Vampira – review

Director: Joey Romero

Release date: 1994

Contains spoilers

This offering from the Philippines eschewed their own rich mythologies and folklore to take a very western style of vampire. Indeed we even get some of the more general western staple imagery such as the angry mob with torches, yet the thing manages to maintain its own feel.

The vampirism in this is quite unusual, however, as it focuses on a cursed family and (up to a point, as will be explained when we look at the lore) the vampirism cannot be passed on except along familial lines.

Cesar chained

So, we start with a woman (Nida Blanca) chaining her young son, Cesar (Boy 2 Quizon), to his bed. He cries that he can’t take it anymore. Mom leaves the room to go and see his father. In the city a woman (Felanie Patricio) is chased and caught by a rapist (Sammy Vencio). He is pulled off her and attacked by a female vampire, who we later realise is primary character Cara (Maricel Soriano). Cutting back to the mother and father, he asks for Cara. The father has given up drinking blood and is dying.

Maricel Soriano as Cara/Paz

Elsewhere a girl has just got out of the bathroom when a male vampire, Miguel (Jayvee Gayoso), literally smashes through her window and attacks her... Cara goes to her father and he tells her that the lunar eclipse is almost upon them and she should return to Salvacion to lift the curse from their family. She asks how but he dies before he can tell her. The mother gets her to leave before Miguel returns home. When she reaches Salvacion she feigns exhaustion as she reaches the church and is taken in by the Priest (Ernie Zarate, Shake Rattle and Roll 9).

Christopher De Leon as Arman

The next day she gives her name as Paz but overwise feigns amnesia. She is given a place to stay by young widower Arman (Christopher De Leon), who lives with his daughter Len-Len (Patricia Ann Roque) and was, himself, an orphan raised by the priest. This arrangement is not appreciated by the bitchy daughter of the police chief, Donya (Lulu Arietta), who has her sights on Arman herself. Of course, Arman and Cara/Paz fall in love – the subsequent marriage seems ridiculously rushed and ill-thought through by the vampire given the day they marry on.

vampire baby

The vampires can go around in the daytime but become fairly bestial, with an overwhelming need to feed, on the full moon. Arman and Cara/Paz happen to marry on a full moon and so the wedding night is interrupted when a snarling Cara/Paz has to leg it to find food. Cara/Paz feeds from criminals or (mostly) animals and we see Cesar given a chicken to feed on. Miguel is happy with his lot and doesn’t want to have the curse lifted. The curse itself was cast on the Noche family when they stole land in Salvacion. All the members of the family were thus cursed. The father was the last of the family alive but he married a human and his children were cursed like him, the mother isn’t. There is a vampire baby but it is a nightmare sequence.

on the wedding night

Apparently, the lunar eclipse can go one of two ways – either the curse is lifted or they will gain the ability to turn victims into vampires. Miguel has threatened to turn his mother. The curse can be lifted if a member of the family that cast it forgives and loves a member of the Noche family. Coincidentally (!) orphan Arman is the grandson of the family that cursed them – when he discovers what Cara/Paz is (on their wedding night) can he maintain the love he feels and forgive her? Or will the angry mob burn her alive (they decide she is the monster killing people)?

time for a bite

The film is way too long. It needs a good thirty minutes shaving from it. The acting really isn’t that much to write home about. Maricel Soriano does well enough as Paz but not so well when she is Cara (in vampire form). She permanently looks a little sick and perhaps just a little lost. There is no level of nuance to the Miguel character – indeed there is little nuance in most of the performances, to be honest, with most characters just coming across as stereotypes. I liked the core premise, the execution was a little too romance, a lot too under-nuanced and stretched well too far.

3.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Sunset Society – review

Directors: Phoebe Dollar & Rolfe Kanefsky

Release date: 2018

Contains spoilers

This is a film of two parts, if not halves, with an original film directed by Phoebe Dollar as the centre piece to a wraparound directed by Rolfe Kanefsky. The wraparound was filmed in 2017. The rest of the film must have been shot in, or some time before, 2015 as it features the iconic Lemmy Kilmister. However, it isn’t particularly a visual treat and, whilst it was meant to be filmed on camcorders etc, this is an issue.

The wraparound on the other hand contains much better quality photography, a shocking gore scene and animations that I thought were pretty darn poor – but there was no other way to get Lemmy into the later shot film, of course, after his sad passing.

animated Lemmy

So, we start off with that aforementioned animation and this shows us Ace (Lemmy), we get a recited poem and then the Ace playing poker, throwing down the Ace of Spades – what else – and the opponents sprouting fangs. He takes care of them but has been bitten and the spilt drop of vampire blood in his whiskey ensures he turns. We then cut across to modern times…

pick up

Out of his sports car comes Charlie (Ben Stobber) with two ‘catholic school girls’, Belinda (Sarah Nicklin, the Sins of Dracula, Chupacabra Territory & Lesser of 2 Evils) and Becky (Catherine Annette). They go in the house and he calls for Sophia (Phoebe Dollar, Blood Sisters) and then leads them down to his den. However, when they enter the room, there is a man, Mr Cross (Robert Donavan) sat waiting for Charlie. Cross is human but his henchmen Burton (Josh Fallon) and Ike (Aaron Groben) are vampires.

gory scene

Charlie is taken and tied to an ornate cross (which burns his back) and Ike eye mojos the two girls and takes them up to a bedroom. The film makes sure we see that he casts no reflection (we’ll return to that). Charlie is tortured to make him give up a video, which Cross assumes he has. The film is of the Sunset Society/vampires and we get a flashback of a similar attack on Frankie (Ron Jeremy) in which we find out that religious symbols hurt as per denomination of the vampire – so a Star of David drawn in marker on Burton’s hand burns the Jewish Frankie. Meanwhile Ike has the girls amuse each other and then choses Becky, turns into mist, enters her in that form and turns into human again, bursting through her torso in a rather sfx effective gory scene.

Lemmy as Ace

Phobie appears and she has the DVD – indeed, Charlie knew nothing of it. She actually produced it for Ace, as she used to be Ace's girl. Most of the rest of the film is them watching the disc and… well, as well as being badly filmed and low quality, it is pretty much story-light and turgid. Ace is the leader of the Sunset Society, ruling from a mansion (with drawn establishing shots of the building). Two of his vampires are the primary focus of the film. Gage (Tracii Guns) plays a vampire who keeps buggering up the rules (for instance turning a girl without permission) and Daggar (Dizzy Reed) is a bored vampire who possesses a human to be mortal again. Ace is so languid in his authority one wonders why he bothers.

careless reflection

There is little offered in the way of vampire rules but we get the need of blood transference to turn, sunlight only makes them sick but draining a vampire will kill them and... remember the reflection rule in the wraparound? Well we get a nice bit of reflection in an attack scene. As well as not turning without permission, there is a rule about not drawing attention to the Society (so Ace suggests leaving bodies where killed as serial killers also bite sometimes!!!) There is also a rule about not attacking children.

Dizzy Reed as Daggar

Given the ‘film in the film’ is the majority of the movie one wonders at the point and that, generally, is the issue with this. It was a project and I suggest it was likely shelved due to it not being particularly interesting or… well… very good… Don’t get me wrong, seeing Lemmy with fangs is fun, and Guns and Reed do well with what they have – even if what they have is very little.

Ron Jeremy as Frankie

The problem is the film doesn’t build character enough to care about the wafer-thin story and looks horrible to boot, and that adds weight to the idea it was originally shelved. Whilst the cynic might suggest that the production company or filmmakers resurrected it to profit on the posthumous fame of Lemmy, one hopes they pulled it together as a tribute. Either way I score as a vampire movie only and whilst it might please die-hard fans of the musicians in it, it won’t satisfy genre fans (though the wraparound might provide slight solace and a wedge of gore). 3 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon US

On DVD @ Amazon UK

The Blood Harvest – review

Director: George Clarke

Release date: 2016

Contains spoilers

This is an odd one and there is a twist spoiler necessary I’m afraid. A film from Northern Ireland this is absolutely a budget film (the budget coming in at approximately £10k) and though it does some fundamentals wrong it also does some things I was impressed with.

It also starts off as a serial killer movie and, I suspected, one in which the killer acted like a vampire – but it was more than that (as we’ll see when we get to the spoiler). It starts with an attack.

use of close ups

We see a girl using the bins outside a house. She is nervous and I was rather taken by the confident use of close up shots, portraits of the characters that added a nice dimension to the cinematography. The girl is being watched and as she heads into the house the watcher (Liam Rowan) smashes her head into the door. When she comes around she is tied up inside, her lips sewn together and the mask wearing killer stands above her.

fork to the eye

His mask is in a skull motif and his movements seem almost theatrical. He uses a knife to slash at her (later we discover he cuts the Achilles Tendons) and then, using a fork, he approaches her face slowly and pulls out an eye as her muffled screams fail to escape her mutilated lips. He brandishes a metallic tube and stabs downwards… Again, in this scene we don’t see it but later we discover this is thrust into the open eye socket.

Robert Render as Chandler

Detective Hatcher (Jean-Paul Van der Velde) is on the phone as he enters a building, speaking to a superior and distancing himself from a report by his partner, Jack Chandler (Robert Render). He gets to the office where Chandler is and hands the phone over. The killer has been prolific, they have been finding a body every other day. However, Jack’s report veers towards the supernatural (yes, vampires are mentioned later) and the boss isn’t happy and suspends the detective. This leads to a tirade that has him fired.

the second masked killer

Jumping to nine months later and Hatcher has a new partner, Ward (Griffin Madill), and the killings are continuing. He is consulting Jack, who is still following the case. We get some scenes of hunting/stalking and this reveals that there are two killers – the second (Alan Crawford) wears a steampunk-esq mask that looks a little like a welding mask meets a gas mask. The masks were a nice touch but the behaviours and actions of the two killers maybe not as much, as we’ll see. However, it is important to note that it is confirmed that victims are drained of blood and Jack is still labouring under the idea of vampires (we actually see him put garlic into vials of holy water at one point and so it appears he actually believes in vampires).

younger killer

As for the killers, well they seem to communicate in grunts and gurns and whilst it’s weird and all, it’s also distracting and borderline offensive (it comes across as though they are mimicking serious neurological impairment). When we discover what they actually are it makes a kind of sense but still jars. The older killer comes across as unfortunately comedic, however the younger killer manages (unmasked) to portray a malevolence within these affectations.

human juice box

So, what are they? SPOILER…

Aliens apparently, the young from a crash thirty year before. They (and their surviving elder) discovered that the nutrition they need was in the blood of humans – and the most nutritious comes from just behind the eye (due to the presence of a specific chemical there). They also discovered that fear improves the blood, hence them preventing escape by cutting the Achilles but then keeping them alive/awake as they drain the body, torturing and threatening their victim. They look human as they create a human skin as a defensive mechanism.

the first masked killer

The film relied on a massive suspension of belief (not just around the alien aspect) so that we believe that such a spate of killings (recently discovered but they must have been going on for some time) would garner less attention than these clearly have. The police interactions are not believable. However the strangeness of the film helps us pass these concerns and the use of the masks and some of the cinematography works. The acting not so much – not only the affectations of the killers but Hatcher was played poorly, I think, with a staccato delivery that also jarred.

true form

Yet this was strangely watchable as a budget flick. It bordered on torture porn in places and the gore effects were impressive given the lack of budget. Go in with low expectations and you might find yourself coming out conflicted – sure you shouldn’t have liked it but carrying a grudging respect for the film. This definitely suggests the filmmakers have building blocks they can use to make bigger and better flicks. 4 out of 10 does feel a tad too generous but less felt unfair.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On DVD @ Amazon UK

Neighbours: They are Vampires – review

Director: Shyam Ramsay

Release date: 2014

Contains spoilers


This is a Bollywood offering from Shyam Ramsay, of the famous Ramsay brothers and is not, it must be stated at the head of the review, a horror film as much as it is a comedy horror. It is also a gender swapped (presumably unofficial) remake of Fright Night with the Brewster role being taken over by Sanam (Hritu) and, whilst it contains an occult layer that Fright Night never had it never strays far from the core plot.

That said the prologue of the film is very different.

seduction via dance

After a start that mentions the idea that between the 17th and 20th century there were millions of vampires it moves to the Mountains of Kumbhata Maang which are ruled by a witch named Kapaalika, who is also a vampire. A forest officer named Vikrant (Gavie Chahal) was hunting her but then one night, outside his home… and yes, less than three minutes in and we have a Bollywood song and dance as Kapaalika tries to seduce the chaste Vikrant, a devotee of Shiva. She nearly succeeds too, but he sees the evil looking tattoo on her back and comes to his senses.

exploding fireballs

She runs, rightly fearing for her life, and he chases after her and is set upon by satanic monks who he fights and then, after defeating them, he pulls out a holy aum symbol and starts firing fireballs at her. Yup, fireballs and they produce blooming massive explosions on impact. Eventually the good mystic energy strikes a glancing blow and she ends up with the aum raised as a weal on her forehead and then, with a direct hit, she is disintegrated. All this is watched by a sinister man who is lurking in the bushes and who turns out to be her master. He predicts her return.

Hritu as Sanam

In the city Sanam is watching a horror movie and starts to scream. This brings her aunty and uncle (and a guy I assume is her cousin, the film isn’t clear). Realising it is the horror film that has set her off the uncle threatens to throw away all her DVDs and books. When they get to her favourite – a book on vampires by Professor Indernath Malhotra (Shakti Kapoor) she kicks up such a fuss that they eventually relent and give her one more chance. The next day she is modelling for her photographer boyfriend Karan (Sunny Singh) in the park when she spots and meets Indernath. She gets his autograph and an invitation to visit him and get a book of his she doesn’t have.

the Master and Tanya

Meanwhile a woman, Tanya, is driving along and goes over some wood with nails in, puncturing her tire. Her brother (who we later discover is Vikrant) calls her and the Master sneaks up on her and grabs her. He takes her to a house (bungalow in the subs but way too big for the English term) that happens to be opposite Sanam’s and the girl spots localised lightning around the house as the master calls forth the spirit of Kapaalika and she possesses Tanya.

the mirror cracks

Following the Fright Night formula, Sanam is suspicious of the goings on in the house, sees Kapaalika feed and tries to get help that ends up with her going to the professor. He actually does believe in vampires and so when he goes to help her test Kapaalika he immediately states that the test was positive (unlike Peter Vincent in the US vehicle who denies it). The test in this case is throwing holy water (from the Ganges) over her and then looking at her in a mirror. Rather than no reflection, the mirror shows her vampiric self and then cracks. The professor’s assistant Sweety is got (as opposed to Fright Night’s Evil Ed) and goes after him, scaring him off.

drinking blood

It all leads to a showdown and a reluctant vampire hunter making good (though it adds in Vikrant turning up too). However, Sanam is no Brewster and is fairly useless throughout, screaming at anything remotely scary. The lore is limited but they can shapeshift (we are told) and are weak during a lunar eclipse. There is only one other song and dance (about being drunk). The sfx range from quite good to poor but it all holds together rather nicely, so long as you can stand Sanam’s histrionics. It certainly isn’t the greatest film ever made – and by far not the best Bollywood film (or Bollywood vampire film for that matter). However, I wasn’t bored, I was mostly amused and a couple of moments were effective. 5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Monsterland – review

Director: Various

Release date: 2016

Contains spoilers

This is another portmanteau film that brings together unconnected (and I assume previously released) shorts as a whole. The wraparound has a survivor (Josh LaCasse) of an ongoing apocalypse seeking refuge in a cinema (where the audience has been killed) and watching the shorts we watch.

This is fairly lengthy, coming in at 108 minutes, but most of the content is worth a look (a rather surreal stop motion was perhaps misplaced and I have seen it before in another anthology film). The only connectivity is the theme of monsters and there are two that we are interested in – one with a vampire and the other with a vampiric entity.

Scott and Marie

The first segment is entitled Hag and was directed by Erik Gardner. It starts with Scott (Drew Wicks, Angel) waking up to find that wife, Marie (Megan Duffy) is out of bed and stood at the window. She repeats over and over that *she* gets you in your sleep. He calls out to her but she snaps at him. In the morning he wakes to find her staring intently at him, wanting to look at him.

the hag

They are attending therapy together with a marriage guidance counsellor (John Franklin) but things are going to take a turn for the worse. Scott starts waking to a dripping on his face and finds he cannot move. He also starts seeing a hag (Eileen Dietz, Creepshow 3). We have met the hag before; energy vampire and common archetype across many mythologies/folklores. This time it is unusual as it seems to be tied in with Marie and we are left wondering whether it is an entity in its own right, Scott’s stresses made manifest or actually Marie possessed. This Hag can also attack in a way that is much more visceral than many portrayals.

home invasion

The second segment we are interested in is House Call, directed by Graham Denman. It starts with a dentist, Dr Richter (Ruben Pla), sat at home maudlin – visual clues suggesting that he is recently divorced. There is a knocking at the door. A man (Sean Keller, Death Valley) is there and says he wants a dentist. Richter tries to get rid of him but he pushes in and brandishes a gun. The man has been to his surgery and, when it was closed, come to his home.

pulling teeth

His issue – he’s becoming a vampire. He met a woman, who bit him, and he is now burnt by sunlight and garlic repulses him. He can feel his teeth growing. Richter tries to tell him that the teeth look normal and that, as he has a reflection, he can’t be a vampire. To no avail… the man wants him to pull his cuspid teeth, and when Richter states he doesn’t have his equipment at home the man suggests he improvise. He literally pulls them using a small monkey wrench, but the man fits, following the second extraction, and perhaps the fangs just needed space to grow…

vampire

Both these shorts were well shot and fun. Hag gave a lot of room to think about the story and what may (or may not) have happened. The insinuations are there but the short offers just the right amount of doubt. House Call is more direct and simple, with no grey area and is fun for that very reason as well. The other shorts included are varied in content but, for the most part, are professionally put together horror shorts.

Noel Jason Scott as the Ghoul

There is just one more vampire to mention. The wraparound in the cinema was directed by John Skipp and Andrew Kasch. It doesn’t have a huge amount of story to it other than the survivor watching the films (and killing a tentacled thing in the projection room). However – at the end of the film there is a somewhat larger monster in the auditorium and the survivor makes a break for it, however another monster runs into the theatre at the same time. Credited as the Ghoul (Noel Jason Scott), the distinguishing features are the fangs and the 'vamp face' – so it could well be a vampire or remind us that ghoul and vampire often are conflated.

For the shorts mentioned, 7 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon US

On DVD @ Amazon UK

Guest Blog: Interesting Shorts: Valeska

We welcome Clark back to the blog as he looks at Valeska, a short from the collection Voices of the Damned.

Author: Barbie Wilde

Published 2015.

Contains spoilers

Horror fans will probably best know Ms Wilde as the female Cenobite in Hellraiser II: Hellbound, but in this anthology collection she proves that she is also as adept at writing as she is portraying a horror icon.

The 11 stories contained include 10 previously published works, including The Cilicium Trilogy which are set within Clive Barker's Hellraiser Mythos.

I would add at this point that the stories are erotically charged horror, and therefore perhaps not suitable for younger horror fans (at least until they get a bit older).

The 11th story is the one of most interest for this blog though, being Valeska, the sole vampire story within the collection. This article will, by necessity, be very spoiler heavy

Ms Wilde has used vampire lore as a starting point and added her own twists.

Valeska, the titular character, is a vampire, but not your usual "run of the mill" vampire. She is of a class of vampires known as Seminals. This class of vampire is only female, for reasons that become apparent through the story. Seminals are considered to be a lower class of vampire by the Sanguine, a far more numerous, albeit weaker, vampire class.

The story starts in the present day as Valeska prepares for a nightly hunt. Upon entering a club, she sees a male who takes her eye. By emanating a special perfume from her sexual organs, she is able to ensnare him. This reminded me a little of how some vampires have used hypnosis as a form of ensnaring their prey. She goes to his home with him and seduces him. The scene set is very sexual in nature but necessarily so as it explains the nature of Seminal vampires. They extract the potency and life force needed to survive by sexual means instead of drinking blood.

As she is going home she senses another vampire, a Sanguine, who distracts her by informing her that the Sanguine have declared war on the Seminal. Whilst distracted another figure appears behind her and knocks her unconscious.

At this point the author takes us back to 1348, enabling her to explain her own vampire creation myth. She explains how famine had forced a family to take the words of Christ literally "This is my blood, drink it; this is my flesh, eat it". Suspicions within the village has forced them to leave one night and head East, naming themselves the Sanguine and continuing their ways without interference.

We move forward to 1692, and meet Patrizia, a Sanguine, who is walking near her village, thinking she is safe as Sanguine are far stronger than humans. She senses a presence and sees a dark clad figure. We learn this figure is called Varazlo, and he is far stronger than Patrizia. Initially against her will, yet later willingly, she is seduced by him. He tells her she is now carrying a child. This child is the first Seminal.

Seminal vampires are only ever female, whereas Sanguine can be either gender. The 2 classes of vampire tend to avoid each other except to mate, and any child born will become Seminal if female, but males will be sent to be raised by Sanguine.

The story returns to the present day and Valeska, who awakens to find herself on a bed. She feels that whilst unconscious she was raped. The perpetrator enters the room and we learn it is Varazlo, who although a vampire, is of a type unknown to both Sanguine and Seminal. He admits that he did indeed rape Valeska while she slept, and that she now carries his son, who is of a new class of vampire, more powerful than any that have come before.

He states he has done this because he is angered by the spats between the 2 vampire classes. As he turns to the door Valeska, who is understandably furious with him, attacks him, knocking him half unconscious when his head hits the door.

Valeska uses the Seminal way of feeding whilst he is coming round, extracting his life force until he dies before stealing his clothing and making her escape.

The story ends with her walking in the rain, pondering whether to keep the child growing within her or not, knowing it will have a huge impact on the vampire races.

Ms Wilde's prose is easy to follow with characters you can empathise with.

I found it a highly enjoyable story, and hope the author will write further about Valeska, as I feel there is more to be told about her and the vampire classes.

I would recommend the book to anybody who likes their horror with a healthy dose of both blood and sex.

In Paperback @ Amazon US

In Paperback @ Amazon UK

Dracula in Love – review

Director: Izidore K. Musallam

Release date: 2018

Contains spoilers


Well, its another Dracula film and the fact that this actually adds another film into the character’s ever-growing résumé is about the only positive that one can offer about this. Beyond that it is truly a terrible film. Set in one location (two if you class the warehouse floor and office as two separate locations) with a limited number of cast, the film would have had to pull something out of the proverbial bag.

It doesn’t, as you will see, but it does give us victims that we can truly feel deserve their fate – which I suppose is a plus. Unfortunately, the acting behind said characters is dreadful – again something we’ll return to.

Eyal Simko as Nash

So, it starts with Uncle Stuart (Alan K. Sapp), who has a hacking cough and asks his nephew, Nash (Eyal Simko), to take his place as night-watchman in the warehouse he has worked in for thirty years. Nash turns up with his guitar in hand and agrees to cover for his Uncle. As soon as Stuart has gone, however, he phones best friend David (Josh Maltin). David is with his girlfriend Nancy (Amy Cruichshank) but with the promise of Stuart’s scotch and Nash’s joints he says they’ll be right over.

the gang

When they arrive, Nash realises they have brought Nancy’s friend Leila (Cailey Muise) and she seems aloof and a little strange. She also starts to say that she feels something “spooky”. The dialogue, it must be said at this point, isn’t brilliant. Anyway, David and Nancy try to get some privacy and, after seeming uninterested, Leila starts to be quite sexually open towards Nash – but then starts wandering off (ending up on top of a stack in the warehouse at one point, with no memory of how she got there).

Uncle Fester... I mean... Dracula

Essentially her presence has awoken Dracula (played old by Youssef Abed-Alnour and young by Andre Luis Oliveira). He has been in a crate for 200 years and he claims to be her love. However, when she sees his hideous visage she is terrified. Ok… so they haven’t made him a looker, but he is hardly terrifying either. Wearing sackcloth and sporting a hunch, he looks more Igor than Dracula and, facially, there is little in the way of menace but a look that seems more a benign Uncle Fester than malign Prince of Darkness.

holding hands

What we get is what seems to be a variant on the resurrected love scenario, though resurrection is not actually mentioned. When Nash attempts to rape her, Leila goes to the crate and the vampire makes her invisible as she holds his hand. David also gets rapey with her and this is what I mean by the (vampire) victims not carrying sympathy. Nancy sleeps with Nash for fun, both male characters try to rape Leila and David gives Nancy such a crack with a piece of wood he kills her.

bled

They are not actually killed by Dracula. He has told Leila that, to restore him, she must kill her friends and feed him their blood and then sleep with him. Other than that, we don’t get a lot of lore. He is strong (even in his weakened state) able to swat one of the young men away (though he doesn’t actually connect). He can make the doors lock and the radio go on and off. One of the guys names him as a vampire after seeing him though he does nothing vampiric and does not look atypically vampiric either.

love blossoms

The director tries to use the camera to instil a sense of Leila’s dream/trance state a couple of times but the scenes drag and the clever technique seems cheap and too obvious. That said the film is slicker than a lot of low grade budget films, when it comes to the filming and this makes the terrible nature of the film actually that little bit worse. The acting is, across the board, atrocious but – as I say – the fact that the victims are not at all sympathetic is a bonus. There isn’t a lot more to say about this one, it simply isn’t very good. 1 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Little Deaths – review

Director: Sean Hogan (segment)

Release date: 2011

Contains spoilers

Little Deaths is an anthology film and by the title (i.e. la petite mort) you can tell that the segments are about sex and death, and there is some wonderful twisted, disturbing stuff in this. The first segment is the one we’re interested in and so I’ll quickly mention that the second segment, mutant tool, is probably my favourite of the three and is a very twisted modern-day story involving a mutant, Nazi experiments and drugs made from its emissions. The last segment Bitch was disturbing, more than anything, as there wasn’t a sympathetic protagonist just the descent into absolute depravity in an incredibly abusive and dysfunctional relationship.

As for House and Home, the first film. Well, I’m not entirely sure there are vampires in it… but there is something and I’ll discuss it at the culmination but, please beware that this means I will entirely spoil the segment.

everyone has appetites

We start with middle class couple Richard (Luke de Lacey) and Victoria (Siubhan Harrison) in bed, he seems to be deep in thought as she reads. He tries it on but is rebuffed and when he subsequently gropes her she bites his hand. He complains but then mentions he saw her, a homeless girl called Sorrow (Holly Lucas) it transpires, again, in the park. Victoria tells him he should be careful and she admits that everyone has appetites, though everyone has different actual tastes.

sorrow and boyfriend

We next see Sorrow and her (unnamed) boyfriend (James Oliver Wheatley) in the park. They are dirty, cold and hungry but clearly in love. She notices that *he* is back – referring to Richard a distance away, in his car and smoking a cigarette. They wonder if he is police or pervert? He drives off. At home he discusses them with Victoria and it is clear that he has followed their movements and worked out that they split up to beg. They agree to do *it* the next day.

stalking

Richard approaches Sorrow in the street and puts a high value bank note in her cup. She says she can’t give change but he doesn’t want change, so she says that she isn’t on the game and he replies that he would hope not. He asks whether she knows God and mentions that he and his wife like to give if they can; money, a hot meal, a bath… at the mention of his wife she relaxes a little and goes off with him. Getting to the house she meets Victoria, is shown the bathroom, allowed to have a bath and given a glass of wine.

drugged

She comes down for dinner but the other two are not drinking – they only keep drink in for guests they say. Sorrow becomes overcome and their conversation moves from the faux-piousness to quite nasty filth as Sorrow passes out, her head in the food. Victoria tells Richard to get rid of the drugged wine and open a clean bottle. This is the game they like to play, pick up a homeless girl on the pretence of Christian charity, drug them, abuse them and send them away with hush money. When Sorrow awakens she is naked, strapped to a bed with a bit in her mouth.

teeth

She is raped and peed on by Richard, who goes to shower as Victoria takes over and then we get the twist (which I’ll have to spoil to justify the review). He hears Victoria scream, getting into the basement he sees her with Sorrow crouched above her lapping at the blood from her neck with a maw of sharp, monstrous teeth. Richard runs for his car but is surrounded by homeless people (including Sorrow’s boyfriend) who have all sprouted said teeth. We then see them ripping at Victoria’s guts, feeding on her, as the still living Richard is pinned to the wall with scissors.

transformed

So what are they? Well the teeth appear when necessary and Sorrow laps blood, but they clearly also eat flesh. They intend to keep Richard alive for as long as possible for food and so they are not classic ghouls (corpse eaters) and they seem, to all intents and purposes, vampiric with regards their eating habit and hiding in plain sight (enough for me to go for a review). Part of me did actually think lycanthropy, but they don’t actually transform (bar the teeth), though they make cat like noises. Perhaps the lycanthropy feeling was a class thing as werewolves (which these are not) are often portrayed as working/lower class whilst vampires often enjoy middle/upper class status. Clearly there was a class abuse going on – bored middle classes preying on an underclass of poor.

a living buffet

I did enjoy the segment, however, and thought it a nicely twisted piece. Her going with Richard seemed too easy but then, unbeknown to the audience at that point, she had a definitive ace up her sleeve. There was room to expand on the film, but that would have just been an expansion of the abuse/torture. 7 out of 10 for the segment.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

DVD @ Amazon UK