Vamp or Not? The Dinner Party

Released in 2020 and directed by Miles Doleac, the Dinner Party makes no secret within its trailer that cannibalism sits at the heart of the film. However, it is not that which has led to this Vamp or Not. Rather, it is a secret of one of the characters and, for that, there is a spoiler over a key aspect of the film.

The film itself opens with a table spread with food, until the panning camera takes us to a character, Sebastian (Sawandi Wilson) who is wounded and spraying blood from a neck wound who then falls out of shot. If this article was more critiquing the film then I might have suggested it was a glimpse too far, with a small cast we do not forget the character or his fate.

the Duncans

The film begins with playwright Jeffery Duncan (Mike Mayhall, Vampires Suck) and his wife Haley (Alli Hart) pulling into the opulent driveway of Carmine Braun (Bill Sage). Carmine is a rich doctor who hosts a secret dinner party twice a year and the Duncans are invited. Jeff is excited as Carmine has been known to bankroll productions and he hopes to get financial backing for his play. There is something off about his relationship with Haley, who clearly has issues but Jeffery seems controlling and that feeling builds as we watch.

the diner party

After getting in – and being pranked by Sebastian – we meet the other guests; business advisor Vincent (Miles Doleac), fashionista Sadie (Lindsay Anne Williams) and bestselling author Agatha (Kamille McCuin). The dinner party itself has an undercurrent with an affected superiority displayed by the guests and the Duncans out of their depth. As things progress Jeffery is destined to be eaten, Haley chosen as witness to the act and the quirks of the guests and we get a glimpse of the hosts' occult leanings.

priestess and priest

Sadie, it becomes apparent, is high priestess (as shown earlier in a game with tarot cards), and it is to Sadie we turn as it is her secret that leads to this ‘Vamp or Not?’ The first suggestion comes at the end of the Satanic ritual that is conducted (dedicated to the Morning Star), where Sadie and Vincent officiate and a sacrifice sees Sadie and Vincent eat some of Jeffery’s raw flesh and then adorning Haley with blood, in a perversion of Christian Communion, but the key is the line, “The Life of the Flesh is in the Blood”. However, this could be simply a moment of occult mumbo jumbo taken from the bible, of course.

licking blood

Later we see Sadie get blood on her hand. The scene is blink and you miss it but it does appear that Sadie appeared out of nowhere but the licking of the blood could be no more than an affectation. However, towards the end she is shot and the bullet wounds heal almost instantaneously as her eyes become elliptical. Clearly she is not a mere mortal. She tells us that she was the first woman, forced into existence to breed with Adam (or as she says “a mound of mud and shit”).

elliptical eyes

So she is Lilith (though the name is not used) and the story meanders into Eve’s story also (Lilith is never, to my knowledge, portrayed as dealing with the serpent and eating the fruit), Sadie was punished, becoming the abode for jackals, cursed to walk the earth until the end of times and, importantly, “with only the blood of man to sustain me”. So, Sadie is Lilith and the vampiric connection that Lilith often has is explicit in her story. Showing the empowerment against patriarchy that Lilith represents, she suggests that she chose to leave the garden – she was not cast out.

And there you have it. We get little in the way of vampiric activity (bar a lick of bloody fingers) but we get an admission of sustenance through blood and true immortality.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Short Film: The Nightshift

Directed by Ed Cotton and released in 2020, The Nightshift is a short that comes in at the 14-minute mark and hails from the UK.

As the film starts we see Brewster (Lex Stephenson), I assume named for Fright Night (1985). As we first see him he is stood at the bathroom mirror – could it be that he is filing his teeth back?

Brewster works in an all-night shop on a garage forecourt. He arrives late to work – his boss (Ian Winter) less than happy. Brewster explains he hasn’t been sleeping well – to no avail. There isn’t much of a sense of time, so it might be that night or on another that he is approached by a woman, Susie (Emily-Jane Jones), who asks when he’ll be off – she needs walking home. Protection from werewolves or vampires, she jokes.

meeting

When he leaves the shop, she is waiting for him and asks whether he’d prefer her place or his. Hers he chooses. They get together but, of course, Brewster is a vampire and still has to work nights and make sure that he feeds. The film really has two themes – what happens when one isn’t honest in a relationship is one, and the second what happens when you want to change something about a partner, despite knowing that thing about them from the get go (such as their shift work).

bloodied

Will the relationship survive – will he keep his fangs in (with her) and will she survive a vampire’s love? All revealed in the short

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Honourable Mentions: the Curse of Valburga

Directed by Tomaž Gorkič and released in 2019, this is primarily a Slovenian slasher film but it does touch into the vampire genre in a few ways – with a fleeting visitation at the end. It is particularly B, with vaguely drawn character caricatures but, as a take your brain out B it holds together as a beer and buddies’ flick. Just to make it clear, the Swedish DVD cover (illustrated) does not reflect the film in any way. 

It starts with a Swedish black magician, Sven – played by black metal musician Niklas Kvarforth, doing some form of rite. We then, after credits, meet Bojan (Marko Mandic) in a bar. He sees a woman, who he tries to attract by whistling at her and – in quite a satisfying turnaround – she eventually cuts him down to size. It isn’t perfectly feminist as she is drawn quite bitchily rather than assertive (the film probably wouldn’t lay claim to principles) but it nailed him nicely.

planning the tour

As she leaves, his brother Marjan (Jurij Drevensek) enters (and literally bumps into her). He has arranged to meet Ferdo (Ziga Födransperg) there. There is banter as Marjan’s money making scheme is outlined. He has worked out that tourists will pay money to go on tours, there is an abandoned mansion (Valburga) that they could take tourists to and Ferdo’s security firm looks after the building. They would play on the myth that it once was home to Count Dracula’s cousin (who was referred to by the rank of Baron and not named). This, of course, is our first vampire connection.

Goths

Sven calls a contact in Slovenia – he wants booking on Marjan’s tour and a gun procuring. So, he is one of a disparate group who turn up at the mansion with Marjan. We have Sven with a woman and his local contact who are looking for a magic orb, a drunken husband and wife, a porn star, Vasily (Luka Cimpric), and two female porn stars who intend to sneak off and shoot a film. We also get a group of Goths. In this Goths describe their raison d'être as “We drink absinthe. We hunt and kill vampires”…all-righty then… but they believe in and are looking for a vampire (actually to hunt and get turned by).

Ferdo's headache

That is our next vampire connection, of course. Meanwhile Ferdo and Bojan are setting up a prop vampire and Bojan has vampire teeth and will act as the Baron – our next vampire connection. So far it is mentions, wishful thinking and preparing to act as a vampire. However, things go south when Ferdo gets a large circular saw blade to the skull and now we are in slasher territory. We get a primary slasher (in German military helmet and mask) and his cannibal family, with a crowbarred backstory that they have been hiding there (in the basement) since the Second World War.

actual vampire

It is the last scene that gets our final vampire connection. The drunk couple wake up in the morning, oblivious to the carnage and down to the last beer can. They head out and check which tourist site they are due to go to. The leaflet is dropped and flutters down a grate into the basement. We see blood running down a pedestal that goes down into a lower level again and drips onto a vampire (Davor Klaric), whose eyes open… the film ends…

the fake vampire

From a vampire genre point of view we get belief in vampires (and a connection to Dracula), the aim (at least) to act like a vampire and ultimately a fleeting visitation. The rest of the film is slasher with cannibalism. It isn’t high art, indeed it is unashamedly aware and comfortable with what it is. The comedy aspect lies uncomfortably, but comedy (as always) is subjective. The imdb page is here.

Blood Immortal – review

Director: Robert Joseph Butler

Release date: 2019

Contains spoilers

Also known as Love Immortal, this is a strange film as I’ll explain, nonetheless it is well done aside from the strange aspect. It follows three time periods in three chapters, the first 1789, the second roughly contemporary and the third in the near future and the entire thing was a brave enterprise that, for the most part, the filmmakers pull off.

Whether the filmmakers meant to, or not, the chaptered approach moving from the past to the future reminded me of the Gilda Stories as I watched, but with the racial aspect removed. Rather, this film concerns itself with humanity's self-destructive economic policies – and the environmental impact thereof.

Richard Tyson as Duncan

That thread is perhaps not as obvious in the first chapter. But before we get there we have an opening scene of a man, Bernard Duncan (Richard Tyson), looking out over a lake near to his horse and black-draped trap. Moving from this scene, night has fallen and we see Mary (Kayla Kelly) stood by a horse, whose nose is bloodied. Duncan’s trap happens along and he stops, walking up to her as she asks for assistance. He bites her.

Julie Kline as Eliza

Chapter 1 starts with Eliza (Julie Kline) walking to find her mother, Josephine (Aphrodite Nikolovski), who has visited her husband’s grave – it is a year since he died and the gravestone shows that he was a veteran of the War of Independence. As they walk back to their cabin, the land it sits on theirs by dint of the Land Vouchers her husband was given due to his service, Josephine staggers and drops to her knees, coughing up blood. What we then get is an evening scene with some dialogue based around belief before there is the sound of a carriage.

feeding with his blood

It is Duncan and, apologising for the lateness of his visit, he explains he is from the treasury department. Inside he explains about the set up of states and counties and makes an offer to buy the land from Josephine. There is some back and forth and it ends up with him leaving coins as a down payment while she thinks about it. The next night he returns – Eliza is out and he tells Josephine that he could sense she was dying and that he can make her live forever. He bites her and feeds his blood.

Aphrodite Nikolovski as Josephine

When she comes round he gives her, what might be described as, the new vampire talk. But she did not want this and his suggestion of starting an immortal family doesn’t find favour. They fight, with him throttling her, and she stabbing him with a potato peeler. Eliza walks in on this scene and stabs at him with a poker, conveniently (accidentally) staking him as she does so. The women are left alone and we leave the chapter with Eliza offering her mother her wrist.

Fiona and victim

And here we get the strangeness I mentioned. The chapter was excellently located, with good costuming and equally good performances. The dialogue worked, building characters through the discussions and minutia they discuss. Yet there is no real denouement. At this point it doesn’t seem too important, after all there are further chapters to go but remember this is not a prologue, it is a chapter. As we go in to chapter 2 and meet vampire Fiona (Jordan Trovillion, A Mosquito-Man) we actually lose sight of mother and daughter for an entire chapter.

drinking clean blood

Fiona preys on women but it is becoming an issue as she has developed sensitivities to blood. This is down to the pollutants that humans are carrying in blood – a concept that was famously explored previously in Only Lovers Left Alive. These sensitivities lead to stomach cramps, vomiting and general malaise. Her vampire friend, Victoria (Chevonne Wilson), recommends an illicit source of tested ‘good’ blood.

Fiona and Patricia

Meanwhile Victoria is taking night economics classes, which leads to us witnessing debates around economic theory. She makes friends with the class Professor, Patricia (Erika Hoveland). Again the dialogue is excellent, the performances work and they with the dialogue build us, in Fiona and Patricia, a pair of three-dimensional characters. The issue, again, is a lack of denouement – the section gives as an insight into the physical decline of the vampires due to the environmental and social decline and the economic decline of the States but there feels like there should be more of a personal point drawn as we move into the third chapter (via a brief vignette introducing one of the new characters).

Josephine drinks

The third chapter is in a future where the economy is less in downfall than it is in absolute plummet towards collapse with desperate Government actions trying to fend off the inevitable. We are again with Josephine and Eliza – Eliza now sensitive to tainted blood and Josephine trying to save her daughter with clean blood (there is a simile with the Government economic actions here). There is a story around the black market and there is a cyclic element with Josephine using Duncan’s coins from the first story (such a coin also appears in the second story). Again the acting is grand and, whilst there are conclusions to aspects of story, there is no overall satisfying denouement.

a world gone mad

Perhaps there doesn’t need to be, but I really felt there needed to be something that just wasn’t there. Not that this is bad because of it, on the contrary, however when you get an indie film that does so well with dialogue, costuming, locations and filming in general then it seems a shame for an element to be missing. The vampires, in some ways, represent the economic decline with their health failing too – however they have been through this before (Fiona mentions the Great Depression at one point). The only real lore we get is the blood sensitivity and an insinuation that they have to avoid sunlight (the drapes on the carriage, the night visitation, Victoria having paper on her windows, Fiona in night class).

I enjoyed this, but that missing denouement really sticks out to me. Perhaps I’m being too harsh, perhaps the filmmakers believed they had one and I missed it. As stands, however, it still deserves a strong 6 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon US

Short film: Vampire (2017)

Made for Crypt TV at just over 3-minutes I really don’t see how I can avoid spoiling this one. Sorry folks. But it is a neat bit of nonsense, released in 2017 and directed by Joshua Giuliano.

A man (Jacob DeMonte-Finn) sits in a treatment room, there is a sign that says Give Blood and a dead cockroach on the floor. A nurse (Alyssa Tyson) bustles in, stepping on the cockroach, and hands him a clipboard. He (presumably) signs a release, and she straps him to the chair across the chest and at the wrists.

draining

She then fits a canular into his arm and hands him a squeezy toy, which she instructs him to squeeze. He does so as blood is drawn from his body into a bag. She leaves but we see a door behind inch open. The man eventually notices the fact that the tube is moving. He looks to the other side and in his periphery sees…

vampire

Well, of course it is a vampire (Alan Maxson), sucking on the tube. But I love the way the vampire has been visualised. Deathly white, sores across the back and a monstrous visage, he seems animalistic and dangerous. I’d like to see more of these vampires, I’d like to know more about the set up here. As for you, dear reader, if you want to know if he escapes then watch on…

The imdb page is here.

Short Film: Salem Occultist

Salem Occultist was a 22-minute-long film from 2016, which was directed by Alexander Roman. It is less a story and more an introduction to the character of Anton Bryson (Alexander Roman), which comprises of a prologue background (and post-credit background piece) and two ‘consultations’.

The introduction shows mostly establishing film and graphics as a voiceover from the Salem witch trials condemns the three Bryson sisters to death. The last to die, Cora (Paula Kinch), tells her brother Anton that her spell will protect him from his curse – for a while at least – but he is doomed to be a vampire. However, the spell will ensure he inherits her powers also.

I see a bad moon rising

Forward in time and Anton is now a consulting occultist. The first client we see is Irena (Sarah Biehler), who needs help escaping from an abusive relationship. The second client is Thomas (Alexander Roman), sent to Anton by the mysterious Baroness (Sarah Alvarez). Thomas rarely takes male clients but listens to his story, one of a night of passion with a mysterious Greek man who was gone in the morning but left Thomas bitten and scratched and susceptible to the moon.

How does Anton deal with these clients? You can check that on demand, from Vimeo. 

The imdb page is here.

Nirvana Island: The Last 47 Days – review

Director: Takeshi Watanabe

Release date: 2016

Contains spoilers

The film Higanjima: Escape from Vampire Island was flawed but was fun. A high-octane action adventure that took anime styling and recrafted it in live action. It did use cgi, and not all of it worked, but for the most part the film hit more than missed.

This film is a sequel to the Japanese live action series of Higanjima from 2013, rather than the 2009 film. Thus, this is within the same storyline but unconnected to the film we’ve already reviewed, and this, unfortunately, misses more than hits. All the actors (exported from the series) are different and in the main are not as good at their craft, the cgi tends towards poor rather than good and the plot goes from nonsense to nonsensical. It is still, however, high-octane when it comes to the fights.

There's a Hand in my bucket

It starts with an overview of the Higanjima backstory, with wartime experiments and a group of kids going to the island, but the recap probably doesn’t explain much to the uninitiated. We get a brief animated water giant and then we see Kato (Ryû Morioka) washed up on a beach – a victim of the giant. He walks through the island, until exhausted and parched, when he finally comes across a village. He tries to get water from the well, but the bucket has a hand in it.

blood on tap

He enters a building and calls out, he hears someone and, turning around, sees a man in a barrel, his head out and spigots clearly used to tap his blood. Kato looks around the corner and sees two men gnawing on limbs, their fangs obvious. Kato backs away but they have seen him, indeed a stream of vampires come for him. He runs out of the building and finds himself surrounded by the grey clad bloodsuckers (in Higanjima sunlight is not an issue). Suddenly a swordsman leaps in to his rescue.

Akira and Aoyama

After a battle, the swordsman tells Kato to run and they escape the village. Once a safe distance away, Kato recognises the swordsman as Ken (Yûya Endô). He asks about Akira (Shun'ya Shiraishi) and Ken says he is with the vampires (by this meaning fighting them). We cut to a battle where Akira and his sensei, the ‘giant’ Aoyama (Renji Ishibashi), are battling vampires and their mutated versions. These take the form of beaked giants and we get we massively enormous enemies in this. Pulling the strings is the apparently fully immortal vampire Miyabi (Louis Kurihara).

Miyabi and troops

If any of the characters were disappointing compared to the 2010 film then Miyabi is the prime one. Whilst the style is the same, the physical demeanour is all off and the prettiness that displays the blurring of gender lines within an anime, and which was captured in the 2010 film, becomes more of an effeminate campiness here and misses the desired aesthetic. He is powerful, nonetheless and survives being cleaved at one point and regenerates an eye (in bad cgi) in seconds, after losing it to an arrow,

Ken drinks bottled blood

Ken is now a vampire, it is revealed, fighting against Miyabi. Akira’s brother, Atsushi (Ryôhei Suzuki), is revealed to be a vampire living in a village of vampires. It is here that we discover that refusing to feed can cause the mutation into a giant. The film heads towards a confrontation between the two brothers – but why isn’t clear. It has something to do with a serum (a cure I assumed) but that plotline was never broadcast satisfactorily.

CGI foe

As mentioned, the cgi isn’t great, but I could live with that (it would be, and is, a shame compared to the earlier film) and the fights were fun enough. But it was the hack job of a story (and this wasn’t down to the subtitling being a wee bit too literal, the story was just a mess) and the interminable length (about 30 minutes needs expunging) that made this difficult. Also, I have to mention that the film really doesn’t have an ending, it just kind of stops. It isn’t a cliff-hanger; it is just a full halt. I think 3.5 out of 10 reflects fairly the poorness of the story, with a soupçon of bad cgi, tempered by the fun fight bits.

The imdb page is here.

Honourable Mention: Holiday Hell

Holiday Hell is a portmanteau movie released in 2019 and containing, as far as I can tell, bespoke segments. In this honourable mention, however, it is the Jeff Ferrell wraparound that I am looking at, and so apologies for spoiling that.

The wraparound sees Amelia (Meagan Karimi-Naser) enter a store, the Nevertold Casket Co. – a creepy looking establishment, from the window display. At first there doesn’t seem to be anyone around but eventually the proprietor (Jeffrey Combs, Frightmare, Necronomicon: Book of Dead & Dark House) makes himself known, but he was about to shut up shop for the night.

Meagan Karimi-Naser as Amelia

Amelia is in a bit of a pickle, however. It is Christmas Eve’s Eve and she hasn’t got her sister a present – her sibling favouring the dark and macabre. The shopkeeper is reluctant, there are too many time wasters but a flash of cash convinces him to stay open. The items in the shop all have stories (our segments) and it is what the shopkeeper relishes, collecting stories to preserve them with the items, as they go through the tales Amelia seems to not be sure about buying the items – they just don’t seem right.

Jeffrey Combs as the shopkeeper

So, it is the final part of the wraparound that interests us. The last story was told by Amelia about a ring she wears – a ring the shopkeeper must have. He retrieves a knife but Amelia is no longer alone, rather she has been joined by her pagan coven (for pagan read Goth). Amelia came to the shop purposefully and has been stalling. One of the skulls the shopkeeper has is her twin sister Ophelia (also Meagan Karimi-Naser); he killed her to get her identical ring.

back from the dead

They grab the shopkeeper and cut his arm to get blood, which they use to draw a circle around the skull. They chant and the sister is reborn… But Amelia’s mother had warned she would not be the same. The blonde sister is reconstituted naked, but her skin shimmers, her eyes are unnaturally coloured, her nails are talons and her teeth sharp. As the film ends she crawls towards the shopkeeper who screams…

sharp teeth

So, it was the restoration with blood, the sharp teeth and the implication that she was about to chow down on the shopkeeper that gave this an honourable mention. She could, of course, be something other than a vampire but the baseline tropes are there and the visitation is so fleeting it is as well to give the benefit of the doubt. The film itself was fun, with a nice range of stories. Sometimes they seemed to stretch credulity – but these are not designed to ring true – as the shopkeeper says it only matters if the teller of the tale believes it true. Speaking of whom, Combs is as dependable as always.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Exorcism Master – review

Director: Xiang Qiu-Liang

Release date: 2017

Contains spoilers

A recent Chinese film this is one that carries a central monster that looks a bit more zombie than kyonsi and, in truth, the subtitles I saw use the word zombie all the way through. However I was firmly of the opinion that it fell much more on the vampire side and there are several direct giveaways that I’ll point out in the review.

Beyond this, we have a fantasy fare that could have withstood more character exploration as the good guys, especially, are interesting as is and could have stood for some more development.

Tan Xin-Zer as Tiancai

We start at an archaeological dig (or more properly a tomb raid). One of the first characters we see is a sinisterly giggling old man who seems to be the aid to the stoic Lord Ma. Stood, waiting but uncomfortable, are two men who offer a prayer for forgiveness. As the giggling man questions their prayer, the older one (and experienced tomb hunter who has never seen a tomb like this) decides to run away and is killed for his trouble. The younger man, Tiancai (Tan Xin-Zer), gets to work but, as soon as he approaches a mechanism in the floor, living roots seem to appear, thrusting out and start killing (mostly) guards.

the cavern

Ma’s sorcerer, Jianghzi, casts a spell and makes three figures reveal themselves and names them illusions. Tiancai goes to the mechanism, and fiddles with it. One by one the illusions vanish, though pieces of statues and roots assail Lord Ma’s entourage. Tiancai deactivates the trap and the ground gives way, causing him to fall into a huge cavern, catching a root as he falls. This is the tomb of an ancient general, who sits cocooned in the centre surrounded by his dead, zombified men. Jianghzi has revealed that his (abandoned) order had suppressed the living dead army and the means of controlling the “suppression tower” is a relic contained within the general’s body.

apprentice and master

Tiancai is paid off (the giggling man persuades Lord Ma not to kill him as he may be useful) and they take the cocoon (which has already started to break down, the viewer notices). Before we see Tiancai get home, we see a singing swordsman from Jianghzi’s old order and his apprentice, a whip wielding young lady called Qin Yu (Karena Ng Chin-Yu). She has refused to practice, saying its boring, and instead is preparing smores at the campfire. They get a whiff of putrefaction and he realises that evil spirits are about and says they’ll stay in the area longer.

the wife turned

Tiancai lives by a lake in a house he shares with an older couple called (by the Honorific) Aunt Hua and Uncle Jin, with Uncle a pleasant drunk who is always awaiting the return of his son (and who is building a tunnel system and is convinced enemies are due to attack). Also, there are a group of (orphaned) kids that they look after. Tiancai is an inventor and is drawn as an all-round pleasant guy (his work for Lord Ma is to support his adopted family). Of course, the General awakens and attacks a nearby town. When the family are found dead Tiancai investigates, the victims reanimate and he is rescued by the Master and Qin Yu – but not before he is bitten by one of the restless corpses.

kyonsi general

To cure him, before dying and becoming the living dead, they hunt down the general to get a tooth (to make the cure). They track him to a wedding that he slaughters, but so does Lord ma’s henchmen. So, vampire aspects? Of course, they are the restless dead but, before he is cured Tiancai develops fangs – which was the first definite vampire nod. The second is in reference to the general. When being fought it is caught and wrapped in a string with coins along its length, which seems to burn him – this is out of the kyonsi playbook.

with fangs

Recaptured by Lord Ma, the general is chained and immobilised with similar red string forming a curtain around him and prayer scrolls hanging on the strings (rather than being attached to his forehead as is normal). Jianghzi tells Lord Ma that due to the fact that the general has ingested so much blood and essence (indicating energy vampirism as well as standard and perhaps hinting to blood being the conduit for such transfer) he is now invulnerable. They will force Tiancai to extract the artefact – but will he comply?

Tiancai and Qin Yu

This was fun. There was a good chemistry between Tiancai and Qin Yu, which added a nice layer but the characters were interesting in their own right and we could have done with more. Indeed the film (which is a mainland China produced film) relied on stereotypes that both Western and domestic viewers will recognised having been taken from a long legacy of Hong Kong cinema. Nevertheless, it worked well, looked slick enough and was entertaining. 6 out of 10.

At the time of writing there is no IMDb page.