Honourable Mention: The Bloodlust Horror

The Bloodlust Horror is a horror musical written and directed by Aaron Potter and is reminiscent in parts to the Rocky Horror Show – with perhaps a little anime aesthetic thrown in for good luck, which I’ll explain later.

It is an odd duck of a thing – mostly offered as a stage show it bares all the hallmarks of am-dram, with a varied range of performances, bad wigs and false looking sets. This aesthetic is enhanced by having a (very bored looking) audience watching the show and showing some of them walking out of the performance. It isn’t quite breaking the fourth wall but it is close, perhaps going as far as fracturing it. The action then occasionally moves from a set to a location and some of the actors double (or in one case, triple) up on roles – sometimes in the same scene.

the MC welcomes you

It opens with an MC (Samantha Mion) who suggests that once viewed the audience will never view the play again – because they’ll be dead. A band play the intro credit music and the MC sings. In truth she reminded me of the Columbia character from Rocky Horror. After the credits the play proper begins.

in the parlour

It opens in a parlour and the village Mayor (Damon Myers) awaits a visitor. His aids, played by Samantha Mion and Aaron Potter, say that the visitor is known to arrive for appointments at midnight. He is Vincent Valemont (Marc Basso), vampire hunter. The vampires who are said to haunt the village are of too little a challenge and the reward too low for him to waste his time – that is before he meets the mayor’s daughter, Victoria (Erin Harrell). I mentioned an anime aesthetic and it was within the Victor character, who, for reasons unclear, reminded me of D from Vampire Hunter D. Thus it came as no shock when it was revealed that he is a dhampyr.

Samantha Mion as Zia

The mayor is only using the hunter, however, running a distraction against the vampires whilst he perfects his vampire killing implement – which seemed to be little more than a wooden stake! Vincent and Victoria pledge their attraction. She tells the story of the mayor’s sister – Zia (Samantha Mion) – being taken and turned and gives Vincent a Damsel Stone – a stone said to be able to absorb the soul of a vampire. They are unaware of the crap bat who flies off.

Damon Myers as the Master

Said crap bat becomes the vampire Lexley (Aaron Potter), and he reports to the Master (Damon Myers) that Vincent is in town. I have to say that Myers really seemed to relish the Master role and had an expressiveness of face that might not have been out of place on Frank-N-Furter. He sees vampires as above men and wants to wipe them out (questions of food notwithstanding!) and to do so he has perfected a serum that will turn the dead into zombies – he will unleash them upon the earth in a devastating apocalypse but first he will take Victoria to punish the mayor…

bitten

This was fun. Not all the songs worked (and some were a little samey) but generally it was worth a watch. Whether that would have been the case if hard earned cash had been exchanged for the watch is debatable. However there certainly was a heck of a lot of ambition. The film can be viewed for free over on the MySpace page, however there is no IMDb page at the time this article was published.