Honourable Mention: Suck and Moan

Okay, so the title might sound like it belongs to an adult entertainment video but this is a vampire orientated web serial written and directed by Brendon Fong.

Regular readers will know that I have long waited for a good vehicle that shows the zombie apocalypse through the eyes of the vampires and this is actually the closest anyone has got to pinning it. Why is that? I’ll explain later.

However in episode 1 of this we begin with a man, Henry (Eric Hailey), stood outside nervously smoking a cigarette. He seems to sense someone near when Banyan (Courtney Ray Geigle) appears behind him. Henry has been waiting for him and they are both vampires.

Henry's mistake

Henry explains that he went out for a Friday night snack and saw a woman stumbling down the street. The idea of a drunken drink – the alcohol thinning the blood and so allowing a faster drink – appealed and he came up behind and sank his teeth into her neck. Something was wrong, there was no life in the blood and his mouth filled with the taste of rotten flesh. Then he realised… she was a zombie.

the apocalypse will be televised

Banyan is almost dismissive but we cut to a news report confirming the viral outbreak. Anyway, Henry killed her with his tie (wrapping it round her neck and yanking, taking her head off) but is now worried. What if he has contracted the zombie virus? He has not dared drink of anyone else in case he makes a super-zombie, he doesn’t know how this will work.

can they enter?

To me “doesn’t know how this will work” becomes the catch-phrase of the show as we see that the vampires know little about themselves, never mind the zombies. In a fantastic episode Mac (Joel Bryant), Ed (Chris Mollica) and Annie (Lauren Baldwin) are at a house ready to break in as the owner was a gun nut. Annie suddenly raises the need to be invited and whilst the other two snigger at her suggestion it becomes all too clear that none of them know the truth. They remain unsure, even when we see the owner is now a zombie – until he is killed a second time.

zombies with vampire mist

The only definite things we get lore wise is a mention of staking (apparently that works), an idea that sunlight will kill them (although there is some debate over the idea of sparkling) and the fact that they can turn into a purple mist. The zombies just see them as flesh and therefore attack but the vampires are more than a match for them. We discover that vampires can regenerate limbs.

a dental nightmare

Ed, who obsessively wears surgical gloves and mask, considers whether the problem will take care of itself when the zombies rot. He also worked/fed in a nursing home and he recounts how the elderly are not too transportable and fell to the zombies. As for Henry, well it seems that he is infected – as his fangs fall out – but we do not yet know his fate. As he looks into the mirror, at his dental nightmare, we realise that these vampire do reflect. We also discover, through the script, that a dead vampire turns to dust.

self service

The reason this works so well is because it is dialogue driven. At one point we see Ed and Mac discussing things whilst psychotic vampire Douglas could be seen in the background and foreground occasionally, slaughtering zombies. But the focus was on the two vampires and their conversation. The dialogue is well written and well delivered by the cast and very quickly, given that at the time of writing there are only 8 episodes of 4-5 minutes each, Fong has established a set of characters each with good depth.

Nip to the shows homepage to watch the episodes available so far. The imdb page is here.