Cremains – review

Director: Steve Sessions

Release date: 2001

Contains spoilers

Cremains is a low budget horror portmanteau film that opens with Count Gore De Vol (Richard Dyszel) introducing the concept and then flips into a throwaway moment with a sadistic killer and his victim.

Following this we get to the meat of the portmanteau, a funeral director (Chester Delacruz) being question by a couple of disembodied voices (Provided by Debbie Rochon and Don Pusemy). Their questioning leads us into the stories proper and these are built up of no budget, shot on video horror stories whose paucity of plot betrays the lack of budget as much as the cheapness of the actual film.

Lisa is insubstantial

The vampire story begins with a vampire girl named Lisa (Dawn DuVurger) walking up stairs. I liked the idea that she was insubstantial, ghostlike even. She solidifies as she gets to the top of the stairs and enters a bedroom, where she strips off her nightdress and romps naked for a while – as vampires are wont to do, I guess.

Kimberly L Cole as Alison

Eric (Jonathon Watts Bell) is reading a note left by Alison (Kimberly L Cole). She knows he wants her to go to a doctor but she is scared it is not in her head. She gets in a motel room and puts up garlic and a cross. She has been having nightmares, her dead friend Lisa has been visiting her and if it is true she is in danger of becoming like her.

R W Smith as Frye

She explains that she has read a book called Pernicious by Brendan Frye (R W Smith, Vampire Resurrection) and the girl in that went through the same. She is going to see Frye and get his help. Frye explains that he didn’t believe what he wrote, but a believer book is easier to sell than a debunking one. He suggests that the death of her friend has caused a psychological hang-up and these are hallucinations during the hypnagogic phase of sleep.

fangs

Relieved she goes back to the motel – determined to return to Eric the next day. However Lisa comes in her sleep and attacks her again. She gets away and to the bathroom, where Lisa gets her once more. Frye is at home and has to face the now vampiric Alison… and that’s all she wrote.

A very short piece, and overall quite pointless. Nothing resembling a twist but plenty of nudity from Dawn DuVurger. Given the short length, one would have expected better acting and film stock and cinematography – we didn’t get any of that. 2 out of 10 for the vampire section.

The imdb page is here.

;)Q