Vampire Girls – review

Director: Daisuke Miki Honda

Release date: 2011


Contains spoilers


This is a Japanese DVD release that, unfortunately, does not have English subtitles. Never fear, there are subs out there in internet-land but they are literal translations. The film isn’t quite a ‘pink’ movie. I have heard some suggest it is but, whilst there are some boobs on show and some sex, you’d get more explicit scenes in a HBO series.

The unfortunate bit about this movie is it seemed to have some interesting concepts that it absolutely failed to explore (the literal translation of the subs wouldn’t have helped any, I’m sure, but I think the fault lay within the actual screenplay).

glowing eyes

It begins with a woman, Yumi (Minori Hatsune), in a hotel with a man. He clearly wants her sexually and she says about being cold – something he discovers as he kisses her and finds that her lips are, indeed, cold. She mentions love before saying that she wants his blood. Eyes become glowing, fangs appear and he becomes vampire chow.

happier days

Seiji (Hiroto Kato) gives a voice-over of how, 2 years before, he met Yumi. She seemed a shy girl and they fell in love, getting an apartment together and planning to get married… and then she vanished. That was a year ago and his friend, Haru, wants Seiji to get on with his life, but he continues to search. We see him check a coffee shop where he once went to meet Yumi, when she gave him a cross that has been handed down through her family. Haru phones him and says he has seen her in the Shinjuku ward.

bloodied mouth

Seiji rushes over to Shinjuku, though it is dark when he arrives. Haru is reluctant to tell him where he has seen her and it becomes apparent that she is now an escort. Seiji goes to follow her but loses sight when a woman, Luna (Atsuko Kurusu), gets in his way. Haru tells him that they should leave, as the area they are in has a bad reputation and strange (and deadly) things are meant to occur on the night of the full moon.

I want to kill you

Seiji keeps returning to the place where he saw Yumi and, after he is beaten up for asking too many questions, Yumi goes to him, finding him drunk. She immediately disrobes and has sex with him but flings herself away from him, with inhuman speed, as she climaxes – she is scared as she can’t control herself and she wants his blood, she vanishes before his eyes. When he talks to Haru, his friend suggests she is a vampire.

the pastor

It is here where we get the unusual, and frustratingly sparse, lore. We are told that – due to a contract entered into in Rome, there are only 12 vampires – mirroring Christ’s disciples. Later we get a vampire hunter called the pastor – a priest who is a vampire and who is determined to maintain the contract. The contract allows the vampires to feed on the full moon. Yumi draws his attention by hunting on other nights, desperate to forget Seiji, whom she still loves. The contract aspect is not examined further. Touching a cross to flesh burns a vampire, and this holds true for the pastor, who grabs his cross as a penance it would seem. However they can wear a cross over their clothes with no ill effect.

in the sun

Yumi became a vampire when Luna turned her – finding her about to commit suicide because she had been raped. We are told that becoming a vampire requires an oral exchange of blood and yet we also see three of her victims turn (without being fed her blood). One dies as the sun rises, and seemed to have a normal fang set up but two others had really bad teeth when turned… there is no rhyme or reason to that. Despite being told otherwise, there is a very unusual cure for vampirism… but I won’t spoil that.

funky teeth

The film had limited locations and just seemed cheap. The effects and props were not brilliant (the coffin in Luna and Yumi’s hideout is incredibly cheap and nasty for a prop) and the acting skills seemed limited at best. As I say, the literal subtitles were probably a hinderance but I was not massively impressed with the story. However the contract with Rome was fascinating but under-explored. There are some sexual moments but little is shown and they’re not particularly sexy.

All said, it was a bit of a poor effort. 2.5 out of 10 for intriguing me – even if it proved frustrating. At the time of review there is no IMDb page.

Corazon: ang Unang Aswang - review

Director: Richard Somes

Release date: 2012

Contains spoilers

Just as he did in his 2008 film Yanggaw, director Richard Somes takes us on an intelligent and interesting look at the aswang myth in the film Corazon: ang Unang Aswang (or the first Aswang). Like the earlier film it doesn’t actually manage to tick all the right boxes – as I’ll discuss – but it does do a heck of a lot right.

The film is set in 1946 and there are several comments about the Japanese occupation, in many respects this is the tale of a community so shell-shocked through the atrocities of war and the pressures of occupation that they have turned inwardly onto themselves. It also led to some minor continuity issues (such as rather modern looking jewellery worn by lead character Daniel (Derek Ramsay)). It takes place in a small town called Magdelana, which services a farm or plantation owned by Matias (Mark Gil).

Derek Ramsay as Daniel

As the story starts Matias is thinking of letting the farm (and its ruined soil) go. Meanwhile Corazon (Erich Gonzales), a young woman who is married to Daniel, is at a local healers as she is being given a herbal infertility treatment. The woman, unfortunately, is leaving the area soon and mentions another woman, Herminia (Maria Isabel Lopez), who is said to deal in miracles. We see, out in the forest, Daniel capturing and killing a boar.

Corazon and Melinda

A young girl approaches Corazon, as she walks through the town, and starts a conversation with her. Her mother drags her away. The women state that Corazon and her mother were prostitutes for the Japanese and say Corazon has damaged her uterus through numerous abortions – actually there is no evidence that this is anything more than spiteful gossip, though we hear that Corazon’s mother vanished during the occupation. As Corazon leaves the town she is approached by a wild looking woman, Melinda (Tetchie Agbayani, who was in Yanggaw). The townsfolk turn on Melinda, throwing stones at her.

pain of a lost child

Talking to her father, who is seriously ill, Corazon discovers that Melinda had been part of the resistance to the Japanese and had been forced to watch her child being killed. This, he suggests, caused her to become the devil. There is also the rumour of cannibalism. He mentions boar’s heads being used to scare of the Japanese as they thought they were monsters. Anyway, to cut a long story short, her father dies and Corazon goes to Herminia, she follows the instructions and becomes pregnant. However the baby is stillborn. Corazon goes mad with grief, is turned upon by some of the town’s women and eventually runs into the forest and eats the baby. At this point she becomes aswang (though the word is not mentioned until the end of the film).

ang Unang Aswang

Is she an aswang – in her mind she has become something bad that will punish the village by killing and eating the children. Her hair goes wild, her teeth begin to blacken and her face becomes sallow, through living in the forest, rejecting personal hygiene and her raw meat diet – though, to be honest, at times she looks less like a forest mad woman and more a goth queen. She rips the head and skin from a massive boar (that Daniel had killed in his frustration at not being able to find his wife) and wears them, crawling on all fours at times, and leading to rumours of her transforming into an animal. She is not a supernatural being, but quite, quite mad.

in the forest

This I liked, it was an attempt to look at the aswang myth through a rationale, non-supernatural lens and it worked. The acting may not have hit the mark at all times, the story might have been too diluted with other issues happening and it might have come across as more drama than horror, but this concept worked well. What didn’t work as well was the overly saccharine ending. Perhaps what is needed is the stronger aspects of this film merged with the stronger aspects of Yanggaw – that would be a winner. Somes is clearly on a mission and I think he is eventually going to pull it off.

5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Apocrypha – review

Director: Michael Fredianelli

Release date: 2011

Contains spoilers

This was one that I will find difficult to review, a film that I felt (as I watched it) owed a little to perhaps the addiction or habit, though not as skilfully crafted.


The film carries an unusual premise that I rather liked, though perhaps the sum total of the film needs more polishing and is restricted within its own budgetary constraints.

awakening

It begins with a woman (Kat Reichmuth), dressed in Gothic attire, her face dirty. There is a Goth guy (Adam Wiggins) nearby but he does not seem to notice her. She seems upset, out of place, but drawn to a pendant she wears around her neck. She walks through the park.

Griffith feels mental and physical anguish

In an office a man, Griffith (Michael Fredianelli), realises the time, pushes his paperwork into a draw and rushes off. He is late for his appointment with his shrink, Goodstein (Ray Medved). Here is an issue… the office (and we later hear that Griffith has blagged his way into the 6 figured salary post of a San Francisco newspaper, but we’ll suspend belief there) looks nothing like it should – later there is a deadly chase through the main building, which in fairness looks much more like it should – and one would think that only Griffith and co-worker Dex (Sean Dodd Rojas) work there. Goodstein seems to work from home, despite offering free sessions to stray vagrants from a shelter, and later actively drinks in front of clients. It was a shame about the sets really, a plush office for both Griffith and Goodstein would have been nice.

animal blood

Anyway, the short of it is that Griffith woke up in the park a year before with no memory – he isn’t sure that Griffith is his real name. A year on and he has no memory – he is also holding something back from the Doc. When he goes on a date we see that he is a first class idiot (douche-bag is often mention with regards him). Griffith is our bad guy, in many respects, and I say it like that not because he is overly evil (as such) but because he is just thoroughly unpleasant. He rushes out on his date during heavy petting and explains to the long suffering shrink that he keeps getting urges to bite necks and that he has been killing small animals and drinking their blood (he keeps said blood in the fridge).

raw meat

Meanwhile the girl, having eaten raw meat in a supermarket and walked past the house of a psychic called Yasha (Selenia Velez-Mason) as the property is familiar, ends up at a shelter. Worker Jan (William McMichael) takes pity on her when he discovers she has no memory and takes her in (to his own home). A waking hallucination in the mirror and then a dream of herself with fangs, cat’s eyes and calling herself Maggie and we know what she is. She is referred to Goodstein also.

wake up dead

Yes they are both vampires and this is the good bit. In the early 1900s they eloped to America and Griffith had acquired a journal about the vampire race (a, by then, extinct race) belonging to Yasha. An accident led to them perishing in a house fire but Yasha took their bodies, put a drop of the last vampire master’s blood on their lips and buried them in the park. She did not, however, manage to retrieve the journal. Twice since then, once a year ago and just at this time, someone (randomly) has played with the rituals in the book and it has led to vampiric resurrection.

vision of a vampire 

I liked the unusual turning. What wasn’t as clear was why Maggie’s memories come back so relatively quickly compared to Griffith or, indeed, why her vampirism comes on so quick when he was still on animals a year in. However we are left with a situation that she wants to revert to human but he is happy with his new life and she discovers, from a sorcerer (Henry Lee) of the same race as Yasha (who they are is left as a mystery), that to revert to human she has to kill Griffith.

Jan and Maggie

Sunlight seems an issue dealt with by simply wearing dark glasses, a stake to the heart kills and biting without complete draining turns a victim. They are stronger than human and the thirst is put across as being like a drug habit. The back story was positive. Fredianelli was thoroughly dislikeable as Griffith, which I take as a good performance in this case, and Reichmuth seemed suitably lost when she had no memory. Other actors weren’t as good, I could fairly much have lived without Rojas – though his death scene worked.

I wasn’t as sure about the actual plot, as opposed to the backstory (incidentally the flash back scene worked rather well, actually giving a feeling of a different age) and felt it could have used some tidying. I did rather like the opening around Maggie however and the colour filter gave the flick less of a feel of San Francisco and was reminiscent on New York – maybe why the two films I mentioned at the head were brought to mind. The ending is nicely dour, which I liked but I felt the film was a little over long, perhaps some cuts are needed to make it flow better. That said I did fairly enjoy it for what it was. 4 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

The Romance of Dracula – review

Author: Charles E Butler

First published: 2011

Contains spoilers

The blurb: A review of the fourteen Major film adaptations of Bram Stoker's novel Dracula. Complete with illustrations of the fourteen major Counts.

From Max Schreck to Marc Warren, The Romance of Dracula is the most concise account of the Count on screen.

The Epilogue concentrates on the Count's further/major appearances in fantasy horror films and the book takes interesting side-roads into the exploration of the myth through The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967), the original Fright Night (1985) and The Shadow of the Vampire (2000). An engrossing must-have read for the casual onlooker and the ardent aficionado.

The review: What we have, with the Romance of Dracula, is one fan's look at the major films about the Count, with a blow by blow synopsis of each flick, his views on the quality (or otherwise) and some interesting interpretations of character motivation.

Bar the last aspect (potentially), therefore, the book is kind of like this blog and therefore the question becomes, what’s not to like! It is, actually, a serious question. Butler is clearly a fan of the Count and thus, even when I found myself disagreeing with his viewpoint on a film (we would definitely debate the relative merits of the various Hammer films, methinks) or (the rare) moments when I questioned accuracy (for the record, in Dracula 2001, Van Helsing is the Van Helsing and the suggestion that he “curiously bleeds himself with leeches on a regular basis to keep his immortality” misses the actuality that, rather, he uses the leeches to bleed Dracula’s blood, thus purifying the blood in some way, which he draws from the leech by syringe and injects into himself, thus making him immortal but not vampire - sorry, that one needed correcting), I still thoroughly enjoyed reading the book. The language conveyed Butler’s love of the genre and my main frustration was that it wasn’t a conversation as I am sure I could while away many an hour talking vampires generally and Dracula specifically with the gentleman.

Each chapter is illustrated with a picture of that incarnation of the Count, drawn by Butler, and I would say the main weakness of the book is that the many facts that Butler adds into his reviews are not referenced.

Butler suggests “Once you have read the text I hope that it prompts you to re-view these films yourself in a different light than you've ever watched them before.” Whether I’ll watch them in a different light or not, I don’t know, but there is nothing like someone’s enthusiasm for movies you love (sometimes despite themselves) to make you want to go back and revisit them yet again.

For the book 7.5 out of 10, with a suggestion that, should it be revised, referencing is included.

The Vampire: A Casebook – review

Editor: Alan Dundes

First Published:1998

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: Finally, the truth about vampires.

Vampires are the most fearsome and fascinating of all creatures of folklore. For the first time, detailed accounts of the vampire and how its tradition developed in different cultures are gathered in one volume by eminent folklorist Alan Dundes. Eleven leading scholars from the fields of Slavic studies, history, anthropology, and psychiatry unearth the true nature of the vampire from its birth in graveyard lore to the modern-day psychiatric patient with a penchant for drinking blood.

The Vampire; a Casebook takes this legend out of the realm of literature and film and back to its dark beginnings in folk traditions. The essays examine the history of the word “vampire”; Romanian vampires; Greek vampires; Serbian vampires; the physical attributes of vampires; the killing of vampires; and the possible psychoanalytic underpinnings of vampires. Much more than simply a scary creature of the human imagination, the vampire continues to haunt the lives of all those who encounter it—in reality or in fiction.

The review: It is good, from time to time, to move away from the media vampire and look at the folkloric original creature. Very different from the glamorised media vampire, the folklore nevertheless underpins the media and is interesting in its own account.

The Vampire: a Casebook is, like any such edited volume, a mixed bag, some essays striking a chord and others not so. Whilst I realise that the collection has some age it is worth mentioning that a couple of the essays remark upon Dracula, in passing at least, and suggest that Stoker “patterned Count Dracula after an actual fifteenth-century Romanian prince, known variously as Voivode Dracula and Vlad Ţepeş.” This is not true, of course, Stoker borrowed a name and a footnote, and there is no evidence that he did any more than that - despite wishful thinking in certain quarters.

Highlight essay, for me, concerned Greek Vampires and was contributed by Juliette duBoulay, and mention should also be given to the Paul Barber essay – whilst containing nothing additional to his seminal Vampires, Burial and Death it is always a joy to read his work. I felt that Philip D. Jaffé and Frank DiCataldo missed a trick in their discussion on Clinical Vampirism by concentrating on fairly modern cases and not at least referencing the work of Richard von Krafft-Ebing in the 19th century.

I was not convinced by Dundes argument, using Freudian psychoanalysis, that the root of the word vampire was the Greek Pī, “to drink”, but I enjoyed the journey to that suggestion. All in all a good, if eclectic, scholarly look at the folklore vampire (veering off into clinical vampirism). 7 out of 10.

Shake Rattle and Roll 12 – review

Director: Jerrold Tarog (segment)

Release date: 2010

Contains spoilers

Another instalment in the long running Filipino film series Shake Rattle and Roll and, like the others in the series, it is made up of 3 fairly lengthy shorts. The short Mamanyika is about a possessed doll and Isla has a more forkloric basis.

The third segment is called Punerarya and it is the segment we are looking at here, being about Aswang.

The segment starts off with a young teacher, Dianne (Carla Abellana), going to a funeral parlour. She is to be the new tutor for Sarah (Anna Vicente) and Ryan (Nash Aguas), the children of the parlour’s owner Carlo (Sid Lucero). She is shown up to the living area behind the business and is asked to wait for Carlo. She sits for a while but then goes to a window and opens the blackout curtain. Sarah had just come up behind her and screams. Carlo explains that the two children have an inherited weakness to sunlight – hence being home tutored.

the Nanny and Sarah

The children’s nanny shows Dianne around the place – mainly pointing out areas that are restricted to family only. She also suggests that the children have a special diet. Things start to go wrong early on – Dianne takes a photo of the children, with the flash causing them pain and making Sarah attack her. She relays her concerns to her brother, Dennis (Mart Escudero), but his suggestion that she quit is ignored.

Carla Abellana as Dianne

Meanwhile we see that the home has dogs around it, and of course these are aswang. Most of the staff are aswang and they live (it is later revealed) mainly on corpses. That said, those who snoop are likely to become Aswang chow too. Ryan ensures that Dianne stumbles over the aswang feeding on a live victim and spins her a story about being a normal boy whose family died in a fire (aswang cannot stand fire and couldn’t rescue them) who is now forced to live their lifestyle.

A disaffected little aswang

As it was fairly clear that the family were going to have to kill Dianne (and Dennis, who gets drawn in to the situation) it makes you wonder as to why they didn’t do so when Dianne was passed out and put safely on a sofa by the aswang. Was it just so they could torture her by making her drink eyeball soup? That didn’t make a lot of sense. One wonders also why they decided to eat when Dianne was still on the premises or why Dianne trusted Ryan so quickly – he is revealed later to be a disaffected little aswang who was sick of eating the dead (complaining they only got live food on their birthday and had to share).

The loose plot points were a shame as this was otherwise a neat little segment. 4 out of 10 for the section Punerarya only. The imdb page is here.

Fevre Dream (Graphic Novelisation) – review

Adapted by: Daniel Abraham

Illustrated by: Rapa Lopez

First published: 2011

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: George R.R. Martin’s moonlit tale of feuding vampire clans, death, and debauchery in the bayou!

Set in 1857 along the muddy Mississippi, FEVRE DREAM introduces Abner Marsh, a remarkably ugly man who longs to captain the fastest steamboat on the river. When a pale, mysterious gentleman named Joshua—who keeps strange hours and stranger friends—approached him with an offer of partnership, Abner’s dreams appear to come true… though he may have unleashed a nightmare on the unsuspecting shores!

Adapted by Hugo-nominated author Daniel Abraham and artist Rafa Lopez, this graphic novel stays faithful to Martin’s original dark vision, immersing the reader in the tortures and joys of vampire society.

The review: If I were asked to list my favourite vampire novels, George R.R. Martin’s Fevre Dream would always make an appearance. As such it was with a mixture of anticipation and trepidation that I approached this graphic novelisation.

And it’s… not bad. The story is respected and we get the tale of the 19th Century Mississippi with vampires who are a separate species to humanity. The Red Thirst – as these vampire’s name their hunger – only comes upon them when they reach adulthood and must be sated once a month (though many sate it much more often than that). At this time they also become so sensitive to sunlight that they will literally burn in the sun. Joshua has a plan to set his people free as he has created a replacement for human blood using sheep’s blood and various chemicals.

Things are not so simple however. The vampires have a dominance based society and one vampire may well dominate another (a battle of wills symbolised graphically with wolves). The winner is a Bloodmaster and the other vampires will follow his command and between Joshua and Damon Julian, a vampire who likes to indulge his nature, there is a Bloodmaster too many on the Mississippi.

I said it’s not bad, and it is certainly better than many a graphic novelisation I have seen. The artwork is very good (though perhaps a tad too much of a graphic-style for my taste, losing some of the atmosphere to my way of thinking, but that is just a taste thing). However it is a graphic novelisation of a fine piece of prose writing and, whilst enjoyable, it is a shame to lose Martin’s evocative prose style.

If I were to be asked whether someone should get this or the novel, it would be the novel every time. The story is good and, of course, that is present in both formats but Martin is a master author. That said if you already have the novel and want a different experience within Martin’s world it is a good stab at it. 6.5 out of 10.

FVZA: Federal Vampire and Zombie Agency – review

Author: David Hine

Illustrators: Roy Allan Martinez & Wayne Nichols

First published: 2010 (trade paperback)

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: Vampires and zombies are real.

In fact the undead have been with us since this country’s very first inception. These living nightmares are not the stuff of romanticized legend, but rather the result of viruses, black plagues that threaten all of mankind. This is why the FVZA (Federal Vampire and Zombie Agency) was created—to eradicate these creatures from the face of the earth. And by the late 20th Century it appeared that they had done just that… until now.

Brought out of retirement, Dr. Hugo Pecos is charged with stopping this contagion before it spreads nationwide, but with an underground vampire cell plotting a massive attack, will he be too late?

The review: The FVZA started life as a website and it has to be said that the website has been misinterpreted as reality by some… indeed the occasional contemporary reference books on vampire folklore have cited it.

The website created a pseudo-scientific background for vampires and zombies (and werewolves, who do not feature in the graphic novel) and so rich is the lore and backstory they created that a story based on it seemed not only obvious but logical. Eventually one would hope that a decent budget film would be created but until then we have the graphic novel.

And what a graphic novel, it follows former FVZA director Dr Hugo Pecos and his grandchildren, whom he raised, home schooled and trained. When a zombie outbreak occurs he is recalled and by then it becomes apparent that a vampire (or group of vampires) is behind the outbreak and that the virus has evolved making the current vaccines useless.

The vampires in this world are not sexy at all. They become emaciated, bald hunters with bloodshot eyes and, eventually, curved spines. They are long lived (as they do not suffer DNA damage due to age as a human would) are virtually blind in daylight and the sun’s rays burns (though it won’t kill) and they can live without a heart – their muscular system helps circulate the blood. Damage to the spine and brain are devastating, however.

At one point we see a human vassal of a vampire who must take a liquid regularly as he has been infected by the zombie virus (purposefully, by the vampire) and the liquid is a viral inhibitor that stops him turning. At another we see a human used for feeding, covered in leaches that the vampires drink from, so as not to infect their food source.

The story is strong and creates characters, complete with skeletons emerging from the closets, that makes the whole thing much more interesting and the artwork is sublime. Definitely one for the collection of any vampire or zombie fan and hopefully a springboard for many more stories in the future. 9 out of 10.

Honourable Mention: Strippers Vs Werewolves

A 2012 comedy horror directed by Jonathan Glendening, UK flick Strippers Vs Werewolves essentially does what it says on the tin… pits strippers against werewolves somewhere in London, after dancer Justice (Adele Silva) gets a punter (Martin Kemp, Embrace of the Vampire) so excited that he turns in the private booth. His wolfish desires are cut short as she stabs him in the eye with a silver fountain pen but his untimely death brings the club to the attention of the other wolves – led by alpha Ferris (Billy Murray, Dead Cert ).

Luckily club owner Jeanette (Sarah Douglas, Dracula) has come across these creatures before (indeed she was involved with Ferris at one time). As for the other girls, Raven (Barbara Nedeljakova) is a bit of a goth gal who is in a relationship with (the rather dorky) Sinclair (Simon Phillips), an occultist, ghost hunter and vampire killer. Actually he doesn’t have too much of an impact given that he is off on a hunt when Raven contacts him.

Sinclair and the brides

It is here that our vampires come into the frame as it is a pair of vampire brides that he is hunting, Carmilla (Lucy Pinder) and Regine (Sabine Jemeljanova), and they are the sort of vampire brides that wear see-through negligées and black underwear beneath. In a nod towards genre fans there is a throwaway line, by the vampires as he enters their lair, of “there are kisses for us both” – slightly misquoting but still referencing Dracula. We don’t see a huge amount but cut into the hunt a couple of times as Raven phones Sinclair for advice.

vampires of Dagenham

At the end of the film there is a further coda of good werewolves, under Sinclair’s tutelage, hunting down the vampires of Dagenham. These are male vampires who attack women leaving the cinema (it seems) and go up in flames when staked.

Carmilla and Regine

Is it a classic film? It’s called Strippers Vs Werewolves and a lot of the cast are from soaps; what do you think? But, to be fair, it perhaps hit the mark more, comedy wise, than Brit horror comedy Lesbian Vampire Killers - though to be fair that wouldn’t be the most difficult feat. So it isn’t great cinema… but it has strippers, werewolves and (very briefly) vampires. Thanks to Leila who let me know about the vampire connection.

The imdb page is here.

Secrets of the Sisterhood – review

Director: Kalila Katheriana Smith

Release date: 2005

Contains spoilers

One of the great things about modern technology is that anyone can turn their hand to film making – if they can work with a micro-budget. One of the God awful things about modern technology is also that anyone can turn their hand to film making – if they can work with a micro-budget. I have seen micro-budget films that contain slivers of sublime motion picture moments and others with ne’r a redeeming quality. I have also seen films that contain a bit of both.

Secrets of the Sisterhood comes across, to me at least, as a labour of love from director Kalila Katheriana Smith and there are some excellent moments within the film. There are also moments that are a tad clichéd and some poor dialogue and delivery thereof. But such is the joy of exploring indie films, wading through issues that, in high budget affairs, would be unforgivable – yet are completely understandable – to find gems. If gems are there then it is worth the effort.

Price in the woods

The film begins with a whisper, “we’re everywhere”, the sound of insects in the night and a drum beat. It opens so well and the soundtrack, generally, was one area where the film touched brilliance for a moment pulling me out of the film to think how well done it was in places. Headlights flash and a man drives home – lamenting the coffee he drank he pulls over for a wee. In the woods he sees a woman who beckons, leads him deeper into the trees and shows her boobs as an encouragement… The man, having never seen a horror film, follows her until he is chopped down by a large man, wearing a sack on his head and wielding a machete.

Hillary Lussen as Lita

The man, we discover later, is called Price (Calvin Brasely). He is a large man, wears a sack (as I mentioned) and we see he has a bit of a fang going on. He works for the vampires (who are all women – hence the title) and disposes of the dead, feasting on their flesh. That is all we really know and that is a shame as the film’s homepage has a brief bit of Price's background, beyond the film's exposition, that was really interesting.

Chideha Warner as Elvis Johnson

The film itself follows a group of female vampires, led by Lita (Hillary Lussen), who work out of a strip joint luring men back to a abandoned plantation house. After a couple of guys go missing cops Elvis Johnson (Chideha Warner) and Mike Tully (Jude Cambise) end up on the trail. They are aided by fellow cop (and Tully's lover) Christine Spade (Pamela Lucas) who goes undercover and ends up being seduced into the sisterhood – pulled between duty and her new vampiric urges. Also involved is Liz (Naomi Rieger), the girlfriend of one of the missing (eaten) guys.

victim

Liz doesn’t get much screen time, just as well as Rieger's performance is poor. There is a vampire hunter (Randy Austin) who is barely in the film at all – character-wise a shame as he may have been intriguing, though I wasn’t sold on the casting. If the dialogue was hokey in places – Liz’s brother’s dialogue was actually painful – and the general scenario (vampires in a strip joint) clichéd, some of the visuals were very well done. The fact that perhaps the film seemed a little washed out made them even more astounding. Smith has an eye for the visual, not necessarily with standard shot composition, as such, but around the artistic effects. EDIT 23/7/12 I received an email suggesting that the post-production effects and music were all added by Jamal Morelli and thus must give a credit as these are the aspects that raises the film's score.

emerging as a shadow

Lore wise it is intimated that these vampires can turn into cats – a reach back to Carmilla. We do not get a definite kill within the film, whilst the vampires are attacked we by no means can be sure if any are actually dead. The online background suggests that feeding the blood of the dead will kill a vampire but this isn’t mentioned in film. They do seem to suggest they are, well, omnipotent – intimating that they know all – and certainly when they go after loose ends they know just who to attack. We see Talia emerge as a shadow in the ceiling – a great little idea.

vampire attack

So, a mixed bag – but as I say, I think it was a labour of love. I think it a shame that the background offered online couldn’t be pulled into the film as it was fascinating. It has some moments well worth seeing but others that are clichéd and still others that are, frankly, poor. But the fact that it has the good moments makes it worth a punt I think. 3.5 out of 10 is a score that reflects those good moments and remembers that this is on a budget.

The imdb page is here.

Vamps and the City – review

Director: Dennis Devine

Release Date: 2010

Contains spoilers

Oh dear, oh dear… Now I am not a fan of Sex and the City, a show/film series best avoided to my way of thinking, and so a vampire version (or rip off) didn’t fill me with confidence aplenty. The fact that it is of the lowest of budgets didn’t help but I was slightly upbeat by the fact that it was by Cleopatra – known for their Goth CDs – and so expected some positive aspects to the soundtrack.

Alas, this was not to be. A band called Spiders and Snakes appear at the head of the film and towards the end… and quite frankly they were, at best, very sub-Alice Cooper. The rest of the soundtrack was so forgettable that I have, indeed, forgotten it. I should take this moment to thank Everlost, who pushed me in the direction of this doozie.

Noelle Perris as Claire

So, we start with the band and then cut to Sherry (Jade Brandais, Dark House) getting out of the coffin (or crate, to be fair). A female vamp, later revealed to be Claire (Noelle Perris), approaches her and Sherry cannot move. She awakens in her coffin and we discover that she has the dream often but can never remember the face of the female vampire seducing her. Sherry is our narrator.

about to have a cow

Aretha (Heather Howe) is dressed up as a beauty queen as it is Halloween. She is about to chow down on an unsuspecting man in a cow suit (Derek Lui) when a woman bursts in calling her an unholy creature. She is Mrs Van Helsing (Jayne Clement) and poorly delivered over-acting is the order of the day. She is with her son Henry (David Coe), a young man who appears to be challenged mentally and who has forgotten the stake and put tap water in the holy water bottle. She stabs Aretha in the stomach (with a glass, I think) before Aretha makes a speech about vampires no longer killing and throwing the woman out. We do discover that Mr Van Helsing was killed by vampires.

Scarlet and Sherry

So the film splits in two ways, we follow the romantic misadventures of Sherry and her friends. Aretha is a bit of a play-girl, Sherry is dating the married Mr Huge (Justin Ferrari) a sewage magnate with unfortunate smells and large manly girth. Their friends (and roommates) are Scarlet (Tammy De Kauwe), whose fellow has noodle trouble, and Lorinda (Danielle Motley), who has a fellow with one pea-sized and one-grapefruit sized testis. The humour then follows with (what looks like) mayonnaise on her face as a special effect – oh how I laughed, not.

Christina Desiere as Betty

The other path sees the evil vampires, led by Claire along with Scarena (Caitlin Rose Williams), Tina (Sasanna Babashoff) and Betty (Christina Desiere). They wish to destroy the good vampires for giving them a bad name and Scarena killed Mr Van Helsing. Mrs Van Helsing is manipulated into the story, but it saved her sharing a motel bed with her son. Overall there wasn’t really much of a story.

brave vampire hunters

Vampire lore is fairly standard with a couple of non-standard bits that consist of the idea that a vampire victim (who isn’t killed) will act drunk after the feed, forget the events, wake in the morning with a hangover and the bites will have healed and that vampires dream of the time they were turned. This doesn’t explain Sherry dreaming of Claire – as this seems to be a possible future event – but that is a point left unanswered.

Bad effects, bad acting and no real story – the film is poor. However some of the girls look pleasant enough and they seem to be having fun at least. Overall though, I would avoid. 1.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

La Morte Amoureuse – review

Director: Alain Vézina

Release date: 1995

Contains spoilers

You may be aware that I am a fan of the story la Morte Amoureuse, a short dating back to 1836 and penned by Theophile Gautier. The story was captured well in the episode of the Hunger entitled Clarimonde – though, whilst mainly fiercely accurate to the source, they did expunge all vampiric elements.

It was only very recently that I became aware of this film, through Bill at the Uranium Café, and a rare beast it is as well – utterly missing from IMDb. It is based on Gautier’s story and does keep the vampiric elements (in fact expands on them) but also modernises the story. This updating, along with a soundtrack that was, I guess, meant to emulate the heights of 90s synth-soundtrack styling, manages to undermine the atmosphere that the film should have carried – but that said it doesn’t do everything wrong.

breaking vows on the altar

In a kitchen housekeeper Thérése (Denise Bouchard) talks about the ills of the village and the thunderstorm that rages as her companion Father Sylvain (Pierre Mailloux) looks distracted, not eating his soup. He eventually excuses himself but cannot settle and so goes through to his church. The altar seems to glow and a veiled woman, a bride we might suppose, appears – holding her arms to him. He goes to her and takes her (very quickly) on the altar.

the corpse

When he has finished he looks at her and sees that the woman has transformed into a corpse, desiccated and burnt. There is a disturbingly intimate shot of part of her anatomy and the priest is distraught, questioning what he has done. Thérése is looking for the priest when she hears the church bell ring – she rushes in to find him hanging by the bell rope.

Marc with Catherine

Marc (Luc Pilon) is a young (and disturbingly happy) priest living in the city. He receives orders to take over the parish of Father Sylvain. He says goodbye to his father, in background later on we discover that his father was never happy that he became a priest, and travels North. He finds the church idyllic and has plans to install a choir – Thérése becomes less and less enamoured with the young man, and some of his radical ideas, especially when he makes the acquaintance of Albert (Jerôme Ricard).

marking the burning

Albert is a hippy eco-warrior, hanging out with others – ostensibly – to clean the beach but really to get drunk and high. He shows Marc a marker stone that he thinks is from a native tribe but Mark recognises as Latin – though he confuses the pentagram with the Star of David. It turns out to be a marker of where a local priest burned two ‘witches’ to death. Marc also meets Albert’s friend Catherine (Virgine Dubois) and it is clear that there is a chemistry between them that he tries to deny.

blood from the claw

It doesn’t take much to guess that Catherine is our vampire. She was the daughter of the alleged ‘witches’ and was nearly abused by the priest when she was rescued by something unseen, a something that fed her blood on its claw. We also meet a priest named Clément (Yvan Roy), he had been the parish priest until he tried to kill himself (he failed, obviously) and – on realising that Sylvain is dead – he leaves his monastery to do what needs to be done.

Demonic Sylvain

You see in this Catherine makes each priest fall in love with her and then drives them to suicide. She feeds on the suicide (it would appear) and the priest returns from the grave as a vampire as well. Of course, tying vampirism and suicide together is reaching back to original folklore and always welcome. We see a demonic version of Sylvain in one of Clément’s visions – though this was a poor make-up moment. We also see him as a semi-decayed, fanged vampire with a messiah complex.

burning in holy water

All this strays further and further from the original. We see a stake (inscribed, it seemed, with occult symbols) and discover that fire purifies. The original story made play of holy water and this does take a cue from that and we have Marc blessing the lake and Sylvain burning within it. Daylight is not an issue for Catherine as we see her during the day and, as we see her in the church, we assume that hallowed ground is not an issue either.

Virgine Dubois as Catherine

Whilst never in danger of winning an Oscar, the acting was fairly good from the principles, maybe not as good when it came to the supporting cast. As I have said, the soundtrack didn’t work for me. The story itself wasn’t original-story compliant but the changes worked more or less. That said I felt we needed a wee bit more concentration on Catherine and Marc to establish their blossoming relationship properly. Some of the effects were poor and the cinematography seemed a little washed out and needed more depth – these elements also conspired against atmosphere. I was also a little disappointed that the genuine sympathy that I felt for the original story protagonists was not as apparent for Catherine and Marc.

unholy bride

Is it the greatest vampire film… no, but I have seen much worse and I like the fact that they used Gautier as a basis; that doesn't happen often enough as far as I am concerned. Is it the best version of La Morte Amoureuse? No… that honour stays with Clarimonde – even if that version lost the vampiric elements. 5 out of 10.

At the time of review there is no IMDb page.