Knock Knock – review

Director: Tobias Canto Jr.

Release date: 2017

Contains spoilers

Not to be confused with the Keanu Reeves vehicle from a couple of years previous to the release of this, Knock Knock is a low to no budget with a huge amount of heart.

Is it perfect? Hell, no. But it is an example of the truism that being a budget film doesn’t have to make it bad. Decent characters, in this case, can carry it a long way. It is also a comedy, but one that celebrates the genre it spoofs rather than attacks it.

advert

So, things start with a spoof advert for a psychic pizza company Pi-strodamous (if we can’t guess the topping before you tell us then you get 50% off) presented by Walter D Zaarke. Done in 80s style with really bad fake sideburns, well it really made me think that the feature was going to be poor. The gag, therefore, nearly backfired but was quickly forgotten as the film itself began (although the faux company is involved within the film).

Olivia and Sam

The film proper starts with bat sounds and a shot of the moon. We see Sam (Kerry Tartack) leave the late-night gym and walk across the deserted car park to his car. He’s trying to call his son but gets his voicemail. Sam was a boxer in his heyday, known as Stonefist. He’s sixty the next day and, it is apparent, estranged from his son. He’s reaching out, trying to make amends, suggesting meeting. His voicemail cuts off as he reaches his apartment, and he realises his front door is open. He knocks before entering.

the box

Inside he eventually finds his neighbour Olivia (Sisi Berry) who has an emergency key, she suggests it’s a surprise birthday meal and then asks him not to get mad. She says this is all about the creepy new neighbour (Lucas Alexander Ayoub) and admits that the mysterious box she has was delivered to his door and she’s taken it. Sam is not in the best moods, what with his birthday coming and the associated retrospection, but then another neighbour, a stoner called Dragon (Chuk Hell), bursts in and makes comments about the Dracula situation.

Neighbour and date

Olivia explains that they think the new neighbour is a vampire and they have supporting stories. Olivia saw him come in with a drunk woman (Jennifer Bennett) and thought something was off. She kept watch, despite having pulled a late shift. However keeping watch meant sitting behind her door, listening and occasionally looking through the spy hole. She, of course, fell asleep. Movement woke her and she saw him leaving, alone, with his date's red heels in hand. The date never emerged, she insists. Dragon tells a tale of getting stoned, ordering a garlic laden pizza and, whilst taking first bite at his door, the neighbour (next door and just about to go out) choking and not leaving his apartment. Only after Dragon had gone in to his apartment and shut the door does the neighbour leave – ripping a Chuck Norris poster on Dragon's door as he goes.

Rachel Atterson as Gretchen

Of course, Sam is not impressed with the stories. After all, looking at a similar plot set up, Charley Brewster at least saw meaningful things and no-one believed him – this film doesn’t mention Fright Night but the plot premise is comparable, at least for the initial set up. A third neighbour, Gretchen (Rachel Atterson), then arrives and Sam is disappointed that rational, scientific Gretchen seems to have bought into this. Her story is about a dog (which she disliked anyway) seeming to bark at the neighbour and then disappearing one night as wolves howled.

vampire killing kit

Gretchen has also brought research books, including Dracula. In her bag she also has Twilight. That’s actually for me, she confesses. Team Jacob all the way admits Dragon, using a gentle humour based on these characters rather than attack humour. Dragon has brought a hunting kit (a rucksack with a label saying Monster Squad, containing stakes and a steak (you never know), water pistols (that his drug dealer, the Reverend, has spat into) and protective gloves with crosses at the knuckles). Sam still isn’t convinced but they do open the stolen box and find an old bottle containing blood… And the neighbour wants it back…

monstrous form

The film is short at 55 minutes and the action is at the end. The filmmakers work around a lot of the lack of budget by limiting the shots of vampiric activity and whilst the monstrous form of the stranger is not the highest quality creature effect, by the time it appears you are invested and it hardly matters. Without wishing to spoil too far there is a lot more vampire action (and vampires) over the credits, with an even more minimalist approach to the filming. This is rather clever as the film could have had a section before credits but this allowed them more leeway than having the action in the body of the film. They manage to squeeze in a post-credit sequence too.

the gang

I was impressed. Whilst the acting varied in quality (with Sisi Berry and Kerry Tartack giving the most solid performances, for me) the characters really worked and the dialogue helped build them well. The short length meant it really didn’t outstay its welcome and the fact that the humour was gentle, self-effacing and whole genre positive was welcome. The photography was ok but nothing special and the budget showed in some of the effects. Nevertheless, this goes to prove you don’t need a budget to be funny or make a good film. 6 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Bloodsucka Jones vs. The Creeping Death – review

Director: Justin Armao

Release date: 2020

Contains spoilers


Before I get into the review, a public service announcement. I really was rather taken by the first Bloodsucka Jones film. It wasn't perfect, perhaps, but I was so taken by it that I crowdsourced this sequel – not for a huge amount of money, but enough to get the digital version on release. Time passed and I forgot about the film… Then I thought about it recently and wondered why I had heard nothing. I went to the funding page to realise that the film had been completed some time ago and perks given…

Jessica Dercks as Christine

I contacted the filmmakers, through the funding page and then through their Facebook Page. They replied via Facebook straight away. It turns out that they have not been getting messages through the funding page and couldn’t get all their backer details. They have bent over backwards to sort me out and if you did back the film and didn’t see your perk then contact them through Facebook – there was no malice and they will help.

zombies

The beginning is so very eighties with a young lady fixing her roller blades and Walkman. She takes off down the street when something piles into her… zombies… suddenly she is down and mobbed. We see a car pull into frame, in it Bloodsucka Jones (Preston Gant) and his (almost) silent sidekick Vanessa (Maria Canapino). They look across at the attack and we see one of the zombies look up, green lightning in her eyes. The car backs slowly away, out of shot.

good health insurance

The film gives newcomers a handy guide to the last film and then we are at the hospital were human protagonist of the last film, David (Justin Armao), and ‘vampire’ antagonist Stewart (Matt Kelly) are recuperating from the events previously told. Except… well Stewart discovers that he is no longer a vampire, he lost all his blood in the event and had a full transfusion (reminiscent of the cure in Near Dark). David has good health insurance and is nursed by three glamour nurses. Stewart is tortured by his health care team.

sucking from a blood pack

Stewart is sent a chemistry kit and visited by sidekick Kenny (William Cutting), who sucks on Stewart’s blood pack. Stewart ends up making chocolate pudding for the hospital, prior to discharge, and putting a green concoction prepared from the chemistry kit into the dessert. This, of course, is the thing that creates the zombies. David, when home, is back with Christine (Jessica Dercks) and is struggling with intimacy with the vampire – not helped when she pulls fangs on him. He suspects Stewart is up to something and goes to enlist help from vampire hunter Tony but ends up with his brother Timmy (Brian Girard). When they realise the danger is real they find Vanessa and she goes and gets Bloodsucka Jones.

meditation chamber

The scene of her getting Jones, wonderfully rips off the Empire Strikes Back and Vader’s meditation chamber… but the chamber is an Afro, which opens, and then we see the bald, scarred head of Jones and his Afro lowered onto it. We get a flashback story to this later. It is also noticeable that Preston Gant is sporting natural facial hair in this film – comment is made about the missing false ‘tache in dialogue. The film goes on to have Stewart struggling to control his easily distracted zombies (or Kennies as he calls them), and the heroes looking to get sidekicks for David and Timmy and thwart Stewart's plans. The plot in this episode is thin, eschewed for more comedy sequences.

Preston Gant as Bloodsucka Jones

This is no bad thing. When I reviewed the first film I said, about the comedy, “most of the cast is quite inexperienced and I think they struggle with the comic timing”. This is not the case here, and the core cast feel much more comfortable with comic timing and confident within their scenes. Preston Gant slips naturally into his role and is an absolute pleasure to watch. I did find the first film funny, but I definitely found the humour this time around that bit more entertaining. I will say there is a distinct lack of vampirism in the film. Christine is pretty much side-lined, Stewart is an ex-vampire, and other than flashing fang and the occasional apparent strength Kenny does little that might be called vampiric, but his presence through the film ensures that this is a vampire movie still.

Romeo and French Fries

I really enjoyed this, the cast seemed to be having fun, the photography was professional and the jokes worked for me. There might have been a little more narrative plot, but it didn’t suffer without and managed to build an opening for a third film. Bloodsucka Jones himself is a great character. I also have to give a shout-out to the characters Romeo (Evan Mack) and French Fries (Dione Kuraoka), who were simply marvellous. 7 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Blu-Ray @ Amazon US

Short Film: Dawn: Year Seven

16 years after the original feature’s release, director Jay Reel releases a short film set in his Dawn universe. Dawn was an indie film that managed to rise above its limitations to create a film that surprised.

Chloe Liles as Dawn

This is the same story concept, with the two primary characters recast (in the case of Dawn, for obvious reasons) but is a prequel, with Dawn (Chloe Liles) seven in this rather than the ten she was in the original. I guess one might call this a reimagining. After all Dawn’s hair has changed colour and John (Jeremy Liles), her father, drives a hybrid (which were available when the first film was made but not common place). The hybrid is a nice touch as we shall see.

sleeping at the wheel

Essential storyline for those who haven’t seen the first film is that Dawn is a natural vampire – a separate species that lives aside humankind. Her mother, also a vampire, died in childbirth but as far as she knew Dawn is the first vampire conceived by a vampire and a human – she is a hybrid. John now travels the roads of America with his daughter, having built her teeth caps to hide her fangs (he was a dentistry student). We discover that at this stage he has been feeding her (she can only consume human blood). As he drives, he falls asleep at the wheel – though the car simply stops rather than crashing.

Father and daughter

Dawn has realised the toll that she is taking on her father and doesn’t want to feed from him, despite the headaches she suffers. However, she has instincts too. She can feel when someone is in pain and close to death. This recognition is two-way – she is a bringer of relief to those who are dying. This was something that is also a central story aspect to Byzantium . The short does not have the moments of peril the feature introduced.

fangs

The biggest cinematographical difference between this and the original is that this is in colour, where the other was black and white. I suspect that Reel did what he did for the original and roped in locals to star. I don’t feel the central performance was as strong as it was in the original, but perhaps that is the nuance in the age differences. In my review of the original I said “probably deserving of a remake with some form of budget – the only trouble with that is a budgeted remake might destroy its inherent charms.” This might be a step towards that remake. At the time of writing I couldn’t find an IMDb page.

Blood Rites of the Vampyr – review

Director: Sébastien Godin

Release date: 2020

Contains spoilers

I was contacted by director Sébastien Godin, who’s premier for this film had been thwarted by the Covid-19 pandemic and was subsequently looking for reviews – I’m never one to turn down a view of a vampire film. Full disclosure, he also told me that he was a long-time reader of this blog - it’s always a thrill to find people who get something out of TMtV, however I have not let this influence the score.

The film was described to me as an attempt “to marry the styles of classic horror from the 20's and 30's with a 70's Euro-horror sensibility. Influences on the film include Jean Rollin, Jess Franco and F.W. Murnau”. This is quite an ambition for, what is admittedly, a micro-budget film. Certainly, as we’ll see, the black and white shot film styled itself as an art-house mood piece – though it sometimes strayed into a too narrative place for the mood piece.

Vicki Bitis as the Vampyr

It starts with a man, restless in bed. A woman (Vicki Bitis) is in the room, her face gaunt, her movements jerky. She moves her arms over him (a lot of her movement, through the film, might be described as being in the style of interpretive dance). He bolts awake. Later he tells a monk (Anthony D.P. Mann, Terror of Dracula) about the dreams that are filled with spiritual disturbance. He describes floating, no more than a point of view, in the forest, there is a grave and a sickly-looking woman who dances.

Anthony D.P. Mann as the monk

This disturbs the monk, though he denies knowing anything that might shed light upon the dream. Even so, he warns the man not to attempt to find the grave in the woods, to stay far away from it. This, of course, confirms to the man that the grave exists. After he leaves the flat, the monk offers a prayer, begging that it not be so.

spontaneously bleeding

We see the man stumbling through the woods, as though in a nonsensical daze. He reaches the grave marker and his throat opens spontaneously, spilling blood onto the earth. We see a hand emerging from the detritus and then the woman appears, led on the grave. Her eyes open and then she bites the man. She then goes to the town, where she appears as an anachronism as she walks the streets and, when in the man’s apartment, seems mystified by modernity. To note we get moments of a vampire silent movie on the TV at this point.

Steve Kasan as Blackburn

Detective Rollin (John Keech) is speaking to his counterpoint Detective Blackburn (Steve Kasan). A body has been found, drained of blood with no apparent trauma barring two small wounds to the neck (this is not the man in the woods, his body is found later). The Detective relays a story his grandma told him. When settlers first arrived at the area the land was barren but a special woman appeared at night, disappearing by day, who bled into the earth causing it to bloom – making an interesting connection between the vampyr and earth fertility.

dribbling blood

There was a price for her help, however. She demanded a monthly virgin sacrifice and when the townsfolk refused a savage beast appeared killing livestock and some children. The townsfolk captured the woman and buried her in the earth, sealing her in with a cross. Rollin is incredulous but Blackburn is happy to use the V word, insisting that time will tell if he’s correct. Meanwhile the Monk has contacted a vampire hunter (Luc Bernier, A Blood Story & Blood Reunion 3: Hunters).

a moment in red

So, I listed the inspirations outlined by the director and certainly I got the feel from this of the works of Chris Alexander, who cites Franco and Rollin as inspirations for his vampire films also. As with Alexander’s work, I see the Rollin influence in this much more than the Franco. I also was reminded, as I watched, of Lilith’s Awakening, though that was possibly within the black and white (which goes into red lighting and then colour for one scene). Where this became a tad conflicted, as a film, I think was in it grasping for the narrative when it felt like it wanted to remain a mood piece and the narrative threatened to be a hindrance to that.

attack

I liked some of the narrative ideas, don’t get me wrong, the idea that the vampyr was intimately tied to the health of the land was great, a voice-over tells us that vampires are fine in daylight, they just lose their supernatural powers, and it further relays that they hunger for (and can subsist on) knowledge as much as blood, which was really interesting. But little was done with the ideas, especially the latter, once presented and that was the conflict I perceived between storytelling and communicating a mood. Acting wise I felt Mann as the monk was a tad too over the top, but that may have been because Kasan was marvellously nuanced and understated as the Detective.

blood from mouth

Further, I liked the look they gave Vicki Bitis as the vampyr and her expressive dance movements fed into the film as a mood piece. Perhaps the pushing of ingested blood out of mouth was a tad wasteful but, again, was part of expressing a mood. I need to mention that she wore black shorts/leggings beneath her period styled dress, visible in a couple of scenes. Undoubtedly these spared her blushes in a dance moment and probably helped with warmth during night shooting at a cenotaph – however they were very noticeable and an idiosyncrasy – perhaps flesh tone might have served to not pull the viewer out of the mood wondering at the anachronism. Her meeting another night creature cemented the Rollin-esque aspect.

the beast

When it comes to effects there is little to go over. There’s lots of fake blood – with much expelled by the vampyr (and vomited at one point having eaten a morsel of cake). The black and white helped here, and the effects looked good as one or two hearts were held aloft (the removal from the chest more implied than shown). We did get a couple of flashes of what might be described as the beast mentioned in the back story. On pausing the beast looked false, but in quick cut it worked well enough and fed into the animalistic aspect described in the Detective’s story. Note that I am deliberately not listing the lore around what could destroy a vampire.

shadow of the vampire

The photography was crisp, and the Black and White worked well in enhancing the mood. Finally, I need to mention soundtrack – which worked with the more industrial pieces used during vampiric moments, but the very 80s synth styled phrases didn’t do it for me and were a tad jarring. That’s not to say that I disliked the film, in fact quite the opposite, I enjoyed my time within the film. For me it’s one that if you like the movies of Chris Alexander, then you should enjoy. So that’s the viewer who enjoys an art-house sensibility and limited narrative (notwithstanding my perception of the film’s conflicted approach to narrative). 6.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Honourable Mention: The Obsidian Curse

This film was directed by Rene Perez and released in 2016. It is kind of a horror fantasy, I guess, with a variety of monsters impinging upon our world. The trouble with that is the monsters kind of, mostly, look like costumes (well they would, wouldn’t they) but to the point that one is kicked out of the suspension of disbelief. When you see a monstrous arm and it is a costume sleeve, and that sleeve is loose, moving like fabric, well the suspension just ends.

That, and the fact that the acting isn’t the greatest. Anyway, be that as it may, there is a vampire but – despite prologue build up – he is a fleeting visitation.

a goblet of blood

So, the head of the film has a woman (Kaula Reed) walking through a castle’s courtyards with an empty glass. She eventually enters a room with the vampire (John Scuderi). He is blue of colour and with his large ears and medieval garb looks a tad more goblin than vampire… but never mind. She fills the glass with an incredibly viscous blood and he drinks… and gags… Before you can say dinner, he’s on her and drinking her blood from the neck.

Karin Brauns as Blair

We do see him eating the flesh from her arm also. Anyway, his role in the film now takes a back seat. We see Blair Jensen (Karin Brauns) drinking and taking cocaine in a bar. Handcuffs go on her and a year later she is released from jail. Her partner (and father of her daughter), Roberto (John Caraccioli, Dracula (2009)) picks her up but has to tell her that he has married (a woman named Donna (Julia Lehman)) while she was inside. To see her daughter (without a court appointed supervisor) Blair has to get a job and Donna sends her to a cavern (to be a tour guide) but it is a trap – a witch (Jessica Koffler) curses her with the Obsidian Curse – a mystic mark that attracts evil.

John Scuderi as the vampire

The idea is that she will very quickly perish and Donna will be happy with her new family. Blair turns out to be tougher than they thought but keeps attracting evil – both supernatural and mundane. So, towards the end of the film the vampire is drawn to her. He manages to intervene with another peril and then is quickly dispatched – his armour not really a match for a gun and a sledgehammer. And that’s it, a fleeting visitation.

The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon US

On DVD @ Amazon UK

The Head – review

Director: Michael Keene

Release date: 2019

Contains spoilers


There are moments, when reviewing films, where I surprise myself. In the case of this the surprise came when I realised that I was enjoying this so very much. I mean, everything about a movie featuring a blood-drinking mannequin head, shot deliberately on VHS, with the photography using colours that are deliberately muted, and spattered with juvenile masturbation jokes should have been a no-no. But it was fabulous.

finding her

After an intertitle that suggests two hundred women are beheaded every year, but some are born that way, we see a man with a case. Camera angles conspire to ensure we never see the man’s head. He eventually puts his case down and climbs onto a gravel bank and picks up a mannequin head…

Mishka Mars as Darcy

Peter (Dani Richmond) is exercising. His mother (Cheryl Prater) calls him and gives him his sardines and milk – he needs protein. Note that he seems middle aged, but he’s a momma’s boy. She demands he goes to the store to buy more sardines and milk. In the store he bumps, quite literally, into a punk styled lady – we discover later that she’s called Darcy (Mishka Mars). He’s clearly immediately smitten and asks if she’s doing anything later – her punk band (Unicorn Grinder) are playing the dive bar next door she tells him.

alleyway victim

For a moment we cut away from Peter and meet a man, Jake Perkins (Charles Tyrrell), who is taking a shower. What was interesting was the way the shower scene was shot. Often you could describe the film technique used when filming a woman in the shower as the camera caressing her. Keene did the same here but with a man, where normally a shot of a man in that situation would be utilitarian. Perkins is a cop and is called to an alleyway crime scene – the murdered victim has a wound to his forehead and is drained of blood.

blood on tap

Cutting to a homeless man (Drew Marvick) dragging another man, he sits him up and holds a spigot to his head, and then hammers it into place and opens the tap to fill a jar with blood. We could ask why an artery is not tapped… but who cares, it just works. The man takes the jar into a room where he has built a shrine of candles with a skull and dolls head and, sat on a plinth, is the mannequin head. He presents the jar to her.

blood offering

So, cutting to the chase, Peter goes to the bar and watches the band. They are approached by a record producer (Michael Keene) with less than honourable intent for them but that reaches into the main plot eventually. Peter approaches Darcy, is blown off, relieves himself sexually in a car park (and triggers the best intertitle moment) and then hears a female voice asking for help. He follows the voice, finds the head and eventually takes her home. Its interesting that, for the most part, we only hear his responses, and not what she says to him – but that is not the case all through.

drinking Momma's blood

The head, he discovers, subsists on blood, after an accident involving his mother and a blender. He gets her cow's blood when he takes her for a meal (the restaurant scene exemplifying the surreal nature of the plot) but what she really wants is human blood. There is a problem in that he is pretty much an inept murderer (at least at first), and this is amplified by a family member (Jeremy Bice) who comes to stay, the homeless man looking for the head and Perkins hunting a murderer.

ready to possess

The head herself is able to throw herself at blood, floats occasionally, seems to become giant at one point (that could be in Peter’s head) and is able to posses someone for a short space of time. Of course it is ludicrous, but that’s the point, it is what makes the film work so very well – and work it does. I was reminded in some respects of the Greasy Strangler (2016) but this is much less polished than that film. The lack of polish, the aping of direct to VHS, was deliberate and done knowingly, adding to its charm – though I can’t help but wonder how the film would have been if it had been drawn in a slicker style, like the Greasy Strangler.

Dani Richmond as Peter

It is absolutely clear that Michael Keene knew what he wanted out of the film and then shot it with a glint in his eye and a smirk on his face. The direction has the odd moment of cleverness but mostly does what Keene set out to do and captured the essence of that older horror. I mentioned masturbation jokes and these were added in at the right level and frequency to prevent them making the film nothing more than a frat joke. The whole thing is, of course, a black comedy. It won’t be for everyone, unless you get it and are therefore in on the joke from the get-go it feels likely that you’d see it as a z grade movie (the practical effects are good fun but, again, reach back to those older films and are not slick). For those who get it, the Head will display a stroke of genius. 6 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Use of Tropes: Hex

The film Xie was released in 1980, directed by Chih-Hung Kuei and was a Shaw Brothers production. The plot was a mystery with supernatural notes that sees Chan Sau Ying (Ni Tien) as the last of her familial line. Her parents married her to Yeung Chun Yu (Jung Wang) but then the parents fell on hard times and both died of consumption.

As the film proper starts, she is in her sickbed, with the one remaining servant looking after her, whilst Yeung has proven himself to be a drunk and angry man, quick to violence. His behaviour around the house causes the last servant to leave. A woman, Leung Kei Wah (Szu-Chia Chen) then comes to the house, telling Chan that she is the daughter of an old servant and offers to help until the Mistress’ health improves.

after death, with fangs

She is soon the subject of Yeung’s violence, including an implied sexual assault, but she has more moxy than the previous servant and is willing to argue back and eventually, during a storm, she and the reluctant Chan drown the brute and put his body in a nearby pond. The Mistress is filled with guilt and it appears that his body has vanished (when the pond is drained) and he is haunting her, until she dies of fright.

using a cleaver

It quickly becomes apparent that he didn’t die, indeed he was in cahoots with Leung, who he marries and they uncover the funds and jewellery that Chan had jealously guarded. They are now haunted by Chan and she is referred to as a ghost. However, she certainly can be corporeal and there are a couple of tropes we recognise. The first being that she is seen to have fangs – not a normal look for a standard ghost (Chinese or western). The second is that, when exorcising her, a wise woman uses black dog blood – normally associated with kyonsi.

behind you

And that’s it. Not a vampire but a couple of genre aspects used. The film is worth an initial watch – however whether it stands up to repeated watches is debatable. The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Blu-Ray/DVD @ Amazon UK