acted story of a prisoner (the sort who wouldn’t survive in jail) being placed in a cell with Santana (Frank Lopez). At first it seems that Lopez – who is anti-religious – has a sweet deal as the head guard lets him out to go robbing folks, and split the loot with him, on a nightly basis.

Then it is revealed that he is a vampire but, my how vampires have changed. He has green glowing eyes for a start off, something that vampires have not had before in the series. More than this he has a maw full of sharp pointy teeth, which begs the question of why did all the others just have side fangs. However it is other lore that really irks.

He has dirt in his bed – no other vampire in the series has slept on grave/native soil. He hates religion and it is implied that holy water would damage him but the series has already established that religious artefacts have no effect upon the vampires. Finally he likes the prison as it is always dark and yet the vampires can go in the light.

It ends up with him being tricked onto a stake, that for all the world seems to kill him – he seems to rapid decay. Not so because we cut forward a year and see Joel stalking him. We have to ask how it was Joel couldn’t hunt him as he left the prison on a nightly basis and have to note that the entire Dark Ones story is lost as soon as the prison story starts.

It is almost as though they had the idea for the prison story and built a loose wrap-around to pad it and fit it in with the series as stood – forgetting that the lore was different.

Sloppy filmmaking and not a good film. 1 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Addicted to Murder 2: Tainted Blood – review

Directed by: Kevin J Lindenmuth

Release date: 1998

Contains spoilers


Well, I for one was pleasantly surprised when I watched Addicted to Murder, flawed but interesting probably sums it up. The cynic in me feared it couldn’t last. The cynic was right. Lindenmuth tries to capture the moments in the life of Joel (Mick McCleery) between his mother’s death and his being found by vampire Angie (Sasha Grahame) and not only makes a mess of this but also a mess of the story that went on before.

What we do see is a lot more of vampire society and discover that Angie’s sister, Rachel (Laura McLauchlin), has set a lot of folks on the path to being a vampire. However these people are all sociopathic and not worthy – tainted blood, as the title suggests. This seemed a little silly for two reasons. Firstly it cheapened the story of Joel from the first film, worse it made a mockery of Angie’s motivation for turning him as she is hunting down the tainted.

Secondly because the idea of a ‘darkness within’ gets pulled more into focus. Indeed occasionally viewed ‘vampire expert’ Jonas Collins (Ted V Mikels) informs us explicitly that vampires are born and not made and that those turned are inherently evil. I had a problem with this. I like the idea that to turn one must embrace evil – similar was explored in Twins of Evil – but the idea of being born evil well, quite frankly, that is too catholic for my taste, smacking of original sin.

The other problem I had with it was that it wasn’t supported by the film. We see, during the film, Angie’s turning of a woman named Tricia (Sarah K Lippmann). Tricia never came across as inherently evil – though she may have embraced it in order to turn. No, she was dying of cancer and came across as inherently desperate, desperate for a life she was losing and a life she felt she had hardly lived.

Joel’s story seems to have been noodled with, and frankly the noodling is as bad as it would be if King Noodler George Lucas had been involved. We know that his mother died and we saw, in the last film, him receiving phone calls from his aunt after the funeral. One then wonders at why someone would call him momma’s boy – the insult seems spent once she was dead. Further we wonder at why he would have the head of his mother in his car – an altogether plastic looking head it has to be said. Before we get to bad effects, let me just wonder what on Earth happened to his meeting his wife, his marriage and his divorce within this period – conveniently forgotten, it seems.

I said in the review of the first film that vampires are easy – all you need are fangs and fake blood. This is true but a pig’ ear can still be made of things – especially if the fangs look like cheap Halloween purchases and don’t fit. Then there are rubber masks… We get a true vampire face moment in film that works slightly better than the first film – though not much – due to judicial film effects.

However, to have a victim represented by a rubber dummy with big googly eyes. I mean there was no need. Dragging some poor sap off the street, pouring some fake blood on their neck and giving them a couple of dollars would have been preferable. It was, quite frankly, unforgivable.

Lore wise we learn little more than the first film. Day time is fine for these vampires. They have a loose society with definitive rules – one vampire may not kill another, only turn the worthy and don’t kill the high profile seem to be the main ones. They do not heal quickly – what happens to a vampire who can’t feed for a few months is a question posed by ‘the hunter’ (Joe Moretti), a vampire enforcer, who then pulls a vampire’s fangs out. Well, that question is not answered – though we get a regeneration time gauge. What we also get is the idea that any vampire that can’t feed without fangs has obviously not heard of a knife – or that the script writer (Lindenmuth) just didn’t think that through.

We also discover that crosses do not work, in a scene that also hints at a vampire being able to steal character traits from a victim (you are what you eat) but as it is from a newly turned I think we can dismiss that as speculative.

The acting is poor and irked me more than the last film, probably because the thing was not hanging together as well and was far from as interesting. It less added to the mystique that, despite itself, the first film generated and more buried it out in the woods in a shallow grave.

Whatever indefinable element the first film had, which made it watchable, has gone; altogether poor. 1 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Addicted to Murder – review

Directed by: Kevin J Lindenmuth

Release date: 1995

Contains spoilers

There are many reasons why this should be a rubbish film. It is a low to no budget vampire movie. The actors were unknowns at the time and any experience was only, it seems, in no to low budget films. It is filmed on camcorder. The sound is poor (which might be a DVD transfer issue but, I suspect, is a general sound issue). It is a Kevin J Lindenmuth film.

Now the last comment is cruel. We have looked at one of his films before. Rage of the Werewolf failed, in the main, because the film was way too ambitious for the budget. Comparatively a pure vampire film is easy peasy, some fake blood, false fangs and you are good to go. But even so…

…Yet I found myself enjoying this as I watched it. The acting was average or lower, the ideas didn’t altogether withstand the structure and (at times sparse) exposition and yet I was really quite taken with the film. It is good to be surprised, it is good to have an interesting (if flawed) character study.

We begin in 1970 and a woman (Renee Nocito) calls into the night for, well to be honest its sounds like she’s calling for her dog but we soon realise it is her son she calls for. In the woods a man seems to attack a woman and then she reverses it and rips into his throat. She is a vampire named Rachel (Laura McLauchlin). She turns to camera and we realise she is talking to a child, she tells him she won’t hurt him, she recognises he is special, his name is Joel.

What we then get is the story of a man who is a serial killer and, to be candid, whilst the idea that the vampire sees something within him at such a young age is interesting it does lean towards a ‘darkness inside’ theorem through the film, rather than a nurture and psychological trauma basis. Yes Joel (Mick McCleery) has been twisted by a drunken mother, school bullies and abusive babysitters – more so by a vampire; but the vampire would argue she responds to the darkness within.

Now what was interesting was how the vampire reacted to this killer. She came to him and encouraged his urges… on her. He killed her in a variety of ways, stabbing, chainsaw, electrocution. Sometimes the kill involved sexual gratification, with her. It is clear that she fed as much from his dark emotions as she did from blood and, arguing nurture, she certainly encouraged the killer to appear/emerge. It also, it seems, made her feel alive.

Then she left him and he tried to lead a normal life but he was cold towards his wife – who married him because he revealed said darkness via a level of kinkiness (blood play in this case). He became caught within dark fantasies, often involving Rachel. He was deemed as an outsider within his life and then flyers began to come for a club called “The Hungry”.

In the club he meets another vampire, Angie (Sasha Graham). She uses his darkness to feed from, again, and also seems to be pushing him towards turning. It is as though the darkness I mentioned makes him a vampire already. She indicates that Rachel gave him to her, we don’t know if that is true.

Lore is there, but a little sparse. We discover late on that staking seems to kill a vampire but, generally, they are impervious to most harm. They feed on both blood and negative emotions, as I mentioned, and they are impervious to sunlight.

They are fanged and it seems that they have a true, demonic, face but that really became ‘no budget too far’. Honestly, let it go… If you can’t afford a decent, life like rubber mask keep to the fangs!! This was, however, a brief visitation of demonic face and at the end of the movie so not too bad.

My explanation of the story is, to be honest, better structured than the film and the structure tried to be clever and ended up just becoming confused. I was unsure of some of the motivations and some of the film aspects were there, not so much to shock, but to indicate why this person became the killer we meet and in themselves were, perhaps, unnecessary.

All that doesn’t take away from the fact that I enjoyed watching this. Such a confession does not make this a good film. It is flawed, perhaps fatally so, and yet it succeeds where perhaps it shouldn’t but, nevertheless, it does succeed. 3.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Vampire Knight – season 1 – review

Director: unknown

Release date: 2008

Contains spoilers

Vampire Knight is a Shōjo anime, in other words it is an anime aimed primarily at a female audience age approximately 10 to 18 but mostly the teen section of that demographic. As such it is a romance, at least on the surface, and eschews the fan service we are perhaps more familiar with (inappropriately sexual glimpses of the female characters) for glimpses of pale, tousled haired male characters and the chests thereof.

You might be forgiven for wondering, therefore, if this would be a worthwhile experience – unless you happen to be part of the target audience – and the answer is yes. As well as the romance – which has a Gothic, unrequited edge – the series has an interesting lore backdrop, strong story telling and a boat full of melodrama. Actually given the sparseness of the action (there is some but it is not an episodic constant as it might be in more male orientated anime) it would need these elements to maintain it as a piece.

The main character is Yuki Cross (Yui Horie). Her earliest memory is from the age of five and is of being attacked by a vampire. She was saved by Kaname Kuran (Daisuke Kishio), himself a vampire, and taken to Kaien Cross (Hozumi Gôda), who agreed to raise – and also adopted – the girl. Kaien is the headmaster of the Cross Academy and Yuki, ten years after the attack, is a prefect there.

The other prefect is Zero (Mamoru Miyano). He survived a vampire attack, in which his vampire hunter family were wiped out, and as such hates all vampires. The only problem is, in something that is hinted at through the first few episodes and quickly revealed, he is a vampire. Having been bitten by a pureblood (I’ll come to the vampire types soon) he is turning.

Kaname is now the dorm president of the night school at the academy. Cross has set his school up into a day and night school and the night school are all vampires sworn, under the leadership of Kaname, to not attack the day pupils (who are mainly girls, who swoon every time they see the night school students). The prefects’ role is to police the situation and prevent the identity of the vampires from being discovered.

Clearly the romance is going to be a triangle between Yuki, Zero and Kaname – but it is all hint, mainly. I say mainly because Yuki allows Zero to feed from her and the feeding is rather sexual in the way it is drawn or suggestive thereof, at least.

The lore is extensive. Vampire society is governed by the Council of the Ancients, who in themselves are not a sovereign body. The top of the tree are purebloods – quite a rarity now. They have a variety of abilities and can force lesser vampires to do their will. There is no human blood in their lineage.

There are then born vampires with a human blood aspect and the lowest of the pile are Level E vampires. Level E vampires are humans who have been bitten by a pureblood and thus turned into a vampire. They always loose their senses eventually and become killing machines. Both the vampire hunters and the higher vampires hunt Level E’s – Zero, of course, is fighting becoming a Level E. Drinking a pureblood’s blood stops the decent into madness and makes them a full vampire.

The vampires are nocturnal but can come out during the day. Zero has an anti-vampire gun that fires a cross symbol that will kill a vampire. On death they turn to dust. Someone (connected presumably to the headmaster) has developed a tablet that, when dropped in water, simulates blood – though zero cannot take the tablet for some reason.

Zero has a tattoo on his neck and, later, a charm is activated on Yuki’s bracelet that when brought into close proximity of the tattoo causes Zero to be mystically restrained. Later he is held in a more elaborate version of the design. We see a variety of abilities, such as a power over ice or over fire and the ability to make a blood whip.

As the series progresses we see that there is more to this than the unfulfilled love triangle and that the main protagonists are drawn together by past tragedies that need to be answered.

The music is excellent through the series and really added to the atmosphere and, in the main, the animation helped draw that atmosphere around the viewer. What was perhaps not as useful was a reliance on the chibi type style, which actually took away from the melodrama and seemed a little silly within what was, primarily, a drama.

Nevertheless this was worthwhile. 6.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Bitten – review

Directed by: Harvey Glazer

Release date: 2008

Contains spoilers

Also known as “Lady is a Vamp” and “Twice Shy”, this aired on Sky 3 under the title Bitten and is essentially a vehicle for Jason Mewes who plays paramedic Jack. Now, a confession here – I really rate Jason Mewes, I find he has a real talent at timing an absolutely inappropriate and yet hilariously funny profanity. The movie itself has some holes and issues but its strength lies within making the most out of Mewes innate abilities.

It all begins with Jack and his partner Roger (Richard Fitzpatrick) out on a job and Jack trying to talk down a patient complaining about bugs in his brains. Unfortunately Roger had left Jack to deal with him whilst he went to the toilet – Roger has irritable bowl syndrome and this leads to a source of running gags and the character’s anal obsession. Jack’s mind is clearly not on the job and this has much to do with the fact that he has been dumped by his girlfriend Sherry (Jordan Madley) – leaving him for her yoga instructor and demanding her stuff back, including the frame of her picture.

Jack lives in a not particularly nice neighbourhood. There are drug pushers, addict prostitutes and he has an on-running battle with his landlady Mrs Lee (Grace Armas) – she’ll get her rent when he gets his plumber. Coming home from working the graveyard shift, despondent at ever meeting another girl, he sees a mysterious woman (Erica Cox) covered in blood near his door. She has a bite wound but refuses to go to the hospital. He takes her in.

Of course, the next night at work, Roger thinks he is mad, by the time Jack gets home his apartment will be cleared out. When he gets home, however, she is waiting and tells him her name is Danica. Jack goes to sleep but awakes to find her shivering and shaking. He tries to give her an aspirin but she vomits it back immediately. He calls Roger who, having checked her neck and seen two tiny track marks, declares she is a junky going through withdrawal. Jack decides he’ll watch her anyway.

He is leaving for work when Sherry turns up, demanding her stuff. He blows her off but she has a key and enters his home when he leaves. Danica confronts her and her eyes flash blue. When Jack returns from work he finds Sherry dead on the floor. He asks Danica what she did and, despite the gore and the body they start to get it on – until Danica bites him. He looks and she has fangs.

Pulling her over to the window he exposes her arm to the sun and it starts to steam. She runs into another room and when he approaches her we see that the burn is rather nasty. Despite the fangs, the burning in sunlight and the body of his ex, Jack seems rather smitten – one of the under-currents of the story is bad relationship choices – and he admits that, for killing Sherry, he doesn’t know whether to phone the cops or buy her flowers.

This was one of the film's issues, his reactions seem all over the place. Perhaps there is some obsessive need to be loved, later he confesses that he is scared someone will take her away from him, but it doesn’t necessarily feel natural – especially given his profession. On the other hand it leads to the black comedy, which is what the film is all about. He cleans the mess, that is Sherry, up and the comedy comes to the fore as, whilst bubble wrapping her, we hear a “tidy up your mess” song that appears to be straight out of Barney & Friends.

By the next night Danica is ill once more, the hunger is like a fire in her stomach she says. Jack tries a few methods to deal with this. The first being the old staple of providing a cat… which he has to catch first. We don’t see the feed, simply hear it, which perhaps is as well as the shock value of such a scene has diminished since Count Yorga, Vampire. We see the aftermath of throwing it up, animals are clearly no good.

He then tries a blood pack, which he steals from work (the act of which will tweak his co-workers’ radars). She cannot drink that either – it is cold and dead. Then he offers her his arm – but it isn’t enough. Finally he succumbs and entices a drug dealer in – whom she feeds from. However the feed is violent but also clearly, for Danica, sexual – something that doesn’t impress Jack. When they go to put the body with Sherry’s (in a foot locker) Sherry revives, attacks and they have to stake her.

However, it is the enticement of an innocent back to his appartment that finally turns Jack from Danica. Danica and Jack cannot have sex as the bite and sex are clearly connected. Instead she brings home a woman called Maya (Amy Lynn Grover) for a threesome – so she can bite Maya if it becomes too much! How does one break up with a girl when she is a vampire?

I mentioned that there were some issues and a couple of them are within the lore the film introduces. Early in the relationship Danica bites Jack at least twice and he doesn’t turn. Does the person have to be killed or, given that Danica wasn’t, near death to turn? The film doesn’t explain. There is also the exponential aspect of bite and turn lore – though we assume most victims are left for the sun. This is the second issue, however. We see Danica, Maya and Jack in bed and the sun moves across the room to give a sense of time elapsing… right over, a strangely not burning, Danica.

For those looking for a complex over-arching story, you won’t find one but that isn’t what the film is about. The film is a black comedy and relies heavily on Mewes’ delivery to provide it. He doesn’t let us down. Erica Cox is sultry, mysterious and dangerous as Danica but the real revelation was Richard Fitzpatrick. He and Mewes worked well together and the banter was wonderfully natural. Fitzpatrick has a great sense of timing and some cracking lines. “That f*cking bitch has fangs and she’s angrier than my first f*cking wife.” ranks as one of the best ‘it’s a vampire’ revelation moments in a movie.

This is worthwhile for the irreverent black comedy. It is a film about relationships draining the life out of you and effecting all aspects of your life, so is cynical on all sorts of levels, and it has a dour view of society. It made great use of Mewes and I, for one, particularly enjoyed it. Just don’t expect something of epic story proportion. 6.5 out of 10.

Incidentally, do watch this through the credits as there are outtakes throughout and then, at the very end, a coda to the story.

The imdb page is here.

Dark Reading and a trailer

The first edition of new dark literature and art zine Ethereal Tales is now available and has some vampiric goodness amongst other dark tales. It also has within its pages an exclusive chapter of my novel Concilium Sanguinarius. At a price (including postage) of between £2.60 - £3.70 (dependent on where in the world you are) it really is a bargain.

Also, ready for a January 2009 release (presumably US), comes the trailer for Underworld: Rise of the Lycans – the third in the franchise. It can be seen over at Popwatch, it is the third trailer down.

Vamp or Not? The return of Doctor X

This was a 1939 movie, directed by Vincent Sherman, and featured Humphrey Bogart in a role originally designed for Boris Karloff. I was simply going to review the film, however when I went to do some research I found that it was not listed in David Pirie’s ‘The Vampire Cinema’ nor in either the Vampire Encyclopaedia or the Vampire Book. At this point I decided to look at it under the auspices of ‘Vamp or Not?’ – though my thoughts on it were clearly aimed towards vamp.

This was not necessarily the best put together movie. Ostensibly a sequel to Doctor X (1932) it has precious little to do with that film – not even the character name is the same. Bogart himself was forced to do the film by Jack Warner, allegedly as a punishment for something, and was Bogart’s only horror flick – we shall look at what Bogart had to say about the film later. It is also notable that character names seem to change between script and credit and characters/actors are listed that don’t even appear.

Walter Garrett (Wayne Morris, whose character is credited as Barrett) is a newspaperman and phones actress Angela Merrova (Lya Lys) to ask for an interview. She calls him on over but, as she puts the phone down she is grabbed. Walt gets there and, as he serves both the role of main investigator and comedy relief, falls through the unlocked door in a ‘hilarious’ scene that tickled the filmmakers so much they had to do it twice! In the room he finds Merrova’s body and rather than phone the police he phones his editor.

The police arrive after the story is printed but, when they get there, the body is gone. Walt is convinced the body has been taken, no one could survive a stab below the heart and she looked white, as though a lot of blood had been taken, but that theory is blown when she turns up in his editor’s office and threatens to sue the paper. Walt is fired.

He goes to his friend Dr Mike Rhodes (Dennis Morgan) to try and make sense of what he has seen. Mike’s a little busy as he is meant to be assisting surgeon Dr Flegg (John Litel) but the blood donor for the transfusion, Stanley Rodgers (John Ridgely), has not arrived. Luckily new nurse Joan Vance (Rosemary Lane) has the right blood group (group 1, the rarest kind).

After the operation the police summon Mike, Walt goes with him. Rogers has been murdered and the body is in the same state that Walt claimed to have found Merrova in. There is blood on the floor that the police labs have already tested and found to be group 4. As Rogers is group 1 Mike tries to retest it but it doesn’t seem right, it doesn’t appear to be either human or animal. He leaves Walt and then goes to ask Flegg for his opinion.

At Flegg’s he meets a strange man. His name… well he is credited as Marshall Quesne (Humphrey Bogart) but it sounds like Kane when spoken in dialogue. He is a strange, pasty looking man with a mallen streak and is holding a rabbit, which in itself is all kinds of disturbing. Bogart looks creepy, in a ‘lurk in the bushes’ sort of way, but, to me, never got a horror menace thing going on.

Flegg explains that Quesne is his assistant and then checks the blood sample. He informs Mike that he is wrong and it is obviously group 4 blood. Mike leaves but all this has been observed by Walt who then sees Merrova arrive and be given a transfusion by the doctor. So what is going on…?

Well there is some investigation, a confession by Merrova, her death (again) and Walt realising that Quesne is actually Dr Maurice Xavier (according to the credits and in-film gravestone, the in-film newspaper clipping cites his name as Eugene) – a doctor who was put to death by the electric chair after being caught experimenting with starvation symptoms in babies, in other words he starved them to death. They confirm his identity by digging up the empty coffin. Flegg presided over the execution.

Flegg admits that he brought Xavier back to life and demonstrates his technique on a bunny. There is a touch of Frankenstein here, in that electricity is needed to de-coagulate the blood. A serum and artificial blood is then used. He chose Xavier as he was a medical genius and, in Flegg’s opinion, a martyr to science. So where is our vampire element?

Xavier’s body can no longer synthesise blood and the artificial blood doesn’t work well enough. He is stealing the blood to keep himself alive and he needs… group 1 blood. The fact that Flegg has a list of group 1 donors is helping him choose his victims – for instance Joan is now in mortal danger – and Flegg revived Merrova temporarily so that she could then die in less suspicious circumstances.

As an aside, and whether this was purposeful or not I do not know, but Xavier’s year of birth was 1897 – the year in which Dracula was published.

What we have, therefore, is a living corpse. A man (and for a while a woman, plus a bunny) who has been brought back from the dead and, as a result, looks pasty faced and has cold, clammy hands. Then we have the fact that he must take blood in order that he might survive. The fact that it was (pseudo) science based doesn’t take away from the fact that we have a dead man forcibly taking blood to live.

Does he drink it… probably not, he most likely transfuses it but Bogart saw a different blood sucker as he made the film. “This is one of the pictures that made me march in… and ask for more money again. You can't believe what this one was like. I had a part that somebody like Bela Lugosi or Boris Karloff should have played. I was this doctor, brought back to life, and the only thing that nourished this poor bastard was blood. If it had been Jack Warner's blood, or Harry's, or Pop's, maybe I wouldn't have minded as much. The trouble was, they were drinking mine and I was making this stinking movie.”

This is a problem with the film, of course. Bogart’s heart was not in it and he was miscast. The skill of the man tried to out but he was not a creature of horror, as it were. The comedy relief is simply annoying and there is never really a feeling of peril for our main characters (except perhaps Joan and even then we know that the rescue party is hot on her heels).

It felt, to me at least, very much by the numbers and never really escaped that but I would say it is a vampire movie.

The imdb page is here.