A Vampire’s Tale – review

Director: Don Pachno

Release date: 2008

Contains spoilers

Sometimes things don't turn out the way you think. Be it the presence on a cheap film collection, the washed-out print or the overly melodramatic/cheesy soundtrack as this opens… any of these elements didn’t bode well for the film as a whole. Indeed, the film felt and looked like something from the 80s and so the 2008 date was a tad confusing also.

And yet, as I watched this, I found myself charmed. Not that it is great cinema – it really isn’t – but there was something, there was also a (recognised by the film) lore conundrum and a nice bit of questioning of ethics – which undermined itself through a switcheroo later on but was still fun.

in the alley

So we start with Pierce (Alexander Blaise) and Rebecca (Jennifer Corby) walking down a street – it becomes apparent that they have not long since met. They pass an alleyway and Rebecca lures him down it – they won’t be disturbed. We see they are being watched from a nearby vantage point and she quips that she doesn’t bite… but he does. He bites, feeds and leaves her in the alley. The watcher, Devon (Andrew P. Cross), goes across to her and picks her up.

keep her sedated

Rather than take her to hospital he takes her, in a cab, home and puts her to bed. He is getting a sedative ready when she comes round. He injects her but she has asked him what happened and it is clear that she knows Devon. He picks up a picture of another woman, Kathy (Holly Davidson), and has a memory of her being attacked by the same vampire and him shooting at Pierce to no avail (and being knocked aside). He vocally promises *soon*.

in the sun, just before impact

Andrei (James Gordon) arrives, he is a doctor and is drunk. We discover that his help in the endeavour is manipulated through blackmail and that Devon also manipulated Rebecca into attracting Pierce on purpose. She is to undergo treatment to help her through the transformation. When she comes round she goes to the bedroom window and opens the curtains but soon is screaming as it burns. Eventually she develops fangs – Devon tells her that it appears that Pierce was a vampire and intimates that Andrei knows a bit about such creatures. He suggests that killing Pierce will cure her but only if she does it soon.

Alexander Blaise as Pierce

So, this is the ethical dilemma I mentioned earlier. Devon is manipulating people (including using blackmail) and has put Rebecca in harm’s way to kill a vampire. But he did not warn her of the risks going in to this. She has to find Pierce and then charm and befriend him to learn about vampirism. The aim is to find his coffin with his grave dirt in it and destroy it so he cannot rest in the day. As for Devon he is avenging his wife, but Rebecca will learn that there are two sides to every story.

a staking

As for the lore conundrum… it is all around the grave dirt and the film recognises the conundrum and addresses it (ish). Rebecca does not sleep in a coffin with grave dirt in it. Indeed she has no grave. When she asks Devon she is told that it is the Christian ritual around burial that forges the bond to the grave and she didn't have a funeral. However, whilst she asks Pierce if the legend is true she doesn’t then ask the actual vampire why it is the case. One would feel that she probably should need something, and there is a whole comedy that could be explored (elsewhere) about a vampiric reliance on the duvet they died under if they had no grave.

cross

Other than that there is turning into a bat (though we don’t see it, just a pov shot as the bat), being warded by crosses, stakes to the heart, turning to mist and the negative impact of sunlight. She maintains a reflection and, on drinking Pierce’s blood, is able to read his mind as he shows her a vampire staking. There is also the treatment she was given to help her transform but I won’t spoil that, just mention that it is specific.

fangs

I mentioned the washed out print at the head of this and the acting isn’t necessarily high end either – but it does what is needed. Alexander Blaise was channelling some late 80s early 90s straight-to-video vampire, but that worked in the circumstances. If I looked at the plot too critically then I’m sure it would creak terribly, but I found myself just, quite simply, enjoying it for what it was. Not high art but certainly worth 5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon US

On DVD @ Amazon UK

B.P.R.D. Vampire – review

Author: Mike Mignola, Gabriel Bá & Fábio Moon

Art: Gabriel Bá & Fábio Moon

This edition: 2019

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: A vampire-haunted B.P.R.D. agent's quest for revenge turns into a rampage as he pursues a clan of undead and their gorgon-eyed queen.

This new edition includes the original five-issue series and sketchbook section, plus the new short story from the Hellboy Winter Special 2018 and a new introduction by Bá and Moon.

The review: The Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense (BPRD) as a concept (within the Hellboy universe) did not always include Hellboy as an agent and this gives a large scope for non-Hellboy stories. Indeed the original story contained within this volume only features Hellboy in the background, very fleetingly, at a time when he is still actually a boy.

Rather this follows Agent Simon Anders as he hunts down vampires that he faced in the previous volume (B.P.R.D: 1946-1948) but don’t worry, the story makes perfect sense if you haven’t read that volume (I hadn’t). What is interesting is that the story uses the historical Princess Eleonore von Lobkowicz, under her married name of von Schwarzenberg, as the basis for the vampiric background – we met her in the documentary Vampire Princess. The story is fairly straight forward, but no weaker for that fact, and the short story appended to the end of the volume has a folk horror feel to it.

What is lovely is the artwork, which is in the classic Mignola style – though actually created by Bá and Moon. Self-contained and worthwhile 7 out of 10.

In Paperback @ Amazon US

In Paperback @ Amazon UK

Short Film: First Taste

First Taste is a short 10-minute film dated to 2011 and, given that director F.C. Rabbath has a lot of other shorts listed on IMDb, it is noticeable in its absence. This is a shame as the film, which has a subtle edge of black comedy, is superbly crafted.

crash

It starts with blood drops hitting the floor and we realise that there has been a car crash, we don’t see the occupants' features, or the person stood nearby, but we do see the photograph on the dash of Elizabeth (Phoebe French). We then see the kennels in a dog-pound and a man, John (Henry Tisdale), coming out with two dogs. Later we see his neighbour, Sharon (Dorothea Syleos), looking at him with something close to disdain as he carries refuse sacks into the back. The back yard is full of mounds.

watching TV

Elizabeth approaches Sharon and asks who lives in the house, for her part Sharon tries to discourage her from showing interest in the occupants of the spooky house. Sharon is trying to sell her own house... Meanwhile, inside his home, John and Mary (Laura W. Johnson, the Originals) are watching Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens and he is less than impressed. Their kind are portrayed all wrong in the movies and as for the insinuation that they drink human blood… Well, sometimes, he admits, such films make him curious…

fangs

Meanwhile Sharon has spotted another neighbour Fred (Bill Kelly) and he is trying to sell up also. They see Elizabeth wandering in to the spooky house's yard and try to stop her, whilst asking her where her parents are. She suggests that they are in the house. The debate over what to do is interrupted as John opens the door, he denies that Elizabeth's parents are there but then invites the neighbours in after they doubt his word. It looks like they have little choice…

What happens? Well the short is embedded below. As mentioned, I couldn’t find an IMDb page for this one.

Vamp or Not? La Meute

In English, the Pack, this was a French horror vehicle from 2010 that was directed by Franck Richard and whilst I had watched it some time ago, I had intended for some time to look at this under the lens of ‘Vamp or Not?’ A creature feature it is these very creatures that rang a vampire bell for me and made me want to examine the film. The film certainly plays with some tropes and yet it also has aspects of the zombie genre to it as well as other horror styles.

It begins with Charlotte Massot (Émilie Dequenne) driving across country at night, through to dawn’s early light. She stops for food at a roadside takeaway and is verbally accosted by a group of bikers. She avoids them and drives off but later sees them coming up the road towards her. Spotting a hitcher, Max (Benjamin Biolay), she picks him up as a deterrent to the bikers. They talk and then we see him driving as she sleeps – he checks her purse as she sleeps.

Max and Charlotte

He pulls into an area called La Spack, which contains a bar/café. In a moment of surrealness a person runs into a wall wearing bubble wrap as they go in. They chat, when the bikers come in and their leader threatens to rape her. Max intervenes and he is physically accosted for his trouble and becomes the focus of the suggested rape when the owner, credited as La Spack (Yolande Moreau), intervenes – aiming a gun at the bikers who leave.

Philippe Nahon as Chinaski

Max goes to the toilet. He seems to have been a while and Charlotte asks a guy who comes out whether he has seen Max – the answer is negative. She goes in to try and find him but he’s not there. She does notice a false wall but can’t get through it. She leaves and speaks to retired cop Chinaski (Philippe Nahon), who happens to be there. He tells her that picking up hitchhikers isn’t safe but takes her contact number and name.

Benjamin Biolay as Max

Charlotte hangs around until La Spack leaves and breaks in. She gets the false wall open with a crowbar and finds Max’s bandana, when La Spack returns and knocks her out. She awakens in a cage, next to a terrified young man in cowboy gear who repeatedly says “John Wayne”. Max appears and it becomes clear that he is La Spack’s son. Slop is spooned into the cage – not tasty but rich in iron, she is told.

the chair

At this point the film flips to a woman in peril type film, with Charlotte branded and eventually taken to the chair – a device where she and her fellow captive are strapped in, force fed the slop and have their blood extracted. We see La Spack cutting up body parts and throwing them in acid. This section of the film then moves to a point where Charlotte and the other captive are taken to a mining shack by Max and La Spack. Both are hung by the arm and her foot is cut so she will bleed onto the earth.

shower in blood

Out of the ground come the creatures. Called golems in the credits, we never establish exactly what they are. They emerge from the earth and shuffle like zombies but also use tools. They are blind and come out at night and their power waxes and wanes with the moon. They are described as coming deep from the earth and we hear that La Spack lost her other sons in the (now closed) mine. They wear human clothes but do not seems to be the sons returned, though one allows her to pet it. They are clearly drawn to blood, snuffling at blood in the soil and drinking the blood La Spack extracted from her victims from a container. One pulls the arm off the male captive and stands, being showered under the wound. Though we get one moment of flesh eating later the whole focus seems to be blood.

out of the earth

Indeed, we later see one rip out a heart and then drink from it, rather than eat it. We hear that they are born of mud (much like a golem) and the blood of the dead but also hear that the earth wants blood – so they might be a manifestation of a vampiric landscape. They do not attack Charlotte on the first night (despite her blood being the lure that dripped into the soil) and she is later told that there is no rhyme or reason to who they chose to attack. Later we see that there are many of these things and I have to admit that they reminded me of the vampires in Priest , which came out a year later.

the pack

So, ‘Vamp?’ Well they have the blood drinking, that’s for sure and they are hardy. They are also super strong (ripping an arm clean off is no mean feat). They are shambling, offering a zombie aspect, but they are also tied into a lunar cycle, reminiscent of early vampire tropes. I’m tempted to see them as avatars of a vampiric landscape and I do think we can go Vamp on this one – recognising the use of vampire tropes.

The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon US

On DVD @ Amazon UK

Wellington Paranormal: A Normal Night – review

Director: Jemaine Clement

First aired: 2018

Contains spoilers

With the TV series of What we do in the Shadows airing, the first season on Wellington Paranormal was made available for free stream on the internet. The original film What we Do in the Shadows was based in New Zealand (rather that the TV shows Staten Island location) and featured a couple of cops part way through, Officers Minogue (Mike Minogue) and O’Leary (Karen O'Leary), and this is a spin-off centred on the two.

Played with deadpan, this is done as though there is a film crew on ride along (ala shows like Cops) and was thus a tad reminiscent of shows such as Death Valley - though in this the paranormal menace was a hidden one and it is certainly less Police Squad in delivery.

Minogue and O'Leary

The essence is that the precinct’s Sergeant Maaka (Maaka Pohatu) is aware of paranormal activity in the Wellington area and has the two coppers investigate. Through this they come across aliens, ghosts, demons, werewolves, zombies and, in this episode, vampires. The episode begins with the investigation of a ghost that turns out to be a plastic bag (though Maaka suspects it to be a Yōkai). The two cops are then sent to investigate the theft of blood bags from the hospital. O’Leary's suspicions are mundane but Minogue thinks vampires. In the car park they find a dropped blood bag (though Minogue manages to burst it by trying to put it in a smaller evidence bag).

ritual

They go into the hospital and interview the worker in the blood bank, Nick (Cori Gonzalez-Macuer) – who was one of the What we do in the Shadows characters. He, of course, denies the theft and (after a couple of failed attempts) manages to glamour the two cops into believing his innocence. Maaka is convinced they have been glamoured and sends them to interview him again. They get side tracked a few times, the first when they investigate a report of chanting and find a naked man (Tom Clarke) tied and hooded figures chanting, led by Nick – he glamours the officers again and they leave them to it.

the creepy clowns cometh

The next distraction is a bunch of sinister clowns (for no reason but surreal creepiness) and then a call to sightings of ghosts in the cemetery (which turns out to be goths – Minogue can’t read his own writing). However, in the cemetery they see Nick again, with the bags of blood, dealing with a Nosferatu looking vampire (Fergus Aitken) – he has also given out leaflets to the Goths for Nick’s Vampire Party. Will he glamour the officers again? I won’t answer that but will say that there are some nice lore moments such as Nick floating and also a vampire transformed into a bat carrying a blood bag.

cemetery vampire

The series is amusing and relies heavily on the deadpan performances of Minogue and O’Leary. There is a nice moment where Nick brings a racial aspect into his police interactions. The episodes are short and so don’t overstay their welcome but it isn’t the most hysterical comedy I’ve ever watched – not to decry it, it works very well but its parent vehicle was much funnier. 6 out of 10.

The episode's imdb page is here.

On Region 4 DVD @ Amazon US

On DVD @ Amazon UK

What we do in the Shadows – season 1 – review

Director: Various

Release date: 2019

Contains spoilers

Taking its cue from other mockumentary films in which vampires have been followed by a film-crew going about their day to day lives, What we do in the Shadows (2014) was a solid vampire film, with a firm grasp of the genre and a joy to watch, being a genuinely funny comedy.

It is unsurprising, though welcome, that it has spawned a spin-off TV series. Same universe, same premise (a film-crew following vampires) but a new group of vampires and a new location – the series relocating from New Zealand to Staten Island.

main cast

Our vampires are Nandor the Relentless (Kayvan Novak), Laszlo Cravensworth (Matt Berry, Snow White and the Huntsman) and his wife Nadja (Natasia Demetriou). A further vampire in the household is energy vampire Colin Robinson (Mark Proksch) and Nandor’s familiar Guillermo (Harvey Guillén) is also resident. Their lives are turned upside down when an ancient vampire, Baron Afanas (Doug Jones, Universal Dead, Hocus Pocus, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Hellboy Animated: Blood and Iron & Night Angel), comes to stay and wishes to know why they haven’t claimed dominion over the New World.

Laszlo, Nadja and Nandor

The show, like the movie, has a genuine love of the genre – poking fun but in a knowing way that works really well. We get another werewolf pack, and a neat way of duelling them, erotic topiary and Laszlo having to shout bat when he transforms into one, a vampire orgy and Colin almost meeting his match with an emotional vampire (Vanessa Bayer). Through Guillermo we discover the frustration of being a familiar, waiting for his master to turn him (and also some nice comedy moments with him as with the vampires).

council members

The episode to mention, however, is 7: the Trial, that sees the vampires brought before the vampire council and, having first met vampire criminals Garrett (Dave Bautista) and Vasilika the Defiler (Alexandra Henrikson), it becomes a who’s who of guest stars from the vampire genre. Firstly Taika Waititi, Jemaine Clement and Jonny Brugh reprise their characters from the What we do in the Shadows movie. All the other council members we meet are named for their actor so Tilda is played by Tilda Swinton (Only Lovers Left Alive) and we also get Evan Rachel Wood (True Blood), Danny Trejo, Paul Reubens (Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992 – the movie)) and by skype the daywalking Wesley Snipes (Blade, Blade 2 & Blade Trinity). It’s a smorgasbord of screen vampire fun and underlines that this revels in the genre it spoofs. 7 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Short Film: The Day After Dark

This is a film released in 2016 and directed by Damian Morter, which clocks in at 35 minutes. For an independent short it has nice cinematography with confident, crisp photography and plays with some nice, if standard, vampire tropes and imagery. Though the dialogue can come off as a little stagy at times.

It begins, using a nice tracking shot, on the stairs to a night club and the camera follows a woman through the club, until she reaches a seat, turns and sits and the camera goes past her to settle on a man, Robert (Nicholas Vince, Hellraiser & Hellraiser 2: Hellbound) who is making a call – the call comes up on a phone as “caller unknown” and is answered by Christian (Dawson James).

Nicholas Vince as Robert

Christian works for Robert (why the call comes up caller unknown isn’t touched upon) and, after some chat, Robert directs him to a gift. It is a calling card for an escort service, After Dark, and Robert insists Christian take the night off (he says he has figures to run) and experience them – they offer a unique service. Christian does not ring at first but eventually decides to call. We see a car arrive and a woman (Sarah Cragg) enter the hotel.

fangs

He invites her into the room but, at first, still seems reluctant, asking if she wants a drink and then whether she is hungry. Eventually he moves to kiss her but she stops him, with a barked order, sits him on a chair and proceeds to perform a lap dance. At the height of the dance we get fangs and a bite. What was nice was her, after the bite, beckoning him to her and, despite holding the wound, him responding.

fang wounds

He awakens in the next day alone and staggers to the bathroom, breaking the tap as he tries to use it and then noticing the fang wounds. As he showers he remembers the sex and biting her arm. He goes to leave the hotel but the sun seems unbearably bright. What we then get is a tale of his turning but I’ll let the short speak for itself. At the time of writing this I couldn’t find an IMDb page but there is a Facebook page.

Siren X – review

Director: Hideo Jôjô

Release Date: 2008

Contains spoilers

Siren X ticks the boxes of being a pinku eiga film – the Japanese form that lies somewhere between a softcore film and sexploitation. It is just over an hour long, has some (rather tamely portrayed) sex scenes (whether enough to be a pinku eiga is debatable but there are a few), is terribly low budget and looks to have been filmed on a low-end camera.

In this case, whilst we have a siren, she is a very unusual vampire who, as she says “has to suck sperm and desire to maintain… …life”. This makes her a sexual vampire who needs both a physical and energy feeding medium.

the crew

It begins with a van driving to a remote lake outside Tokyo. This is the crew of the “documentary” series Mini-Skirt Adventures. The premise is that they hunt phenomena such as ghosts and UFOs with anchor Mamimi (Yuria Hidaka) wearing a mini-skirt with fan service up-skirt shots being the hook for the programme. As well as Mamimi there is director, and Mamimi’s boyfriend, Hayami (Eiji Nakamura), cameraman Yamada (Takashi Naha) and Yohei (Yûya Matsuura) who is almost a dogsbody who creates low budget sfx for the show to pass off as real phenomena.

filming

It is amusing that an under-current within the show is Mamimi’s reluctance to front it and be exploited for her body (given that she is a female character in a pinku eiga film). The lake is said to be haunted and they, at one point, put Yohei in the water (wearing a wig and dress). We see the siren behind him, they do not. Having filmed in the woods (and found a skull, which is real and not the prop Hayami assumes Yohei planted). A storm breaks and they seek shelter at a nearby house.

feeding the crew

The house is home to Reika (Yuma Asami) – who, of course, is the siren. She feeds the crew but after a row between Mamimi and Hayami, the starlet runs away. Hayami and Yohei go after her – but she flags down a passing van and leaves the place. Meanwhile Reika has come on to Yamada. The other two crew members return to the house and see the two together and Hayami starts to film them but strange things occur and then white material spews from Yamada’s mouth and Reika kisses it away as Yamada dies. She approaches the other two asking who is next but they run and drive away.

feeding at the neck

The two men (to a greater and lesser extent) are haunted by the memory of Reika who seems to be drawing them back to the house (literally siren like). However, lets go back to her feeding method – she might need sperm and desire but it seems that sex with her makes the sperm come out of the victim’s mouth rather than the normal place. Indeed we see another victim rip their own throat open and her drink from that as they bleed sperm from the neck. It is unexplained and whether deliberately weird or designed to sidestep the more traditional sexual methods of extraction, which may have elevated the film to hardcore, is unclear.

appearing behind Yohei

This is an odd duck and no mistake and, on the surface, is a rubbish film with overly simplistic narrative, unexplained strangeness and limited acting. However there is a subversive aspect to the text – for instance the pinku eiga actress whose character protests against being exploited or the in-film documentary creating poor sfx that shadow the film’s actual poor sfx (or indeed become it at times). For this reason and for the strange vampire type I’ll raise what is, actually, a poor throwaway sexploitation flick up to 3.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

A Discovery of Witches – season 1 – review

Director: Various

Release date: 2018

Contains spoilers

Based on the All Souls Trilogy, a book series by Deborah Harkness of which I have read and reviewed the first novel, I walked into this expecting good things. From the excellent production values to the superb supporting cast – including Alex Kingston, Trevor Eve (Dracula (1979)) and Sophia Myles (Dracula (2006), Moonlight & Underworld) – this was, on the surface, going to be a winner.

Alas, for me, not so. I received the Blu-ray set as a Christmas present and it has taken me six months (and a lot of self-pressure) to finish watching the series. It just didn’t capture my attention and other series were much more attractive when deciding what to watch (even if some of those should have been poor relations), and I think I know why…

Teresa Palmer as Diana

But before that, a quick look at the story. Set in a shadowy world, hidden from our eyes by secrecy, in which there are vampires, daemons and witches ruled by a council called the Congregation (each species having three representatives on the council). The underscoring viewpoint of the three races is one of distrust, to the point of racism, of the other two. It has been noted that the powers of the races are fading, witches do not have the same power and magic as their ancestors, vampires are failing to sire new vampires etc.

Ashmole 782

Diana Bishop (Teresa Palmer) is born of a witch line but does not involve herself in the witches’ world particularly – mostly as she has no magical ability or aptitude. Instead she is an accomplished historian researching the alchemists of yore. At Oxford she is researching a paper when she calls up, amongst other books, Ashmole 782 – an alchemical text long thought lost. This brings her to the attention of the creatures as it is a sought-after text that none have been able to find (it is suggested that the book ‘hides’ until she calls it). This includes a congregation witch, Knox (Owen Teale), and a vampire, Matthew Clairmont (Matthew Goode). It becomes apparent that Diana is actually a very powerful witch but her powers are somehow repressed and she and Matthew fall in love – despite the taboo of inter-racial relationships (indeed they are forbidden).

charmed/calmed stag

As for the vampires, well they are long-lived, fast and hunters. We see almost a charm effect (on a stag that Clairmont hunts). They are deemed a separate species, though they come from human. Daemons and witches are born but vampires are created. It is confusing therefore to discover that geneticist Matthew is researching creature DNA to discover why they are on the wane – the book tells us that human DNA is rewritten in the turning process, however.

Matthew Goode as Matthew

So why did I struggle – I think the answer originates with the book. In my review of that (which I generally enjoyed), I said of the lead characters: “My problem lay with the two main characters. It became clear quickly that Diana… …was some sort of über-witch... Matthew, also, is an alpha vampire and clearly very powerful... Put the characters together and we suspect that we will have an unstoppable force by the end... The mistrust Diana feels for Matthew and his secrets is always too quickly overcome and that is because… …the romance falls back on those tropes of “we are special”, “we fall immediately for each other”, “Our love is forbidden” and “our love will conquer all. …I didn’t buy into their relationship...”

Alex Kingston in support

The series did nothing to overcome this, indeed it may have exacerbated it and, like the novel, it expected the viewer to accept this romance and without acceptance it fell short. I also felt, to me, that the two actors had no real chemistry together (as good as they are as actors) and the focus upon them detracted from the wider world – in fact all the supporting characters seemed sketched rather than explored. I had no empathy for the leads and therefore couldn’t overly care about their plight or the wider world that had been drawn.

head (decapitated but living)

This is perhaps me but I also recognise that there were good performances, despite the material, the production values were excellent and I should have been wowed – 6 months to drag myself episode to episode in an 8-episode series speaks volumes. I’m forced to score low as I can do nothing else. I wanted to like this, I wanted to be wowed, I was simply underwhelmed and… frankly rather bored. 3.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon US

On DVD @ Amazon UK

Honourable mention: Hi-8: Horror Independent 8

This is a 2013 portmanteau film with the conceit that old analogue video cameras had to be used to film the segments. This leads to a grainy, retro experience and whether you enjoy that is down to your tolerance, I guess. There are some interesting concepts but they can often be mired in the low budget and fuzzy filming.

The portmanteau is odd in and of itself. Entitled "No Budget Films Presents..." and directed by Brad Sykes it is a piece that is returned to, and certainly wraps around the other films but doesn’t actually have any connection to them (bar budget filmmaking). It follows Travis (Paul K. Richards) as he directs his slasher flick with fiends Brett (Baker Chase Powell) as the killer and Andrea (Danielle Rosario) as the victim.

vampire... or ghoul or demon

So why the mention. Well, at the very end of the (Hi-8) film, shooting on Travis’ film has wrapped but Andrea has headed back to some caves they used as a location as she left something there. When she doesn’t return they go look for her and stumble across the body of a weirdo (Andre Martin) they had met earlier and put in the film – his face is missing. They find Andrea and she turns around, apparently eating his face, Her eyes have changed and she has sharp pointed teeth. She might be a vampire, a ghoul or a demon, to be fair – we never find out – but for the potential fleeting visitation I decided to give this a mention.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Vamp or Not? Panic

This is a 1982 film directed by Tonino Ricci and also released as Bakterion and Monster of Blood, amongst a slew of titles. Though filmed in England it was an Italian/Spanish production with an international cast (dubbed, of course) and felt like it should have appeared a decade previously (though that wouldn’t have helped the quality).

I watched it as a throwaway grindhouse flick and didn’t expect that I would end up having to look at it under ‘Vamp or Not?’ Now, one thing that can make such a determination tricky is a lack of cohesion in a film’s narrative… In this case it feels as though the filmmakers had looked for the word cohesion in a dictionary but avoided the words beginning with C. It also features Captain Kirk (David Warbeck, Twins of Evil & Razor Blade Smile) but don’t get excited – he isn’t *that* Captain Kirk.

cover up

The film starts in a lab and scientist Jane Blake (Janet Agren, City of the Living Dead) notices a blinking light, something is wrong with the experiment being carried out on rodents and they are attacking each other – she sounds the alarm and hazard suit wearing guys come in but one of the rodents has smashed its tank vanished. We also see someone (it isn’t clear whether a random person or our antagonist) with green gunk obscuring and burning their face. There is a meeting and a decision to cover up the accident but one of the key scientists, Professor Adams (Roberto Ricci), is missing (presumed gone fishing).

David Warbeck as Captain Kirk

However, the lab does secret Government contract work and Captain Kirk is dispatched to check out the lab. He looks for Adams but instead finds the scientist's bodyguard stuffed up a chimney (with a bad case of being dead). Meanwhile something is stalking the town and killing people. The film doesn’t show us what at first, and actually implies it might be a mutated (and now giant) rodent. These attacks are being investigated by police Sergeant O'Brien (José Lifante, Tiempos duros para Drácula & the Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue) and soon O’Brien and Kirk team up. The attacks are brutal, there are burns from something and the bodies are drained of blood.

Adams mutated

The crux is that a mutated Adams is using the sewers and Roman tunnels to get around town for the purpose of attacking people and drinking their blood. Does he have the virus? Unclear – it seems to be a substance (bacteria?) that mutated him and we see no evidence that a virus is out and infecting people. The government are taking no chances though. They use the army to seal off the town, cut communications with the outside world and are going to bomb the place and concoct a cover story unless a solution can be found (which seems to be cure or kill Adams). Is he a vampire though?

blood drinking

To be honest the only connection is blood drinking – and he is definitely doing that. He is mutated but his shambling incoherent self actually strikes a zombie chord (though he does seem to recognise and listen to Jane at one point). Whilst he does go for the manager of the lab, all his other victims seem random – indeed the population of the town seem to exist only to be dropped into the narrative and either be killed by the monster or else offer strange, unnatural conversation to move said narrative along. There does seem to be a resilience against weaponry, but then they might all be bad shots. There is a part of me tempted towards zompire and the blood drinking means a vampire argument can be made.

The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon US

On DVD @ Amazon UK