Vamp or Not? Fascination

The 1979 film Fascination, by Jean Rollin, is one that often graces vampire filmographies and it does feature blood drinking. However, despite the DVD sitting amongst my vampire DVDs, when I came to look at this for the blog I knew I was going to have to look at it under the auspices of ‘Vamp or Not?’ Are they vampires? We shall see.

The film opens with a portrait of a man and then pans down until the camera rests upon a large book. A female hand caresses the book, releases the clasps and opens it. Clearly the book had some significance to what Rollin was saying within the film. Unfortunately I do not really know much French – so if a kind reader wishes to let us know what the book is, feel free to do so.

We move to an abattoir and a woman stands amongst the blood, the butcher enters with a man and two more women. One moves to the first, they are contrasted in their virginal white and mourning black clothes. The butcher brings the sole woman a glass of blood, before bringing the same to the other two. It is ox’s blood and the man, evidently a doctor, suggests it is the best cure they have (in 1905) for anaemia. One of the women rubs blood upon her lips and the doctor admonishes her, it isn’t a game it is a therapy.

A group gather together. Marc (Jean-Marie Lemaire) dresses in an almost dandified way and points out to his companions – three men and a woman in man’s clothing – that the information was good, *he* had gold. It is clear they have just robbed a man. Marc suggests they meet in a month, he will have travelled to London and sold the gold and will return to split it with them. They want their share immediately and Marc, to aid an escape, grabs the woman as a hostage. Later she tries to seduce him, to much laughter from Marc, and so knees him in the groin and runs. He gets a couple of shots off but misses her. Suddenly she is back, with her companions. They shoot at Marc, grazing his neck; he runs and makes it to a chateau.

The bandits stop, there is a moat around the chateau and the only way to reach it is by bridge. They have him trapped and wait to make him feel he has escaped. In the chateau Marc sees two women. He managed to catch one, we later discover that she is Eva (Brigitte Lahaie), whom he questions. She is the lady in waiting and the other girl, Elizabeth (Franca Mai), is a companion to the owner of the chateau. All the other servants are away and are due back the next day. He catches sight of the girl trying to get to the bridge and prevents her escape – Elizabeth was one of the women in the abattoir.

He locks both of them in a room but they giggle, they have another key. They start to kiss and, when he comes back in, they mock him gently. He locks them in again and the two girls get it on with each other before using their key to escape. Marc is counting his gold when Eva sneaks up behind him and kisses him. They get knives and brandish them but he knocks them away and gets his gun. Eva starts to strip and offers him some rumpy pumpy, so he goes off with her. Elizabeth says to him, out of earshot, that she thinks she could have loved him.

She sneaks into the room where Marc and Eva are going for it and takes the gun. In a room, on her own, she lifts the gun to her mouth and is obviously contemplating suicide. We hear the gun go off, she is fine and says it went off when she was playing with it. The question is, what was Rollin doing with this scene? Certainly a suicide would, traditionally, become a vampire. Perhaps it was meant to show us self loathing? Did she shoot herself and survive? Probably not as we see Eva shot later and wounded and Elizabeth doesn’t have a scratch on her but, at this point of the film, we are not to know that.

Marc is concerned as the sound of the shot will have attracted the bandits and indeed there is a gun battle across the bridge. That is until Eva leaves the chateau and approaches them – carrying the bag of gold. She passes it to them and asks them to leave but they want to count it and so she takes them to the stables. Marc says that they will kill Eva, but Elizabeth seems confident that she’ll be back. When he asks about who they expect that night she replies death.

Two of the men count the gold whilst the girl and her husband take Eva further into the stables. The husband makes Eva strip her dress so that his wife can wear it and go walking whilst he has his way with her. Eva stabs the man and then puts on a cloak and picks up a scythe. In the iconic scene of the movie she kills the other two men and the wife with the scythe whilst wearing the cloak; she truly appears to have become death.

So what is going on? The two girls are playing games with Marc to try and keep him there – though Elizabeth’s heart isn’t in it as she has truly fallen for him – something Marc doesn’t believe as it seems unlikely, which is a sentiment the viewer would have shared, believing it no more than a plot contrivance, had Marc not uttered the line. That night Hélène (Fanny Magier) and four women appear and they, with the two girls, are having an annual reunion. There is a lot of game playing but the truth that comes out is that two of the club or cult must go ahead and lure a man and get him to stay.

In the past many of them used to go to the abattoir for ox blood but then some decided to try human blood. So are they vampires? Well they wear chiffon robes, which in the world of Jean Rollin might be a tell. When Eva is injured four of them are drawn to her blood and, despite her being one of their number, they descend on her to feed. One of them calls to Hélène to satisfy her thirst and another mentions that they can soon rest as it will soon be daylight – yet we have seen the two girls during the day.

Elizabeth admits that once you have tasted blood it is like an addiction and the vampire genre often represents the bourgeois as vampires and this time around it is the bourgeois being vampires. It is a blood cult, we have no evidence of supernatural aspects and yet it is Rollin and what he does with this is take familiar genre elements and twists them into an unusual – and visually striking – film. These seem more than people playing vampires and I think this one deserves its place on the filmographies. I am going vamp with Fascination.

The imdb page is here.

Jugular Wine: A Vampire Odyssey – review

Director: Blair Murphy

Release date: 1994

Contains spoilers

It seems appropriate to me that the opening of this movie displays a quote by Walt Whitman, after all the father of the modern vampire genre, Bram Stoker, was a great admirer of Whitman and corresponded with him for some time. Did Blair Murphy know this and thus use a Whitman quote as an obscure connection to Stoker, thus Dracula? I don’t know.

The film itself, however, is almost a psychedelic trip into the world of the undead – almost, because the road map is lost and the whole event descends into a mess. It begins with James Grace (Shaun Irons), on board ship in Alaskan waters and a rather long narration that falters between artistic and documentary in style and fails because of this.

He tells us of how he met Alexandra (Alexandra), a vampire. He was an anthropologist working on his thesis and she needed a daytime guardian as she headed into Alaska – a place were many undead migrated as the nights drew shorter. She was being hunted by one called Legion – the oldest of their kind. She had taken James’ blood and the next night would replace it to make him vampire. Legion is waiting for her, however.

James is held by Nickadeamous (Blair Murphy), whilst another, female, vampire (Ryuko Wakabayashi) holds off a crew member. Legion rips Alexandra’s heart out. James grabs a flare gun and shoots the female vampire – killing her – later it would be described as a harpoon but it was definitely a flare gun. Legion grabs James and tells him that if he survived he would wish he was dead.

James returns to Philadelphia, he is ill and loosing weight but does not know why, he knows he is not a vampire. Strangely, he later wonders whether he might be until he remembers that Alexandra did not give him her blood… never mind, consistency is not the name of the game here. He clears his desk, to the bemusement of fellow grad student Frank (Frank Miller) and prof Baker (Stan Lee). Incidentally, these aren’t the only cameos… Henry Rollins turns up later as himself for a brief moment of mirror gesticulation in a toilet (I kid you not).

Having gone to see his wife (Grace Gongliewski) – presumably estranged – and daughter (Meghan Bashaw) he tries to research all he can about vampires. He finds an obscure reference by a Dr Donna Park to the legends of the Inuit about mythical creatures that resemble vampires and tries to track her down, but she has been missing 15 years.

All the time he seems to be watched and receives a cryptic note to meet us at Caligari’s Casket – a nightclub. He has trouble getting in until a previous student, Monica (Rachelle Packer) speaks to the doormen. We should note the large screen displaying Nosferatu. He ditches Monica, spies on Henry Rollins and then awakens at Monica’s home – he passed out. She offers to work for him but he refuses.

Anyway, we end on a magical mystery tour through New Orleans, up to Hollywood and back to Philadelphia… finally going full circle back to Alaska. We discover that Alexandra was Legion’s bride and that Monica is, completely known to herself, one of his chosen ones. We discover that Donna Parks became a vampire and it was she that James killed by flare gun. We see him framed for murder, for little reason than having a laugh.

All the time we are not one hundred percent sure as to what is happening as the film is, as I said, rather psychedelic. One might get the feeling of art house in its obscurity but, despite throwing imagery in left, right and centre – as well as filmic effects – the film fails to maintain any level of narrative. This is despite the voice over, or maybe because of it. The narration by James was less noir and more arty and told us little.

This is where the film falls apart. I guess they were trying to show the decent into undeath but they didn’t succeed. The lack of narrative through any of the film’s mediums leads it to be ultimately very boring and the 95 minute running time seems to go on and on and on. Not a great film, but I could see what they were trying to do and I do love the title. 2 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

;)Q

Music: Soulidium

Everlost spotted this over at Vampire Movies. I can’t argue with a thing in their article and just had to embed the video and share.

Enjoy.

Honourable Mentions: Scrubs – My Urologist – TV Episode

I like Scrubs, its not that I watch it religiously but whenever it is on I enjoy it. For those who don’t know it follows the exploits of young doctor, John “J.D.” Dorian ( Zach Braff) and the staff at Sacred Heart Hospital. Most episodes are primarily from J.D.’s point of view and he is prone to fantasise – these fantasies are in the episode, interspersing the events.

In this episode, from season 5 and directed by Richard A Wells, he discovers that he is attracted to the urologist Dr Kim Briggs (Elizabeth Banks), who happens to be assigned to one of his patients. He also discovers that she wears a wedding ring – with an amusing scene that shows that women turn invisible to J.D., normally, when they are wearing a wedding ring.

When he realises the attraction he flips into fantasy mode and states, “Kim, wait! I know I can’t make you mine, unless I make you mine… for eternity…” At the same time bearing vampire fangs. Kim responds, “Dr Acula, don’t…. stop!” as she relaxes into the bite, wind whips their hair and the scene spirals on screen. J.D. ends his fantasy with the revelation that, “Vampires like it windy.” This is a slogan that should be on T-Shirts!

The name Dr Acula comes from (beyond the obvious) a film that J.D. and best friend Dr Turk (Donald Faison) are trying to make. Later in the episode the Janitor (Neil Flynn) is showing a video to Dr Kelso (Ken Jenkins) of Kelso smashing the Janitor’s van up. The camera used to film the footage has been stolen by the Janitor from JD and at the head of the tape is some of the Dr Acula footage.

There are scenes with JD caped and fanged, whilst Turk – uncomfortable with the racial tone – is dressed like he has just walked into a blaxploitation movie. Some static and Turk has reversed things and he is now the vampire. All in all we get just a minute or so vampire related footage in the episode but, once again, it underlines my supposition that vampires get everywhere.

However, this not only supports the vampires get everywhere arguement but also teaches the valuable lesson that vampires like it windy. Great stuff and thanks to Crabstix for making me aware of the episode.

The episode’s imdb page is here.

Honourable Mentions: Emotion: densetsu no gogo = itsukamita Dracula

This was a 1966 short film from Japan and the first vampiric connection is that director/writer Nobuhiko Obayashi made the film in homage to Vadim’s Blood and Roses - indeed the film opens with a still from the film – depicting the death of Carmilla. As such it also owes a debt to Le Fanu’s Carmilla and perhaps it does capture the spirit of the story, in certain ways, as it tries to meet the spirit of Vadim’s opus.

The film begins with scenes that include a vampire – referred to as Dracula – at a bubble releasing piano. We have to remember that this is very much a surreal film, an experimental art film. It captures emotion and plays with the audience. I will admit that perhaps some of the nuances were lost on me as I saw this ‘raw’ as it were, thus in its original mix of English and Japanese but without subtitles. In many respects, however, the films story is relayed in visuals and in the astounding soundtrack that oscillates between chamber music and wild jazz.

The main of the film is about a girl, Emi, who lives by the sea but decides to travel. She meets Sari, who is said to be just like Emi. Emi also meets a man but there is an allusion to relations between Emi and Sari’s mother – who preferred softer flesh and thus preferred Emi. As the film progresses you would be forgiven for wondering where the vampiric connection is. The spirit of Carmilla might be found within the friendship of the two girls but all hints of vampirism seem to have vanished.

It is in the coda when we see two women in a cemetery, in which a vampire seems to lurk. One of the women seemed rather proper and the other seemed more sensual. It was to the more sensual of the two that the vampire came, casting his mojo upon her until she swooned into his arms.

He sucks her blood through a straw and the second woman looks at the first’s neck and sees a single mark (obviously as a straw rather than fangs was used). The woman, now looking pale, turns to the other and goes to bite her neck. We now have two female vampires and they walk deeper into the cemetery. Did it have anything to do with the main film? Not obviously. However the presence of the vampire and the homage to Vadim ensures that this is mentioned here. The imdb page is here.

Breaking News - the Graveyard Book film

I just received a mail from Simon Dyda letting me know that he had come across an announcement (on Twitter) by Neil Gaiman that Neil Jordan will be writing and directing the film adaptation of The Graveyard Book. All I can say is… the Graveyard Book… Neil Gaiman… Neil Jordan… I am salivating at the prospect.

I just wonder who Stephen Rae will play?

First Impressions: Being Human Season 1

Okay, so there has only been 1 episode of Being Human from this first season, but unlike US series that have 22 episodes to play with (when allowed a full run) UK series tend to aim at six episodes. So, for those who don’t know, this is a new UK series, on BBC 3 about a house share with a vampire, a werewolf and a ghost (who was the house owner before she died).

I must admit to some trepidation as I really enjoyed the Pilot Episode of this. To discover that, whilst set after the events of the pilot, the series was not going to take anything that occurred in there as cannon, that the main actors who play the ghost Annie (Lenora Crichlow) and the vampire Mitchell (Aidan Turner) had changed – though the actor playing George the werewolf was still Russell Tovey – and that the comedy factor was being reduced… well it set my expectation hackles up, to say the least.

Was it as good as the pilot… not yet, though the acting was strong, it missed some of the humour. There were still some comedy moments – mainly set around George – but this had a sense of the sentimental that ran under the surface of the episode. So far that has not damaged the set up – I actually enjoyed the Johnny Cash version of Hurt being on the soundtrack – but it might damage it in the future if the writer, Toby Whithouse, is not careful.

There was an incongruous moment, set up as black comedy, when George was having his ‘monthly’. The isolation room in the hospital basement, which he established in the pilot, had workmen in it (no, the concept of workmen hard at it at night wasn’t the incongruous bit). Mitchell drives him to a random bit of country and we see a slapstick moment where the woods are absolutely brimming full of folks. Mitchell takes him back to the house. The wolf tears the downstairs to shreds, whilst Mitchell and Annie sit on the doorstep. Mitchell seemed afraid, though that is not our incongruous moment – he may have been afraid that he would have to hurt his friend or perhaps it was because he was weak through lack of feeding as Mitchell is on the wagon. No it was that the wolf couldn’t get through a window or door to go on the rampage through the town.

Be that as it may, my expectations are now raised, and whilst it could fall to the maudlin I hope it will prove, over its run, more than worthwhile. Certainly it is better than the other UK series at the moment, Demons, which at the time of this first impression is 4 episodes in and this surpassed it by an order of magnitude – hardly surprising as to say that Demons has disappointed would be a huge understatement.

The pilot seems to have an imdb but not the series at the time of writing.

Commercial Vampire: Heineken

There is a beautiful, faux-silent element to this advertisement. At least until the ad creators decided to add in some comedy elements that wrecked what was actually quite a beautiful advert.

Heineken shows us what they believe that fangs are really for in their advert:

Bunnies Twilight

The marvellous 30 Second Bunny Theatre have released their 30 second bunny version of Twilight and it can be found here. As always, the bunnies are wonderful… the phrase, better than the original, springs to mind.

First Impressions: Underworld: Rise of the Lycans

Cheese… large pile of camembert…

That is my first impression….

Oh well, you obviously want more and I am here to provide. I went to see this movie last night, which is the third film in the franchise after Underworld and Underworld Evolution. The film, however, is largely different in several ways.

Firstly, it is a prequel, set in some sort of mythical dark age where vampires rule, human’s bring tribute (unaware that the rulers are vampires) and lycans (or werewolves) hunt the night and the ones whose changing can be controlled are slaves to the vampires.

Secondly, Kate Beckinsale is not in the film… ish. Rhona Mitra takes on the female lead, Sonja, and looks awfully like Beckinsale. Beckinsale does appear at the very end of the movie, in a clip from the first film, with a reminder that she was told during that film that Viktor (Bill Nighy) found her reminiscent of his daughter, Sonja, hence why he turned her. Now I have read complaints, Beckinsale’s not in it those complainers say. Let us make it clear that when Len Wiseman announced film 2 and 3, which at the time where to be shot back to back, he always said that film 3 would be a prequel and the character Selene wouldn’t be in it. Its just that… well that brings us to the third big difference.

Len Wiseman hasn’t directed this, it was directed by Patrick Tatopoulos. There is a direction issue that I will go into.

Basic story then. Vampires are fighting Lycans – which are beasts that lose their humanity and can never take human form. However, one Lycan bitch, in captivity, has a child and Viktor goes all soft hearted (which seems out of character) and doesn’t kill it – incidentally the vampire elders Amelia and Marcus are both asleep in their coffins. The child, Lucian (played as an adult by Michael Sheen), grows and can control his lycan side – though it is moon tied. Viktor breeds lycan slaves from Lucian’s infection – stoping them changing at will by putting inward spiked collars on them.

It is odd that he speaks, when observing the child Lucian, to Sonja – who is a child herself. The hint is that she was human until she was changed when she blossomed into womanhood – Viktor mentions her mother dying when she was born – but it is not clearly explored. Be that as it may Sonja and Lucian become adults, he a privileged slave, who is a blacksmith, and she royalty amongst the vampires. She treats him with scorn, publicly, but sneaks off for naked rendezvous with him – which giving the 18 certificate was depressingly tasteful! He has made a key for his collar and wishes her to run away with him but, removing his collar is a punishable act and defiling a vampire… especially if she were to become pregnant with a hybrid…

It is cheese. We can see this in the dialogue. Nighy and Mitra chew up the clunky dialogue with a seriousness that just makes it laughable, especially as the delivery isn’t necessarily that good from Mitra. Unfortunately it does get a bit talky from time to time, which is a shame really as the point of the film is action. Luckily Steven Mackintosh reprises his role as Tannis and brings a fluid natural quality to it that helps off-set the worse excesses and Michael Sheen has returned as Lucian who, like in the first film, is the best thing in the movie (even if he is doing a full on Spartacus at times).

The film, of course, is primarily an action film and there are three big issues here. Firstly it is awfully like Lord of the Rings (in style, not quality – I hasten to add). The vampire armour looks a lot like the elven armour design and the attack of Lycans against the castle wall was so like the Battle of Helms Deep, it was untrue. I thought that as I saw it but perhaps doubted myself. However the two people I went to the cinema with said the same thing, even to the point of wondering whether they had gone mad before saying so. That madness, as it were, stems from the fact that quality wise this is a million miles off. However it underlines that despite a goblet of blood, one bite and some burning in the sun, the vampires may have been anything; their vampiric nature was not overtly explored.

The second issue was inescapable, due to the fact that this was a prequel. The cumulative battle between Lucian and Viktor meant nothing, and had no sense of tension, as we know that they both survive because we saw the first film.

The third and biggest issue, however, was in the direction. Shaky camera work, though not as bad as some recent features, and constant rapid fast cutting do not make for good action sequences and show that the director is either not confident or not very good with action. There are directors out there who are fantastic with action. Far East cinema has spawned more good action directors than you can shake a stick at. One wonders why many films still fail to capitalise on the talent available.

All that said, however, I did enjoy this in a take your brain out popcorn sort of way. I had low expectations going in and so didn’t feel they were dashed and it did what it was meant to do - though not what it believed it should do as it took itself altogether too seriously. It is the weakest of the three movies, of that there is no doubt, but I didn’t feel I had wasted an evening. Incidentally, it was wonderful to see the trailer for Lesbian Vampire Killers on the big screen – now that looks like fun.

A full review, as always, when the DVD becomes available. The imdb page is here and the official site is here.

I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle – review

Directed by: Dirk Campbell

Release date: 1990

Contains spoilers


British comedies really either work or don’t. It actually doesn’t matter – to a degree – how silly or irreverent they get, if they work they work. You can’t get much sillier or more irreverent than I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle. It isn’t the only vampire motor vehicle movie, the 1981 Upír z Feratu has never, as far as I know, been dubbed or subtitled into English but has a vampire Ferrari. However vampiric machinery, as a sub genre, has not got a lot of entries.

Okay, it isn’t the undead – it was never alive and therefore it isn’t undead – but the standard vampire rules apply as we will see and it deserves its place within the genre.

The mean streets of Birmingham are the location for our tale and it might actually be a cautionary tale about things being too good to be true or perhaps just a case of caveat emptor. Things begin, however, with a group of Satanist bikers holding a ritual. Their leader (Brendan Donnison) is calling upon the demon Arroman when another group of Hell’s Angels attack them, the cult leader being the first to die. Unseen by the attackers the demon possesses the cult leader’s body.

They slaughter all the Satanist Bikers, accidentally lodging an arrow into the fuel tank of the cult leader’s Norton Commando, and we discover that the reason for the fracas is simply because the Satanists were on the victor’s patch. They ride off and fail to see the possessed body stand, one eye glowing red. He stumbles to his bike but it won’t turn over, the fuel has leaked through the hole in the tank. He opens his own throat and bleeds into the fuel tank – transferring the demonic essence to the bike.

Noddy (Neil Morrissey) is a motorcycle courier. He stops off at a bike shop as he saw an advert stating they had a slightly damaged Norton Commando for sale. The bike is going for £1500 but there is a hole in the fuel tank. Noddy managed to get the bike for £1100 and will pick it up that evening. Getting back to work he tells Kim (Amanda Noar), the dispatcher and his girl, that he managed to get it for £600. Noddy and his mate Buzzer (Daniel Peacock) will pick it up by van and work on it.

He gets it home and Buzzer steals the fuel cap when he’s not looking., later claiming there never was one. They work on it but, despite fuel in the lines, can’t get it to turn over. That is until Buzzer cuts his hand and some blood gets on the engine. The next day it seems that the petrol cap has been returned but when Noddy and Kim get into work there is a message from the police to send someone round to Buzzer’s home. Noddy goes and meets Inspector Cleaver (Michael Elphick). Buzzer’s flat is splattered with blood and has tyre tracks on the wall. Noddy is needed to identify his friend's decapitated head. As an aside, Cleaver’s breath reeks of garlic… hmm… that’s likely to come into this…

Noddy, despite the death of Buzzer, replaces the Norton’s fuel tank. During this sequence we get to see through the motorcycle’s point of view (via the headlight) and it appears it is appreciative of Kim’s attributes. Noddy takes it for a test ride. All is well until the bike spots the Hells Angels, Noddy looses control and it runs them off the road – their leader, Roach (Andrew Powell), declares vendetta. When he gets home, Noddy says that he will have to look at the steering as it is obviously off! He then suffers two nightmares about Buzzer. The second was a step too far as his friend comes back as a talking poo that jumps in his mouth, you could have left that scene out for me though it pre-dated Mr Hanky. On the street the bike eats a dog that pees on it.

In the morning Kim and Noddy are due to go to Buzzer’s funeral but the bike is gone. Then Kim finds it in the shed (assuming Noddy forgot he put it in there). He tries to get it out but the engine cuts out and it stalls – just before the line of sunlight. They take his other bike. In the evening he is trying to get the bike running and succeeds eventually (night falls). He and Kim go for a drink. Unfortunately the Hells Angels go to the same pub and they recognise the bike. As Noddy and Roach fight inside the bike wrecks the Angel’s bikes outside.

Kim and Noddy get away and – having just fought a dozen bikers, indulged in a sword fight and Noddy having been shot in the arm by an arrow – they stop off for a Chinese take away at the Fu King Restaurant run by Burt Kwouk. Kim is on the bike outside but, when she shouts for Noddy to get garlic prawns, the bike takes off – eliciting the response “Where’s that bloody tart gone with my bike.” The Bike throws her off and is going to attack her when it backs off (she is wearing a crucifix).

The bike then goes on a bloody rampage, taking out the bike gang (except Roach who is saved when he passes a crossroads sign) and many others. Noddy gets a call to say that Kim is in hospital but is loath to believe her story. However, when the bike is in the shed the next day with a severed leg in its headlight and a tank of blood, Noddy goes to a priest (Anthony Daniels) for help. The priest disbelieves Noddy until the bike takes his fingers and then they are in a race against time to exorcise the bike before the sun sets…

Great, great fun. All the standard vampire motifs are there. The bike shies from the cross and garlic repels it. Sunlight destroys it (including artificial light from a sun bed). Certain things don’t work. Running water fails – Noddy pushes it into a river but it survives – and whilst the priest and Noddy carry stakes there is no suggestion as to where they might stick them! We get unusual vampire deterrents such as the crucifix shuriken – something one feels we don’t see enough of in the genre.

Of course the bike itself feeds on blood and whilst it can develop spikes and also fire them, and the headlight can bite as well as being an eye, we do see the bike develop a pair of prongs that it can push into the neck like a standard vampire would use fangs. A demonic basis for the vampire is not that unusual in the genre and makes sense of the fear of religious artefacts.

Of course comedies are as reliant on the players as they are the gags. Elphick, Morrissey and David Daker, who plays a desk sergeant, had all worked together in the British comedy/drama Boon and so had a chemistry already – though their screen time together was limited in this. Morrissey always makes for a personable, if a little dim, character. However we must mention Anthony Daniels (yes, C3P0) who was absolutely marvellous.

Great stuff. 7 out of 10. The imdb page is here.

Blood – review

Directed by: Andy Milligan

Release Date: 1973

Contains spoilers

When I last looked at an Andy Milligan film, The Body Beneath, I stated that “it had something, it isn’t a good film by all the standards of cinema but there is that indefatigable earnestness, which in itself can make something worthwhile.” That statement stands as well for this, which had the largest budget Milligan ever worked with - $20K. The film is almost lost – you’ll have to find a ropey bootleg I’m afraid – and I don’t know how much has been cut. Certainly there were bad edits in the version I saw and the running time was only some 57 minutes (Imdb suggests that it was 74 minutes long but other sources suggest 57 minutes is right).

The film is a period piece and yet it feels all wrong for being so. The costumes of the principles look Victorian (and were likely made by Milligan himself) but the locations do not feel period and so it makes an awkward juxtaposition. Similarly the language has a faux-Victorian formality, which feeds into the dialogue feeling stagy at best, yet occasionally falls into a more modern cadence. Yet within the 57 minutes, despite the poor effects glaring out of the scratched celluloid, you get such an avalanche of concepts that you just can’t be bored.

It begins with gardens, the sound of birds and bells, of the wind whistling. It is 1886 and a realtor, Mr Markham (Martin Reymert), is showing a house to one Doctor Lawrence Orlovsky (Allan Berendt) newly returned from Europe. He explains that the gardens have gone to weed, but if he or his wife were of a gardening persuasion… He is too busy, the Doctor gruffly explains, and his wife suffers a skin condition, exposure to the sun would kill her. He only looks at one room and takes the house, kicking the realtor out with short shrift. His servants/assistants, Carrie (Patricia Gaul), Orlando (Michael Fischetti) and Carlotta (Pichulina Hempi) carry his wife, Regina (Hope Stansbury), in. Uncovering her to give her a shot of her serum, we see she is a (badly created) decaying vampire. The syringe is broken and they have to cut her flesh to get the serum into her system.

Let us look at the Doctor's help for a moment, for they underline the sadistic streak that Milligan seems to have (and brings out in respect of characters). Carrie has a gammy leg and, when the Doctor looks at it, he says it is getting worse but they’ll sort it. Like he promised (and failed to do for) Orlando, who has lost both his legs the same way. How? They have been bitten by the carnivorous plants that they are extracting the vampire’s serum from. Once bitten, the wound is infected almost immediately and contagious – Orlando’s arm is bitten later and they have to cauterise it with a lamp in order to save it, in a scene reminiscent of dealing with vampire bites in Hammer’s Kiss of the Vampire. They feed the plants blood, which they take from Carlotta, an orphan they picked up in Budapest who was a bright girl until the taking of too much blood starved her brain of oxygen and caused brain damage. Carlotta is blamed whenever anything goes wrong.

We see that Regina is a petty woman, jealous of Carrie – though in truth Carrie is with Orlando. That said Laurence isn’t particularly loving or, for that matter, sexual towards her – we discover later that theirs was an arranged marriage. She is also homicidal. Johnny (David Bevans), Carrie’s brother, comes around and (after a heavily cut scene that had enough footage left to suggest incest between the siblings) Regina gets him alone. She buries a cleaver in his skull and disposes of him with acid.

Meanwhile Laurence has gone to see his father’s solicitor, Carl Root (John Wallowitch), whom Laurence suspects has been cheating the estate whilst in his role of executor (something we discover to be true later). Whilst there he meets and falls in love with Root’s assistant Prudence Towers (Pamela Adams). I couldn’t help but get the feeling that Root’s look was based on Knock from Nosferatu. Root does not take kindly to Laurance's presence or intimations and reminds him that he knows his real familial name… Talbot… hmmm… Laurence, or Larry, Talbot… I think you know where this is going.

Laurence gets Prudence to go to the cemetery where she tells him what Root has been up to. She wants to deny her feelings but they end up kissing when a woman approaches with a lantern. She is Petra, the hag (Eve Crosby) and when she realises that Laurence is Talbot’s son she encourages him to leave – it is the night of a full moon. She keeps Prudence with her. Laurence does transform into a wolfman but Carrie manages to sedate him.

Unfortunately Petra tries to blackmail the Orlovsky’s, speaking to Regina. During the conversation she actually tells her that she saw Lawrence and Prudence kissing. Of course Petra ends up as vampire chow for her trouble but it also means that Prudence is on Regina's radar. A transformed Laurence kills Root and it all leads to the inevitable battle between werewolf and vampire. To keep the full monster mash feel going we even get a brief appearance by Baron von Frankenstein (Lawrence Seelars).

Vampire wise we see Regina react to a religious artefact, she cannot stand sunlight and she has no reflection. She is actually Dracula’s daughter – why, given their normal relationship, Dracula and the Wolfman would arrange for the marriage of their children is beyond me, but it doesn’t matter really. There is some talk flying around about rabid bats being in a cut section of this but, as they did appear at all, there is no indication of the scene existing in what remains.

Okay, it isn’t good cinema but there is something absolutely compelling about this film. It is probably for the best that it is under an hour in length. The performances are good in terms of this level of film but bad in the grand scheme of things and awfully like a community play. What can I tell you? Just like the Body Beneath this is wrong and yet necessary; like a sadistic version of Ed Wood. 3 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.