Thursday, July 18, 2019

Short Film: Vam-PIE-Her

This was a short children’s animation from 2016, directed by Samantha McEachin-Ifill, and strongly fits into the mainstreaming of vampires through the medium of children’s programming that I discuss in Growing Up with Vampires.

In this case, seven-and-a-half years old vampire Willow Coffington (FeliceSkye Hutchinson, who voices both primary characters and narrates) is the outsider – but is so from the other vampires and monsters due to her distaste for blood, preferring Fanga (B Positive) a blood replacement made from blood oranges. So it is that she is hanging out alone at Halloween when she spots something interesting going on in a house.

blood supplement
Human child Olivia is baking a pie for her father. Willow and Olivia quickly become friends and Willow discovers a taste for pie and a flare for baking it. At 7 minutes that’s all there is to it but it is interesting how the outsider element becomes “outsider from the monsters” and that this plays heavily into the trope of the vegetarian vampire – quite a common trope when it comes to kid’s entertainment where blood is thought to have to be avoided if possible.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

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