Playing with Tropes: the Texas Chain Saw Massacre

“What in Sam Hill do you think you’re doing at this here vampire genre blog?” I can almost hear you say it, but just bear with me here. This film clearly needs no introduction. Dating back to 1974 and directed by Tobe Hooper, it introduced one of the modern horror icons in the character of Leatherface (Gunnar Hansen, Apocalypse & the Beauty Queen) but this does play with a vampiric trope and mentions vampires as well.

That shouldn’t surprise us too much as Tobe Hooper would go on to direct Salem’s Lot and Lifeforce. For those who haven’t seen the film; after a narrated (John Larroquette, the Librarians and the Eternal Question) intertitle, talking of the events we are about to watch, we discover that a cemetery in Texas as been desecrated, corpses disinterred and a bizarre totem created out of some of the remains.

totem of the dead

It is to the cemetery that Sally (Marilyn Burns) and her wheelchair bound brother Franklin (Paul A. Partain) are heading with a group of their friends. After the cemetery (their grandfather’s grave is intact) they continue and I want to look at Hooper’s original script for a moment. In it there is commentary by Jerry (Allen Danziger) that “Your grandfather’s a vampire” and then “He’s the king vampire. He doesn’t have to do anything. The other vampires bring him blood.” This is in response to the grave being intact and was cut out of the film. At this point they pass a slaughterhouse and have to wind the windows up.

we picked up Dracula

They then pick up a hitchhiker (Edwin Neal) and Franklin says “I think we picked up Dracula” and when the hitchhiker says that his brother and grandfather (John Dugan) worked at the slaughterhouse Franklin adds “a whole family of Draculas”. Now this is interesting as an example of Dracula becoming a collective noun for a type of vampire and, of course, it is a passing mention. As the hitchhiker is part of the family of cannibals the kids are going to run into, it is also a foreshadowing that ties the family and vampires together. Interestingly, as their property is the neighbouring one to Sally and Franklin’s grandfather’s abandoned house the cut part of the script would seem to tie the two families together.

Sally at dinner

Cutting forward, however, and Sally is being pursued by Leatherface and runs upstairs into a room where the Grandfather and Grandmother (presumably) are. They both look to be corpses and I thought as much when I first saw the film. The script says he is “a tiny, very old and shrivelled man. He is motionless, his eyes shut. He is so small that his legs dangle above the floor like a childs (sic) though his are slack and lifeless.” The script, after Sally begs for help, goes on to say “he is like the dead”. So, later, when Sally is captured and they are to have dinner and Leatherface and the hitchhiker carry grandpa down it seems, on first viewing, that they are bringing a corpse to the dinner table.

Grandfather suckles

However, he is not dead. They cut Sally’s finger and put it into the man’s mouth and he suckles the blood – almost as though the blood revives him. The script tells us, “Leatherface must open the slack tooth-less mouth himself and insert the finger. Once the finger is in his mouth the grandfather begins to suckle like an infant his arms and legs suddenly have life and begin to squirm. He buts Sallys (sic) finger with his hands as if it were a reluctant breast.” There very much is a life through blood aspect here, with the old man looking (and for all intents and purpose being) dead until he drinks blood, the mention of a breast makes this definitely a feeding. This is the primary vampire trope the film plays with.

a horror icon

So, there you have it. A vampiric trope (and mention of vampires) in the Texas Chain Saw Massacre as well as a further mention in script that was cut from the final film. I’ll also mention that we see a dead armadillo at the beginning of the film, on the highway. The armadillo, of course, became associated with vampires when Tod Browning added the wee critter into Dracula, probably not a connection here but worth observing. The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon US

On DVD @ Amazon UK

New Breed – review

Director: Stephen Groo

Release date: 2001

Contains spoilers

“Are we nearly there yet?” Had I been watching this with someone else I may have actually vocalised similar as I don’t think an hour has dragged so much for a very long time. I was checking the time on the movie from early on in (roughly the five-minute mark) and at no point did I immerse into the film enough to actually not be conscious of how slowly time was trickling by.

Of course, when it comes to watching vampire movies I have an iron constitution. I have sat through some utter dross. This was badly acted, badly scripted and badly photographed. More than that it was utterly pointless but what was it about?

gyrating credits goth

After credits with a gyrating Goth-looking vampire we are at a college and a couple of Goths observe a student, Derek (Stephen Groo), they are going to approach him about tonight. Derek goes into the college and chats to friends, goes into class and is bullied by some guy and then leaves the class and is approached by the Goths who invite him to Goth club. His friend is wary, he goes anyway and then goes missing for a few days.

wannabe Spike

When he turns back up, he is now dressed like a Goth (and looking like he is trying to be Spike from Buffy). He beats up the bully, showing prodigious strength, and is then told off by a couple of Goths for showing off his new powers. He takes his female friend off for a chat, reveals he is now a vampire and… well suffice it to say that he turns on Goth club, and he and his friends go and kill all the vampires. We’re only a third way in… “Are we nearly there yet?”

bitey

He is a “New Breed”, which means he has none of the normal vampire weaknesses bar being staked. He turns his friends and they all turn into Goths (apparently that’s a thing when you are turned into a vampire, you can’t dress “normal” and have to dress Goth). We get a montage where there is lots of fighting and his friends are mostly killed and then a new set of Goths turn up. We discover vampires are naturally polyglots and then Derek is staked (we are still not finished though).

long black wig

The stake is removed and he comes back to life – instantly sporting an unfetching long black wig (a side effect of stake removal, apparently) and now evil…. “Are we nearly there yet?” Yes, thankfully we are nearly finished and it took all of my iron constitution not to switch this off. I always try not be positive but this had no redeeming features. Badly filmed, awful direction, not one moment of good acting, no real plot, crap lore. I really wanted to find a positive to offer you but I can’t. Not even its short running time helps, because it feels like hours. It’s down there with the worst. 0 out of 10.

The imdb page is On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Playing with Tropes: The Neon Demon

Some time ago my brother suggested that he would like to see me look at the 2016 Nicolas Winding Refn film about the fashion industry on TMtV and whilst the surreal and horrific exploration might seem, on the surface, to be little more than the run up through jealousy to murder, perhaps taking its cue from gaillo, if you dig beneath the surface you discover aspects that could correspond to witchcraft and/or vampirism – especially of the Báthory variety.

This, in and of itself, is interesting due to an exchange in the film when haute couture designer Sarno (Alessandro Nivola) says to amateur photographer Dean (Karl Glusman) “So are you gonna tell me that it's what's inside that counts?” When Dean affirms this Sarno is dismissive and, for him, all is surface. The film, later, does play further with this (as we’ll see), but it is worth noting that the film is stunningly beautiful in its composition and yet, as I have mentioned in conversation, it felt soulless. The response I received was that it is meant to feel that way – again reflecting a perception of the industry it exposes.

Because we are looking at tropes, be warned no spoiler is too big.

shoot

After credits with neon lighting in rotation that reminds one of gaillo, we start with a girl, draped on a sofa, her throat apparently cut and bleeding. The girl is Jesse (Elle Fanning) and the composition is vaguely Báthory-esque, the furniture almost looking like a bath in its composition, however the scene is as fake as the blood. She is new in town – a small town girl (her parents apparently dead) moved to LA to be a model. She is being shot by Dean. After the shoot she is cleaning up and makeup artist Ruby (Jena Malone) compliments her on her skin and then invites her to a party.

Sarah and Gigi

At the party she is introduced to established models Gigi (Bella Heathcote, Dark Shadows) and Sarah (Abbey Lee) – I’ll refer to the two, with Ruby, as the trio. In an almost throwaway moment she is seen from a distance by Jack (Desmond Harrington), a sought-after photographer – we’ll return to him shortly. In the toilets it becomes apparent that the two models are catty but in a moment of foreshadowing, whilst discussing lipstick, Ruby suggests that all lipsticks are named after food or sex as a selling point and asks Jesse what she is, food or sex. When asked about her sexual proclivity Jesse lies and suggests she is very heterosexually sexually active. We soon discover she is just 16 (she signs a parental consent form herself and is told to say she is 19).

the puma

After an encounter with a mountain lion that gets into her motel room – a moment of surreality that speaks more to the metaphorical in the first instance, but also sets up for narrative moments exploring her own selfishness with Dean (who she had been out with immediately before), and might also be deemed a summoned (by the trio) familiar – she goes on her first signed shoot. The shoot is with Jack and he calls for a closed set, just him and Jesse, making her disrobe. What the viewer first assumes to be sleazy becomes the opposite as he covers her with gold body paint, almost worshipping her. In a scene with the trio, Ruby (who was on set before it was closed) tells the others about this and we hear that Jack never does test shoots with models. He has clearly seen something special, right across the room, and this brings the Fritz Lieber story The Girl with the Hungry Eyes to mind (iro the link, scroll below the film review for the article on Lieber's short story).

drinking blood

Jesse goes to audition for Sarno’s catwalk show and he too spots her ineffable something and Sarah is displaced from the show for her. Sarah smashes a mirror in a bathroom and Jesse goes to her – the model, who perhaps is becoming too old (though still very young), states that she is becoming a ghost. Jesse accidentally presses her hand on a piece of broken glass and Sarah grabs at it, sucking at the blood until the girl pulls away. Sarah looks up at her, blood at her mouth, and the imagery is pure genre. It is Dean who removes the glass and bandages her hand (though it probably required stitches). After the bandaging we never see the wound again, as though it has healed.

Jesse and Ruby

After (probably a hallucinated) disturbing encounter with her landlord (Keanu Reeves, Dracula (1992) & the Matrix Reloaded) Jesse calls Ruby and goes to the house Ruby is staying in (as a house sitter). The makeup artist comes on to her but Jesse confesses she is a virgin. This is irrelevant to Ruby who tries to sapphically rape her but Jesse pushes her away.

Ruby's fetish

The immediate aftermath of this occurs the next day when Ruby commits necrophilia with a corpse at the mortuary, this is intercut with erotically charged images of Jesse that might be reality or might be Ruby’s fantasy. It has to be noted at this point that vampirism and necrophilia were popularly connected at one point with such activity being conflated by J K Huysmans, who points out that Sergeant Bertrand, the infamous 19th century necrophiliac, was known in the popular press as the Vampire of Montparnasse.

blood bath

When she returns to the house Jesse makes a speech about her own beauty making her dangerous (the film has made it clear that she is descending into narcissism) but recall Ruby’s question about sex and food. Jesse has rejected sex and the trio hunt her through the house and kill her. We see the models covered in gore in the shower as Ruby, gore covered, bathes in blood. But it was not just her blood they took and Jesse has been cannibalised. The next day Ruby lies in Jesse’s shallow grave and reveals occult like symbols tattooed on her torso. At night she does a moon ritual and seems to expel a gush of blood from her privates at the height of it.

vomiting the eye

The models go to a shoot that Gigi has with Jack, Sarah just accompanying. Sarah, when asked if anyone ever stole a job from her, states she ate the person. From a distance Jack sees something in Sarah and fires the second model – indicating that consuming Jesse has taken her je ne sais pas. Can we be sure that they ate her? Gigi suddenly feels sick and, leaving the outdoor shoot, enters the house. She starts heaving until she brings up an eyeball and then cries that she needs to ger *her* out of her and stabs herself with scissors – almost a staking. Sarah picks up the vomited eye and eats it herself.

catwalk

So, plenty of tropes on show from the vampire genre – with cannibalism (but the sort that has a preternatural impact), occultism (and possibly witchcraft), necrophilia and blood bathing. It is not, per se, a vampire film but the strands of the genre it plays with means that it is playing with tropes and is of genre interest.

The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon US

On DVD @ Amazon UK

Vampire Films of the 1970s: Dracula to Blacula and Every Fang Between – review

Author: Gary A Smith

First published: 2016

Contains spoilers

The blurb: The 1970s were turbulent times and the films made then reflected the fact. Vampire movies-always a cinema staple-were no exception. Spurred by the surprise worldwide success of Hammer Film's Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1969 (sic)), vampire movies filled theaters for the next ten years-from the truly awful to bonafide classics. Audiences took the good with the bad and came back for more. Providing a critical review of the genre's overlooked Golden Age, this book explores a mixed bag from around the world, including The Vampire Lovers (1970), Dracula Versus Frankenstein (1971), Scream, Blacula, Scream (1973), Salem's Lot (1975 (sic)), Dracula Sucks (1978) and Love at First Bite (1979).

The review: If I am given pause to thought on this volume it is around the subtitle “Dracula to Blacula and Every Fang Between” because, whilst this is a valiant effort, there are plenty of 1970 vampire genre pieces missing. Now, to be fair, of the roughly 100 entries on this blog (not including films I haven’t covered yet) that don’t appear in the book many are cartoons and TV episodes – not texts that the book looks to cover. However, there are some films absent, often obscure or films in which the vampiric element could be debated or is a fleeting visitation. Sometimes not so obscure given some of the entries in the volume.

I was heartened when the first line of the books opening “The Rules About Vampires” stated “The rules about vampires are that there are no rules.” But Smith often didn’t look to the more borderline films, those films that are vampire despite not being the traditional undead. He did mention Alucarda but suggested it was not a vampire movie, I disagree, but in the main borderline movies do not appear. Then, strangely, he includes Chosen Survivors in which it is vampire bats (with no supernatural element), something I would not look to cover. Chinese films that included vampires pre-1980 were missed (as not existing) though there are a couple of examples where they were a fleeting visitation or it was not a standard vampire type.

The book is chatty and it is an overview, so the plot summaries are mostly quickfire with a few factoids laid out before, but this made the book readable. Where it failed was when personal prejudice came into it. I’m not talking about opinion – and it is clear to me that the author and I radically differ on our opinions of several films – but using Jess Franco as a prime example, the maverick director did receive his own chapter but it is clear that Smith did not care for the director’s work to the point that several of his better known films were glossed over and not given the format prominence of other work and A Virgin Among the Living Dead (one of his superior films) was missed altogether. In one of the (in this case, glaring) omissions I mentioned, though not directed by Franco, I would have expected to see Cuadecuc Vampir mentioned, if not covered fully.

That said the book did touch into the obscure and also covered things like (briefly) vampire porn – something I deliberately haven’t covered here. I was pleased to see Los vampiros de Coyoacán covered, a film I do have a couple of times on DVD but have failed to find a subtitle set for it. All in all, it’s a brave stab and very readable 7 out of 10.

In Paperback @ Amazon US

In Paperback @ Amazon UK

Ken Russell’s Dracula – review

Author: Ken Russell

Published: 2017 (3rd ed)

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: Written between Tommy and Altered States, Ken Russell’s screenplay for Dracula was one of Hollwood’s best kept secrets. It has been used to inspire two hit films and an internationally successful ballet. Ken Russell’s partially autobiographical re-imagining of Dracula is ready to inspire a whole new generation of artists.

The review: I do like a bit of Ken Russell, the auteur director made some magnificent films and some that might not be magnificent but are certainly memorable and fun. Here at TMtV we remember Russell for his content that touched into the vampire genre (and the history thereof). Gothic explored the party at Villa Diodati, which led to Polidori’s the Vampyre: a Tale. Lair of the White Worm was a vampiric renditioning of Bram Stoker’s novel and, according to Paul Sutton’s introduction in this book, was partially made because the production company couldn’t afford to make this treatment of Dracula. Lisztomania was one of Russell’s classical music orientated films (he was an expert on classical composers) that transforms Wagner into a vampire. Finally, his segment in Trapped Ashes featured vampiric boobs.

How I wish, however, that the list I have just given included his take on Dracula because, if this screenplay is anything to go by, it would have been magnificent (caveated, of course, that it would have changed shape during production and filming). Transposed to the 1920s this is a Dracula who is an artist (indeed he has been many of the great artists and has preserved many others as vampires) and, as such, his motivation has changed from Stoker’s Count but the story begins, as with Stoker, with Harker travelling to Transylvania.

However his coach trip is so very different; gypsies offering blood sacrifices, women fed on by vampire bats and a tussle with a werewolf coachman… or just a trick played upon an unwary traveller?

Dracula is aware of Lucy as she is a world-famous opera singer, dying of leukaemia, and so the motivation of both Dracula in vampirising her and her accepting him changes dramatically from the book. This is a telling of Dracula like no other and is all done with panache. The internal logic changes work so very well. We will never have Ken’s vision unfortunately (even if someone else made it as per this script, it wouldn’t be the vision Ken would have given us) but we do have his treatment and it’s a joy for Dracula and Russell fans alike. Necessary 10 out of 10.

In Paperback @ Amazon US

In Paperback @ Amazon UK

The Vampire: a New History – review

Author: Nick Groom

First published: 2018

Contains spoilers

The blurb: An authoritative new history of the vampire, two hundred years after it first appeared on the literary scene Published to mark the bicentenary of John Polidori's publication of The Vampyre, Nick Groom's detailed new account illuminates the complex history of the iconic creature. The vampire first came to public prominence in the early eighteenth century, when Enlightenment science collided with Eastern European folklore and apparently verified outbreaks of vampirism, capturing the attention of medical researchers, political commentators, social theorists, theologians, and philosophers. Groom accordingly traces the vampire from its role as a monster embodying humankind's fears, to that of an unlikely hero for the marginalized and excluded in the twenty-first century. Drawing on literary and artistic representations, as well as medical, forensic, empirical, and sociopolitical perspectives, this rich and eerie history presents the vampire as a strikingly complex being that has been used to express the traumas and contradictions of the human condition.

The review: I came across Nick Groom as the beset expert in The Luke McQueen Pilots: Britain's Hidden Vampire Crisis, however I had also read an essay in the Cambridge Companion to Dracula and, unfortunately, I found that the weakest of the chapters. However, one piece of work does not cover a body of work and – free of the confines of a chapter – Groom’s work here excels.

Groom explores the vampire from the 18th Century panics – arguing that these were the first vampires, and that revenants, spectres etc. are not vampires as emerged in the panics, indeed cutting the vampires from other blood drinking mythological creatures. It is a position that I can accept as an argument basis (as much as I can recognise the folkloric tropes that are common). He then draws a thorough socio-political history that allows us to see the context.

He carries this through the panics into the 19th century literature that developed (and I must say I always appreciate finding new pieces, and Groom covers pieces I’d not considered before). He skirts around Christabel suggesting that she appears vampiric, if not actually a vampire (I subscribe to it not being a vampire piece but, again, Groom dealt with this even-handedly.

The final chapter then moves on to Dracula (a brief view beyond Dracula is found in the conclusion but Dracula is seen as the loci between the developing vampire from the panics into the modern phenomena). To concentrate on this, for a moment, as it was where I was less positive about his previous essay; where the author drew a direct line between Ţepeş and the Count previously, in this it is less concreate a connection that is drawn (and then only briefly). I perhaps would still want a recognition that there is a strong view against the connection but it felt less “In Search of Dracula”.

One thing I did enjoy was how he drew the view of female hysteria with the figure of Lucy (and her subsequent healing, through the stake). There was mileage to connect this back to Varney the Vampire and Clara Crofton. Another thing I enjoyed was his vampire/vampiric reading of Frankenstein and I will, at some point, look to explore that here – with all due credit, of course.

But it is the historical context… the politics, the religious contentions, the societal views that he explores and ties into the development of the vampire as a figure up to, and including, Dracula that makes this such an important book. Highly recommended. 9 out of 10.

In Hardback @ Amazon US

In Hardback @ Amazon UK

Vamp Bikers – review

Director: Eric Spade Rivas

Release date: 2013

Contains spoilers

Oh my word, what did I just watch? Normally I watch a film and take notes, perhaps go over scenes again that I want to clarify or simply check out again, and then let the film settle in my mind before writing the review. This time around I’m straight on the keyboard because no amount of reflection is likely to make this film make any more sense than: wtf.

This is the first of three in a series and I’ll admit that the cinematography was better than I expected, at least in parts, but I came away feeling that I had just watched a few films spliced together (though I don’t believe that’s the case) and that any narrative had vanished in the splice.

Jets and Sharks... oops, wrong film 

It starts with a loud-mouthed biker sounding off against a bunch of people that the occasional flash of fang reveal to be vampires. Essentially, he’s saying that he’s the top dog and they’d better get out of town. One suggests he gives her a ride and then they’ll leave, to which (inexplicably) he agrees despite a fellow biker mentioning her eyes – which are milky (they don’t mention the fangs). He gives her a ride and she bites him.

Yvette

We cut to day time and a biker is spray painting a portrait on a wall. A girl, Yvette, greets him as her father. He asks about her dress and lambasts her about boys and how she needs a career guy and not a biker. This is observed by a couple of (wrapped up against the sun) vampires on a rooftop. We then cut to a scene where a police captain chews out a couple of cops. One of them, Hutch (Philip Di Maria), believes in vampires. The space they filmed in doesn’t feel like a police station.

suddenly a vampire

After a moment were the biker from the beginning is all wrapped up, has fangs and is turning on other bikers, we get a scene in a club. This ends up in attacks (and the question ‘what do you want’ answered with ‘souls’) but this seems to go on forever with washed out photography, dance music and occasional feeds. The word interminable springs to mind. After meeting a caged vampire treated like a dog (!), who is then taken on a ride by vampire AC -Gwynplaine (Eric Spade Rivas), there is a random at home scene involving Hutch and a pair of rainbow speedos.

dad-napped

The spray-painting biker is at his wife’s grave when he is dragged to a car by the leather mask wearing AC and is questioned about what makes life worth living (his daughter) and is then let go – and I am no wiser about an actual plot. We got odd snippets about the queen rising, something waited for 100 years. We get a vampire takeover of the neighbourhood from the bikers (I did some research and saw that writer/star/director Rivas saw the vampires as a simile of gentrification, especially by hipsters). We get a flash back 5 years with AC dating a blind girl, refusing to turn her and other vampires doing the job – she is the one with milky eyes at the head of the film. Also in that flashback is Hutch firebombing a vampire lair. We get a much older flashback of AC, a blind wife and a daughter he’s forgotten about, all at the funfair at Coney Island.

some vampires

I’m still none the wiser. Perhaps I’m missing the point. With an overuse of filters and some arthouse pretensions, perhaps this is all it was meant to be. I don’t know. I think it was just badly edited, badly scripted with no sense of how to make a narrative work (either visually or in dialogue). There is a random moment partway through where a priest is interviewed on news about the Oscars and he suggests that the Razzie that year was going to go to the Vamp Bikers trilogy and that knowingness actually undermines the idea that the mess was accidental. It at least shows a self-effacing aspect, admitting that what they did was fundamentally flawed. Or ironically, it might have been meant to be ironic. 2 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Vamp or Not? Breaking the Waves

This is a 1996 film by auteur Lars von Trier, which was nominated for the Cannes Palme d’Or and won the Grand prize of the Jury. So why look at it here? In a foot note to “André Gide, Nosferatu and the Hydraulics of Youth and Age” Naomi Segal suggests that, “An unusual version of the vampire myth can be found in Lars Von Trier’s Breaking the Waves”. (Undead Memory, P86) Good enough for a look-see.

The film is set in a remote Scottish village in the 1970s and focuses on Bess (Emily Watson, Happy Family). As the film is starting she is talking to the (male) elders of her church and explains that his name is Jan (Stellan Skarsgård) but the elders have not heard of him. He is not from there and they suggest that they do not encourage matrimony with outsiders and ask her to name one good thing the outsiders have brought them. Music she replies.

Jan and Bess

Jan and Bess get married and we discover that Jan works on the oil rigs and Bess is overly innocent it seems. She is prone to childish outbursts (for instance she hits out at him when the helicopter bringing him and his wedding guests is late – though the action is less spoilt and more naïve – Segal suggests she is Sancta simplicitas) and a virgin. Jan is her first love and she has prayed for love (we’ll come back to that). As things develop we find out that when her brother died she ended up being sectioned (involuntarily incarcerated in a mental health hospital) – her sister-in-law Dodo (Katrin Cartlidge) is a Sister at the nearest hospital and, despite being an outsider, remained in the village after her husband’s death for Bess’ sake.

an elder

Again, as things develop we discover that Bess has conversations with God and God replies – at least Bess replies for God, changing her voice. It seems to the viewer that she is delusional to some extent, perhaps even schizophrenic (and giving vocalisation to the voices). Perhaps it is down to the oppressive religion, which is patriarchal and certainly misogynistic – women may not speak in services and may not attend funerals. At said funerals the priest (Jonathan Hackett) condemns sinners to Hell and those who transgress the morality of the church might be cast out of the church and be dead to the locals.

Jan injured

Bess’ bliss is broken when Jan has to return to the rig. During his absence she is criticised for being overly emotional about him being away and eventually she asks God to return him to her. She asks herself (in God’s voice) whether she is sure. At sea there is an accident on the rig and Jan is injured. He is brought back and operated on and does survive but is paralysed. He asks Bess to sleep with other men and tell him about it – an act of love that Bess believes can heal him even though she does not like the idea.

searching out encounters

Her sexual encounters are distressing for her and her actions come to the attention of the elders, Dodo and a doctor (Adrian Rawlins) who has fallen for Bess. He believes Jan is essentially abusing her (possibly due to his condition) and eventually attempts to have her sectioned again. Yet from Bess’ point of view when Jan relapses and she does as he wishes it brings him back to some level of health – hence the fact that, at first, she lies about the encounters (making them up) and eventually actually goes through with them; in turn they become more and more dangerous. Is it really making him better though?

Emily Watson as Bess

MASSIVE SPOILERS – Jan refuses further treatment and it is thought he will die until Bess’ terminal sexual encounter with a sadistic sailor (Udo Kier) from whom she had barely escaped previously and who she goes to willingly. She dies but we then see Jan actually ambulatory again, looking to bury his wife. It seems that he has recovered. The community had turned her away and at her (fake, as Jan steals her body and puts stones in the coffin) burial she is condemned to Hell and yet the Doctor suggests, at the inquest into her death, that rather than calling her neurotic or psychotic – as he had written in his report – he should have written good – for that is why she acted as she did, because she was intrinsically good.

attacked by the local kids

So, a vampire? We know that in the basic model, drawn from Stoker and expanded in many of the films based upon Dracula, the male vampire feeds upon a female victim and in that act of penetration/bloodletting ultimately hyper-sexualises her. In this Jan penetrates Bess on their wedding day (in the toilets at the reception) and leaves a stain of blood on her wedding dress. After his injury his encouragement/manipulation causes her to become a sexual creature (called a tart by stone throwing village children). However, Bess says of her encounters “I don't make love with them, I make love with Jan and I save him from dying.” We can also quote Taylor (2012, The Urge Towards Love is an Urge Towards (Un)death: Romance, masochistic desire and postfeminism in the Twilight novels, quoted in Race in the Vampire Narrative) who says that for vampires “Sexual hunger becomes conflated with literal hunger.”

landscape

The results of her sacrifice can’t actually be argued with and the film ends with a truly supernatural/spiritual happening that underlines her ultimate goodness and suggests that she might truly have been speaking to God. But if she is the vector, then it is Jan who would be the vampire, feeding of her goodness and perverting it (or at least trying to, arguably she maintains her innocence in the face of her encounters). Ultimately her death gives him life (and more, he can walk again, can even return to the rig, though he uses a crutch). So, whether he is a sexual vampire – perhaps even an incubus who feeds/heals through her sacrifice, made for love – or not depends on your view. I think there is a case for saying so. Certainly, however, the film plays with a trope that is out of the genre and at the very least is of genre interest.

The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon US

On DVD @ Amazon UK

Short Film: Daywalker: Blade Origins

This is a 33-minute-long fan film directed by Markiss McFadden and released in 2017. It really is one of those fan films that begs the question, why are they often superior to a lot of the cheap-end straight to stream/dvd/video films that haunt the horror genre in particular. I mean, it isn’t perfect, and whilst you’d expect a fan film to display a lot of love for the subject it also displays a lot more technical competence than many a film I look at on TMtV.

It starts with a trumpet and a kid, young Eric Brooks (Kal-El Smith), watches the musician, Jamal (Michael Monteiro) through the window of the bar. At the end of the night Jamal leaves by the rear door but is approached by a group of ne’er-do-wells who are, as you might guess, vampires. They have been searching for Jamal, a retired vampire hunter, and as a fight ensues Eric runs out of the shadows and tears the throat out of one of the vampires.

Eric blooded

Jamal takes the young lad under his wing and trains him. Through the film we cut back often to the training, the words of wisdom and (in a more contemporary scene) Jamal’s eventual fate. We see him find Eric feeding on an animal (perhaps a goat) and bringing him a serum to take away the thirst the child feels. Whilst brief through the film the scenes help build the character, juxtapose nicely with the modern scenes and help build an emotional resonance with Blade (Byron Smith).

Byron Smith as Blade

Of course, Blade hasn't earned the moniker as of yet, this being an origin story, and at the beginning it might seem that perhaps he has gone rogue somewhat as he is with a vampire gang, the Blood Shadows (remembering that there was a legacy of being on the wrong side of the tracks explored in Blade the Series). On the other hand we see that whilst he has a connection to a vampire named Glory (Lamorae Siggal), who trains him in sparring matches that are as much flirt as combat, there is a mutual tension with Blood Shadow leader Cyrus (Markiss McFadden). The vampires are also unaware that he is a daywalker.

Blade and Wolverine

The photography works really well and Blade fans will enjoy the brief appearance of Deacon Frost (Michael Tushaus), whilst Marvel fans generally will like the cameo by Wolverine (James Lee Hawkins). Byron Smith is perhaps less stoic than Blade appears in other, official, vehicles but we have to remember that this is young Blade and there is at least some level of stoicism. The fighting seemed a tad on the choreographed side but not distractingly so and the entire thing was clearly a labour of love as I mentioned.

The imdb page is here.

Playing with Tropes: We are What we Are

We Are What We Are, or Somos lo que Hay in the original Spanish, was a 2010 Mexican film directed by Jorge Michel Grau. It would be remade in 2013 by Jim Mickle, the director behind Stakeland and is ostensibly about cannibalism. In the case of the Mexican original, however, there is some definite playing with vampire tropes and it definitely plays homage to one vampire film and maybe a second also.

The film is mentioned in Undead Memory, in which Enrique Ajuria Ibarra recognises both the vampire and zombie tropes that underscore the film. To me this was richer in the former but the opening shots of the film actually drew to mind the latter.

the father

The referencing of the zombie genre is there as we see the patriarch (Humberto Yáñez) of the family the film details coming through a mall and up the escalator. The shuffling gait of the man is almost zombie like and the mall therefore reminds the viewer of Dawn of the Dead (1978). He becomes fascinated with a shop display – be it the dummies in the window or his own reflection that draws his attention is hard to tell. But he then dies – quickly his body is dragged away and the area cleaned.

at the market

The father was a watch repairer/seller on a market and as he has not come home the mother, Patricia (Carmen Beato), sends her sons – the elder Alfredo (Francisco Barreiro) and younger Julián (Alan Chávez) – to the market in his stead. Once there, a man demands his watch, saying its repair is overdue, and Julián attacks him, beating the man. The market manager comes over and says that the rent is three weeks late and kicks them off the market – Alfredo tries to cover for his brother with Patricia but she’ll hear none of it.

Paulina Gaitán as Sabina

Just then the sister, Sabina (Paulina Gaitán) comes in – clearly in shock – and states that their dad is dead (she has picked this up from the word around the mall). Patricia explodes in anger at hearing this, and later blames his addiction to whores for his death. There is a conversation between the children about “carrying on” and that they must get something for the next day. They search the house (for something but later we realise it was stocks of human flesh) but there is nothing left and Alfredo is told it is down to him. During the exchange Julián calls Alfredo a faggot. It is the next scene that directly references the vampire genre.

the Director and Tito

We cut to a morgue or funeral home. Working on the father’s corpse is Tito (Daniel Giménez Cacho) who speaks to the funeral director (Juan Carlos Colombo). These two characters are the same funeral director and mortician who appear in Guillermo Del Torro’s Cronos, indeed it is the same actors reprising the roles and the opening dialogue is the same as that used in Del Torro's film. This positions the film towards the genre, letting us know that it is playing with tropes (though there is nothing overtly supernatural about the film). The scene veers off from Cronos as two cops arrive, Detectives Owen (Jorge Zárate) and Octavio (Esteban Soberanes). Tito has performed an autopsy and found a finger with a painted nail in the father’s stomach. The cops take it but seem disinterested.

collecting blood

So, there is division amongst the family. Sabina is convinced that they must continue and Alfredo should take up the mantle of leader. Continue with what? A ritual slaughtering of a person, the butchering thereof and consumption. What this ritual consists of is left silent through the film but the family fear their end if they do not continue (as a family or individuals isn’t clear) and there is an indication that blessings will be bestowed upon them should they continue. This consumption of flesh for continuance is, of course, a vampiric trope.

the dead whore

Patricia seems to have an issue with Alfredo – whether it is to do with his sexuality or not isn’t clear. Julián does display homophobia and refuses to eat a gay guy, Gustavo (Miguel Ángel Hoppe), when Alfredo brings him home. Likewise, Patricia refuses to consume a prostitute the boys kidnap and beat, killing her instead and dumping her with the other whores as a warning to stay away from her boys. It is within the nuclear family that I saw overtones of another film, the Hamiltons.

insinuated incest

Whilst this does not have the coming of age character and the mother in this family is still alive, we do have the gay elder brother and then the brother and sister who are in (or, due to the subtlety of that part of the narrative, seem to be in) an incestuous relationship (whether this mirroring of the older film was deliberate or not I am not sure). The trope of sexuality that deviates from the heteronormative is one that the genre does often play with. So be it homosexuality, sex addiction (with the whores), casual sex with strangers (used by Patricia to lure a victim) or incest – the whole family queers the nuclear family and the hetro-monogamous view of sex.

a victim

There is a motif of time as well – beyond the time limit for the ritual, the house is full of clocks (which Sabina is expected to caretake) and at one point the soundtrack is dominated by a host of clocks ticking. This felt, immediately, like another homage to del Toro who does have a clockwork motif through some of his work and, of course, the cronos device was clockwork with a living creature at its heart. Chronos is the personification of time and the cronos device allowed its wearer/victim to step out of time and become physically frozen in time as a vampire.

bathing

We Are What We Are is not what you would call a ray of sunshine but it is a fascinating film. It is also one that embeds vampiric tropes at its heart (where the remake was a fairly straight cannibal text). Yes, these are cannibals (as far as we can see) but there is a compulsion to consume, a need that sits at the heart of the family. And, after all, if they drank blood rather than consumed flesh… well, what is blood drinking but a form of cannibalism. The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon US

On DVD @ Amazon UK