Strange Blood: 71 Essays on Offbeat and Underrated Vampire Movies - review

Editor: Vanessa Morgan

First Published: 2019

The Blurb: This is an overview of the most offbeat and underrated vampire movies spanning nine decades and 23 countries. Strange Blood encompasses well-known hits as well as obscurities that differ from your standard fang fare by turning genre conventions on their head. Here, vampires come in the form of cars, pets, aliens, mechanical objects, gorillas, or floating heads. And when they do look like a demonic monster or an aristocratic Count or Countess, they break the mold in terms of imagery, style, or setting. Leading horror writers, filmmakers, actors, distributors, academics, and programmers present their favorite vampire films through in-depth essays, providing background information, analysis, and trivia regarding the various films. Some of these stories are hilarious, some are terrifying, some are touching, and some are just plain weird. Not all of these movies line up with the critical consensus, yet they have one thing in common: they are unlike anything you've ever seen in the world of vampires. Just when you thought that the children of the night had become a tired trope, it turns out they have quite a diverse inventory after all.

The review: I mentioned this film when I reviewed Wilczyca as it was the one film in the collection that I hadn’t covered here. That said, there is much to discover within and this is a collection of (mostly) folks talking about a film they love as a fan. I say mostly because, for instance, the Frostbite entry was written by director Anders Banke and producer Magnus Paulsson. Also, not every entry was a love letter, in some there was a recognition of how poor a vehicle might be (after all, who could defend the cinematic pedigree of Devil’s Dynamite, though Chris Hewson did a fine job of suggesting to an uninitiated reader that it might be a “so bad, its good” film – it isn’t, it's just bad).

Where this went wrong, as a reference work, was in a failure to provide any referencing or an index. The issue then is, can the background information and trivia be trusted as reliable? The answer, probably not. For Wilczyca I gave the benefit of the doubt to a quote attributed to the director in my review of the film but, equally, I wouldn’t feel comfortable in reproducing that quote in a reference piece without (at the very least) a heavy caveat. Also, some factoids are just wrong. For instance, in the essay about the Curse of Styria (under the US title Angels of Darkness) author Christine Hadden suggests the film takes place in a remote area of Austria – in fact it takes place in Hungary, which is important as it is within the cold war and Hungary is a communist country (hence the difficulties crossing the border at the head of the film). It is where authors wax lyrical about their love of any given vehicle that this book excels (and going back to Hadden’s Styria essay, this is a case in point as the love for the film was palpable despite the geographic faux pas).

And in that respect, it really does work. It’s also a darn sight cheaper than many reference works out there. I should mention that author and blog friend Doug Lamoreux provides a couple of the essays. 7.5 out of 10.

In Paperback @ Amazon US

In Paperback @ Amazon UK

Wilczyca – review

Director: Marek Piestrak

Release date: 1983

Contains (lots of) spoilers

I vacillated with this film as to whether to review it or suggest it was a film that used some tropes from the vampire genre. I came across it in the volume Strange Blood: 71 Essays on Offbeat and Underrated Vampire Movies. The film’s title translates to She-Wolf and my first instinct, watching the film before reading the essay by Wojciech Wolski, was that it was not a vampire film despite using some familiar tropes. Nor was it your traditional werewolf film and probably had as much to do with witchcraft as anything else.

graveyard

However, Wolski argues that it is more in line with the Slavic vampire – though again that was more tropes employed than the overall creature’s features – and I was struck by a quote in the essay, from director Marek Piestrak that said “here vampirism is connected to National treason”, indicating that the director read vampirism into the film… maybe… the issue with the quote (indeed with all the essays in the volume, which are less academic and more love notes) is that there us no citation for the quote and a google could not track it down. Benefit of the doubt will prevail, however, and I will review the film. I will also mercilessly spoil it as I look at the tropes employed and those moments of obfuscation that may be lore that has not been thought through or, indeed, left deliberately vague.

Kacper arrives home

The film was due to be set just before the January Uprising (1863) but (uncited) Piestrak was forced by the then still Communist administration to move the timeline to the Greater Poland Uprising of 1848 and change the Russian soldiers in the film to Austrian Hussars. Nevertheless it is still a film about patriotism and treason and the patriotism is personified by primary character Kacper Wosinski (Krzysztof Jasinski), who returns from a prolonged trip to discover from his brother, Mateusz (Jerzy Prazmowski), that his wife, Maryna (Iwona Bielska), is gravely ill having self-aborted her child. He immediately asks who the father was due to the length of time he has been away.

Maryna dying

The doctor, at first, prevents them going to her. Outside he says that it is only a matter of time as her insides have been ripped up. Once he is by her deathbed it is clear that she hates him, but there is apparently no love lost either way, as she says that he called her a bitch and she’ll die like one. His offer of a priest is scorned and when he sees the crucifix has gone from the wall, she tells him that she burned it at Candlemas, instead she clings to something wrapped and clutched to her chest. As she dies her final words are, “I’ll find you”. Unwrapping the thing she clutched to, they find a wolf’s paw.

staking

Kacper and Mateusz struggle along a mud track with a horse pulling her coffin when Mateusz stops suddenly and cuts a tree to quickly carve a stake. Kacper is horrified but Mateusz simply says she was a witch. They continue to the cemetery but, once the grave is dug, no one has come – including the priest. He will not come says Mateusz – whilst Kacper has been away Maryna has indulged in drunkenness and debauchery, all seen by their neighbours, and dabbled in black magic. The priest refused to come. He opens the coffin and tries to get Kacper to stake her, given he was her husband, but he refuses. Mateusz hopes Kacper won’t regret it and does the deed himself. Stakes, of course, are used traditionally to pin a corpse into the grave and this is a vampire trope (though not unheard of in werewolf films) and witches (and werewolves) become vampires on death in some traditions.

the wolf

So Kacper moves away to become steward for Count Ludwick (Stanislaw Brejdygant). He is undertaking his duties one day when one of his dogs starts crying. He goes to a window and sees a wolf – to address the wolf, the film uses a wolf that appears to be of normal size but is referred to in dialogue as being as big as a calf. He exclaims “she has found me” and grabs his rifle, but the wolf has vanished. He is summoned to the Count as the Count’s loyalist conspirator Count Wiktor Smorawinski (Leon Niemczyk) has arrived. Smorawinski tells Ludwick that the hussars are coming and they have to go into exile and then collapses.

Iwona Bielska as Julia

Ludwig uses a secret door to go to his wife, Julia. Julia is also played by Iwona Bielska but Kacper doesn’t notice the similarities until later. She is with her companion Hortensja Vitie (Hanna Stankówna) and there seems to be a sapphic overtone to their relationship (which is not explicitly explored). Whilst Ludwig’s behaviour indicates that he dotes on his wife, her behaviour seems nasty and spiteful towards him. She questions his virility, openly hints at a physical relationship with Hortensja and uses fake crying to manipulate and hurt him.

the return of Maryna

The way the two Counts flee is unimportant from a genre point of view but during the journey to get them to safety Kacper dreams of Maryna and then seems to see her in the woods. In his dream she has blackened (though perhaps they were meant to seem sharp) teeth and blood on her hands, and when he seems to physically see her the coachman sees something also. Interestingly, though not explored further, they are at a crossroads. Nevertheless, the Counts escape and Kacper is left in charge of the estate and told to look after Julia. 

tasting his blood

Just after they have fled a band of hussars arrive and their commander Otto (Olgierd Lukaszewicz) had, we see in flashback, a carnal relationship with Julia prior to her marriage (or so it would appear). In that flashback, interestingly, we see Julia feeding wolves captured on her father’s estate and, as part of their physicality, licking blood from Otto’s hand after a wolf catches it when he feeds it. It is the only instance of blood drinking seen in the film and is sexual more than anything.

rotten Maryna

So, the wolf is stalking the environs, and Kacper, who has a bout of swamp fever, sees Maryna and the wolf on separate occasions. Mateusz shows up with Kacper’s rent monies and the lease to the house. He will no longer stay in the house – he heard the dogs whimpering and saw Maryna, her face rotten and blood at her chest where the stake had been. There was a battle near the house, he reports, and the cemetery was hit with ballistics, unearthing graves and, when he checked, Maryna’s grave was empty – Mateusz extrapolates that the stake was removed by the blast. He gives his brother a daguerreotype of Maryna and Kacper suddenly recognises her as Julia. We’ll return to this as clearly Maryna and Julia lived contemporaneously.

Henryk Machalica as Goldberg

So, edited lore highlights. We have Kacper stalking the wolf and trying to shoot it. Eventually he manages to wing it and follows the blood, but the blood trail leads to Julia who is out riding. She is later seen with her hand bandaged (though it is only a scratch and she doesn’t remember how she got it, she insists). That, of course, fits neatly into werewolf tales. Kacper consults the local doctor, Goldberg (Henryk Machalica), about whether the spirit of a dead person can posses a living one and, through a bible passage, he confirms it.

the picture bleeds

Later the doctor uses magic (invoking angels and devils it seems and commanding the spirit, strangely, to “turn to stone and drink my blood”) and stabs the daguerreotype – this causes it to bleed and Julia, back at the house, is crippled with pain. The doctor then has Kacper burn the daguerreotype – for me this scene confirms the connection between Julia and Maryna, though if it were meant to help combat her then the film remains silent on its long-term impact. Interestingly, though Julia is accused of having changed (due, one assumes to the possession by Maryna), she was actually pretty much the same – if the flashback to her meeting Otto is to be believed. One might read the flashback as a bewitchment of the officer, however, rather than an actual event from the past.

wolf remains

In the director’s quote above, treason was equated to vampirism. The film hammers her treason home by having her throw a ball that no one attends, Kacper suggests this is because there are decent poles left (and the hussars are at the house with whom Julia is consorting). The doctor casts a silver bullet in holy water (best cast on the New Moon, suggests a local earlier in the film) and scratches a cross into it. Kacper then shoots Julia (naked in bed with Otto) through the eye, killing her (noting that this seems to be about killing the possessing spirit). Interestingly, when at the very end of the film the Count returns and she is disinterred from her unhallowed grave to be buried in a churchyard, the coffin is opened and the skeleton of a wolf is found.

Krzysztof Jasinski as Kacper

So, a long old look at the lore and you can see why classing this as vampire was difficult. There are certainly swathes of werewolf lore and, of course, bits of that lore crosses over with vampire lore (silver bullets – though casting it in holy water and scratching the cross into it feels more vampire than werewolf). There is also possession, of course, and witchcraft aspects mentioned. Maryna seems to want to torment rather than be feeding a hunger. But what about the film itself? Despite the lore being all over the place I really rather liked it. I loved the photography, which added a richly gothic atmosphere to the film. Krzysztof Jasinski was great as Kacper, though the character’s general likability and patriotism was undermined by the confession that he was a domestic abuser of Maryna, and Iwona Bielska was deliciously cruel in both her roles. There was a hint of (or, perhaps, comment on) anti-Semitic sentiment, with the hussars hanging a Jewish innkeeper (off screen) an act that is lamented by the loyalist as a pity because he was “a decent Jew”. The film did get a sequel in 1990, which I haven’t seen but that looks to be more standard Western European/US werewolf. As for this, an atmospheric 7 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon US

On DVD @ Amazon UK

Carmilla: A Critical Edition – review

Author: Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

Editor: Kathleen Costello-Sullivan

First published: 2013 (edition)

The Blurb: First serialized in the journal "The Dark Blue" and published shortly thereafter in the short story collection In a Glass Darkly, Le Fanu’s 1872 vampire tale is in many ways the overlooked older sister of Bram Stoker’s more acclaimed Dracula. A thrilling gothic tale, Carmilla tells the story of a young woman lured by the charms of a female vampire.

This edition includes a student-oriented introduction, tracing the major critical responses to Carmilla, and four interdisciplinary essays by leading scholars who analyze the story from a variety of theoretical perspectives. Ranging from politics to gender, Gothicism to feminism, and nineteenth-century aestheticism to contemporary film studies, these critical yet accessible articles model the diverse ways

The review: Like Dracula, Carmilla is a piece of literature that genre fans are likely to have more than once and look at different editions for their collection. This edition is interesting as it draws attention to the slight differences between the version of the text originally published in The Dark Blue and its version when part of In a Glass Darkly. Beyond this, probably the most telling correction is in the dialogue of De Lafontaine where she says (before Carmilla’s arrival), “this night… …is full of odylic and magnetic influence” (p 13). Many editions ‘correct’ this to idyllic but odylic (as the footnote to this informs) refers to the hypothetical force odyle that was claimed to be behind mesmerism and animal magnetism.

The edition also includes four essays that are cross-disciplinary and cover Irish studies (and the interpretation of Le Fanu’s tale within that context), aesthetics and a look at the novella through the lens of Burke and Gilpin’s theorems and finally within cinema. The essays are interesting, though the one on cinema was incredibly whistle-stop, and add layers to the edition.

All in all, this is a decent edition, if only for the comparison laid out between Le Fanu’s two editions of the tale. It is, however, a tad pricey compared to other editions – being released by a University Press (in this case Syracuse). 8 out of 10 (for the edition, not the Le Fanu content, which is classic after all).

In Paperback @ Amazon US

In Paperback @ Amazon UK

Vampire Trailer Park – review

Director: Steve Latshaw

Release date: 1991

Contains spoilers

I always say that comedy is subjective but despite not matching my humour this straight to video 90s flick did actually manage a level of charm that I didn’t expect. Not that it is a great film, indeed it is anything but a great film, however it is certainly a cut above some of the 90s straight to video fodder.

It is floating around online in rather low resolution and that, of course, does not help its cause and, to be fair, in the first 5 minutes this was going straight towards a place in my bottom 100. Read on, however, as it managed to escape that fate.

the first victim

So, it starts in a trailer court and we see a woman walking along. She has a paper bag of groceries and is going to be cooking a fish as she has a date with a nice man. We go into pov and hear a laboured heavy breathing. She is attacked and then, as she lies with her neck bloody, we hear a retching sound and a splatter of blood hits the victim. Another trailer park, more laboured breathing and another attack, on an elderly man. His dropped newspaper says about a vampire killer and the 5th attack. Blood is vomited across it.

Ethel Miller as Aunt Hattie

To be honest it was the annoying laboured breath sound-effect and the pov in this entirely no budget affair that was pushing me to already, minutes in, consider the magic zero score. The next scene has a woman leaving a trailer park; unable to convince a friend to leave as well, she admits she has hired a detective and a psychic. She walks away and we get the breathing and following pov, until the vampire (Patrick Moran) pukes and she, still unawares, gets away. He crawls to a car and climbs in, we hear the driver, later revealed as Aunt Hattie (Ethel Miller), say she wishes he were a vegetarian. The car follows the woman, passes her and stops, the door opens and she looks in…

the client

The detective is Andrew Holt (Robin Schurtz, Vampire Cop) and his partner, the psychic and medium Jennifer Baiswell (Kathy Moran), are looking for their missing client. They find her in a building site, dead and drained. Blood spatter nearby suggests to Holt that the vampires they are dealing with vomit. Holt goes to meet a cop who gives him a file but, officially, the cops aren’t investigating! He returns to Jennifer who becomes possessed by her grandmother – who was a victim of the vampire (presumably some time ago). She gives them a cryptic clue that will lead them to the Twin Palms trailer park.

Robin Schurtz as Holt

Now as it happens the owners of the park, harridan Wilma (Elizabeth Ochoa) and her lothario (with the geriatric female residents) husband Buddy (Michael Street) are offered ¼ million dollars for the land – but they have to clear it of residents in two weeks. Unfortunately they can’t just evict them as they are life lease holders – so they have a lot of residents to kill in order that they will get the offered money. It also happens that Aunt Hattie decides to move there with her nephew (the vampire) to use the place as a buffet and then Buddy meets wannabe Bonnie and Clyde, Buzz (Bently Tittle) and Jana (Blake Pickett), and hires them to do some killing.

put 'em up, vampire

There isn’t much lore offered. The vampire was a plantation and slave owner who died in 1746 and Hattie became his helper when young – realising that she will be replaced eventually but content, it seems. He uses TV to hypnotise people and crosses apparently are apotropaic. Why he vomits is not explained – he complains about low grade food and she mentions a ‘sign of disorders’. However the annoying laboured breathing is cut after the opening.

Kathy Moran as Jennifer

It really isn’t great. The story sags with holes, the comedy is mostly a miss and the performances amateur at best but… As I say there is something at least a little compelling about it, an earnestness there despite itself. For that reason, I’m content to boost this up to a magnificent (for this) 2.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Honourable mention: Deathcember

Deathcember is an anthology of short shorts, released in 2020, that looks to put the horror back into the holiday season and is based around an advent calendar type of graphic to lock the segments together. The reason for listing this as an Honourable Mention is because the segment that I have in mind is not definitively vampire (though it is as good an explanation as any) and is also one of the shortest shorts in the film.

Entitled Joy to the Girls and directed by Sonia Escolano it starts with a man (Jose Corpas) who has received an invitation to a Christmas party in a hotel. He gets into the room and three women are stood there (played by Haydée Lysander, Claudia Bouza and Laura Ballester). One comes forward and draws him to them, music is put on, they dance round him and give him a glass of wine…

the three

The wine is drugged. He awakens knelt over a receptacle, bound with a gag of masking tape and an inverted pentagram drawn on his chest. The women stand around him. Now, they could be witches of course, what with Macbeth offering the rule of three as much as Stoker offered the same rule for vampire women, and there is a pentagram involved, of course. They all have knives and slit his throat…

drinking blood

So why have I gone vampire on this? Well because we see them scooping blood in their hands and drinking the spilt blood. Of course, we have to ask, is he the only one they invited?

This was short, sweet and to the point. It is plausibly a vampire short. The anthology itself was worthwhile. Be warned, there are a couple of shorts hidden in the credits. The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

Honourable Mention: Onus

Onus is a 2020 film by Alex Secker is nearly a folk horror film, and I say nearly because the folk horror element deserved more attention. It also has what might be described as a vampiric side that manifests in a couple of ways, as we will see. However, as this is almost trope use (bar one piece of imagery) along with mentioning vampires in passing, in a way that is allegorical, I decided that putting this under an Honourable Mention would be the proper way to deal with the film.

The film sees student nurse Anna (Daniella Faircloth) accompanying her girlfriend Izzy (Erin Leighton) to visit Izzy’s family. As the film starts Izzy is driving and Anna is nervous. Izzy dabbles in fashion and her family live in a manor house – and socially conscious Anna worries if she will fit in. Izzy declares that maybe she is right, maybe they are vampires – after all Dracula had a castle. It is designed to disarm but Anna is still concerned, she sees the socio-economic gulf between them despite Izzy further distracting by suggesting that they’ll rub her in garlic before arriving.

Daniella Faircloth as Anna

So that is our mention and it pertains directly to the allegorical use of vampire for privilege and wealth, and she is faced with that as soon as they arrive. The door is answered by new housekeeper Lucy (Shaniece Williams) – daughter of the previous housekeeper. She is put upon by the household, we come to find, especially Izzy’s mother, Elizabeth (Karen Payne). However, when Anna and Izzy arrive, Izzy expects Lucy to get her bags whereas Anna insists on helping. Once in the house Anna spots a strange drawn picture, which Izzy’s brother Vincent (Alex Pitcher) suggests is some kind of local folklore of a deity that father, David (Tony Manders), insists on keeping on display.

the deity

This is our folk horror element but whilst it is touched on briefly in visions it is never actually addressed directly, and this is where, for me, the film missed a little. It should have let us more into its own inner mythology as it certainly deserved our attention – it was possible to do this without undermining the core element of mystery. The story surrounds David being bedbound (and locked in his room). Anna is destined to be sacrificed and has been selected because she is estranged from her parents and has no real friends. This isn’t a spoiler – it is glaring from early on in the film. The sacrifice is to bring back success for the family business and health for David and the fact that the family don’t understand that, in the modern world, someone such as Anna isn’t disposable as, if only through her university or landlord, she will be missed. This is indicative of the blindness of their privilege. It is likely why, though portrayed as blinded in a vision, Lucy can see Anna’s spirit after the deed is done.

Izzy bites

As Lucy knows the rules, it seems, then we can assume that this isn’t the first time they have done this and that Lucy was warned by her mother of the ways of the family. The sacrifice itself is shown with two elements. The second is seeing a masked Izzy stabbing Anna but the first is the other reason for the mention. We see David, looking corrupt, biting at her leg then the family all on her, all looking equally corrupt, biting her. Flesh eating or blood drinking? It isn’t clear, though it is Izzy at her neck. It also isn’t clear if this represents a reality or a vision just prior to the sacrifice? However, it does suggest, even if the bites are from a vision, that the ritual is vampiric in nature.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

Girls Just Wanna Have Blood – review

Director: Anthony Catanese

Release date: 2019

Contains spoilers

If I told you that the original title of this was Teenage Bloodsuckin' Bimbos then it might offer you a measure of the film by title alone. However sometimes the film is greater than the measure predicts. One might look to films such as Mother May I Sleep with Danger and Bit for a lineage, but this would be the low budget trailer-trash cousin, and yet…

And yet I couldn’t help but enjoy the watch, despite some truly awful effect moments (and some pretty good ones considering the budget), despite the humour (and this is a comedy of course) aiming squarely into sleaze, despite pedestrian photography and despite some pacing issues.

party

The film starts with some sexually tinged pleading from female voices to a black screen. Then we see we are in a liquor store and the three young women are pleading with a guy to buy them beer. The girls are Trish (Destyne Marshai), April (Penny Praline) and Stacy (Gigi Gustin). He buys the beer and we see them all partying, pouring beer into his mouth as they dance round him in underwear. Trish seems bored – is he ready, she asks and he starts breaking out of the mood. They push him back in, declare him ready and attack. Yes, they are vampires.

Quentin Carpenter as Stink

Jessica (Amanda Renee) is woken by a baby crying. She tries to cover her ears but has to get up and sort her baby brother out. As she does (we never really see the baby, just swaddling) her mother, Lucy (Bettina Skye), stumbles drunkenly through the door, home from work (as she puts it). Her work is hanging around a biker’s chapterhouse and drinking until she can entice a biker and prostitute herself. Jessica, who has to get her mother to bed and gets a chest full of vomit for the effort, is left to look after her brother and (we discover later) is picked on at school. She steps outside to put out the trash and is insulted by neighbour Stink (Quentin Carpenter), in his (bad wig) mullet it is clear he fancies Jessica.

Jessica and the pram

That evening, her mother is back out to work and tells Jessica that dinner is in the (microwave) oven. She hopes to bring someone home so Jessica and her brother need to be scarce. She takes her brother out in his pram and is soon being tormented by the three vampire girls who seem to be calling her name. The distraction causes her to step in front of a car, the car slamming the breaks and the pram rolling off downhill. The driver, Val (Chrissy Cavallo) gets out and recognises Jessica from school – where she is the popular one and Jessica is picked on. Trish intervenes with Val, and April and Stacy retrieve the runaway pram.

Craig Kelly as Von Yelsing

So, we then meet the vampire hunter come to town - Boris Von Yelsing (Craig Kelly). With his faux-Eastern European accent he claims lineage to Van Helsing. The story then sees the girls helping Jessica get revenge on Val but the harmless prank is ruined by rain and it suddenly descends into a vampiric bloodbath at a sleepover. Jessica, drunk, agrees to turn. Regrets it sober but falls into a life where the four vampires live in her room and feed on bikers that her mom brings hone. The bodies are disposed of by Quan (Kirk Ponton) – a self-styled 'ghoul' who expects to be changed. However the vampire hunter is in town, Jessica get’s buyer’s regret and soon the missing bikers come to the attention of chapterhouse leader Blanks (Sam Meola).

The Girls

So, lore wise – turning owes a tad to the Lost Boys in that there is a (plastic) bottle of blood involved. Jessica has killed and fed but can still become human if the head vampire is killed (a piece of lore taken, in this, from a vampire blue movie that also featured holy sperm after testes are blessed). The ritual (nonsense done for fun, they admit) mentions the “myth” of Selene and Ambrogio – this, to me, was fascinating. For those that don’t know, this is a vampire origin story that I have heard people cite as authentically ancient but is actually a piece of creative writing. The fact that it 1) was subsumed by some on social media as a truly ancient myth (it really isn’t, coming in at around a decade old) and 2) now is creeping into films, shows a living and organic manipulation of the vampire genre.

melting

Other bits of lore we get are the need to be invited in, a lack of reflection in mirrors/not captured on photographs, sunlight burns (and the results appear permanent), a stake through the heart causes the vampire to melt in a really bad animation and enough holy water causes them to explode (again not a great effect). Looking at that animation, yes, it is bad but it fits into the film’s aesthetic. That said some of the biting/blood effects work remarkably well. The photography is amateurish but does what it needs to do, the vampire girls all seem to be having fun but there is a pacing issue in the middle section where everything just seemed to drag all of a sudden. That said, the climax makes up for that, turning up a gear as bikers, nuns, vampire hunters and vampires have a showdown.

Kirk Ponton as Quan

I expected, as this started, to hate this. The sleaze comedy should have put me off, but the comedy hit around the right mark. Yes, sleazy but not descending so far. The sound was patchy in places and the direction shot by shot might have been nothing special, but Anthony Catanese managed to build a whole low budget aesthetic where the failings due to budget worked in context. 5.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

The Tale of the Vampire Rabbit – review

Poet: Michael Quinlyn-Nixon

Illustrations: Michael Quinlyn-Nixon

First Published:2020

The Blurb: A totally fictional and completely unhistorical account of the origins of Newcastle’s mysterious grotesque, known as the Vampire Rabbit. Written as an original poem and fully illustrated by the author, Michael Quinlyn-Nixon, the story of the quirky Vampire Rabbit is brought ‘alive’ in the year of 1899, with the story concluding in the present day. Set in Victorian Tyne and Wear, the story illustrates the Vampire Rabbit’s unquenchable bloodlust and the consequences of its villainous actions.

Suitable for older children (with parental guidance), the book can be equally enjoyed by adults who enjoy dark poems with a drop of humour.

The review: This is quite a difficult one to review, in terms of the fact that it is essentially a short poem but expanded over a 30-page book with illustrations. My thanks to Everlost for bringing it to my attention and to Michael Quinlyn-Nixon for providing a copy for review.

the actual grotesque

The poem tells the story of a vampire rabbit and whilst such a thing is not unique – I am sure all reading this have heard of Bunnicula, of course – this is based on a grotesque adorning Cathedral Buildings in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne that is a fanged rabbit and over 100-years old. Unlike Bunnicula, this rabbit likes a drop of the red stuff too and when I say drop, well it might be a bit more than a drop. The tale introduces us to this cotton-tailed fiend as it starts its career in late 19th Century Newcastle, how it came to be a grotesque and cautions us in the here and now.

The poem itself is designed as a humorous piece, composed of stanzas built through a simple rhyming couplet format but the joy of the volume is actually within the illustrations that adorn the pages – though I actually rather liked some ‘bonus’ stanzas, not part of the poem proper they were almost like little murder ballads at the end of the volume. Perhaps more aimed towards a younger market this could well be that Christmas stocking filler for the older vampire fan. And this is how I’m scoring the volume, based around it being a unique little gift that pleases through its art. 7.5 out of 10.

In Paperback @ Amazon US

In Paperback @ Amazon UK

Short Film: Murphy’s Chupacabra Hole

A short film directed by Nathan Tarantla and released in 2018, this goes to show that sometimes simple works really rather well.

I rather like a bit of old-time radio and this, despite a modicum of animation, relies on a narrated story-telling that is reminiscent of such radio shows. We see from a point of view perspective the opening of a hole (Murphy’s Chupacabra Hole, indeed) and we see Chupacabra in silhouette and their glowing eyes… the rest is carried by the narration delivered by Nathan Tarantla (I assume).

down in a hole

It starts in the hole, looking at the stars; the narrator had been chasing one of those things across Murphy’s field when he had fallen into the hole. The hole has been dug by Murphy and baited, and the narrator has injured his knee. He tries to stand, to get back to his home as he fears for those there. He blacks out and, when he comes around he sees something, surely stars glowing…

The eyes have it

Of course, it is not. It is a chupacabra. His gun is covered in mud – he’s not sure whether there is mud in the barrel and there seems to be more and more of the things. Their eyes glow when together and they seem to have some sort of group power. Perhaps his gun will work but better to try and keep them there than let them get to his loved ones…

This is an effective little story. At the time of writing I cannot find an imdb page.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Use of Tropes: In Fabric

The 2018 Peter Strickland film In Fabric is an outstanding film and one that is described as a (sort of) ghost story. However, I saw elements within it that tie into vampire genre tropes. Whether this has a touch of apophenia on my part, or an unconscious element on the director’s part is almost irrelevant. Looking into this I listened through Strickland’s commentary on the Blu-Ray and whilst he mentioned some influences – notably M R James and Carnival of Souls (1962) – there was notably no espoused connections to vampire genre pieces. Interestingly many (including myself) see a stylistic connection to Susperia (1977), a connection Strickland mentions but denies consciously making. Nonetheless…

Marianne Jean-Baptiste as Sheila

This is a surreal walk through consumerism, through the Department store and a character exploration. The film is also about a haunted red dress – though what is it haunted by? Perhaps it is cursed, though it is the dress itself that is the focus of the film and to the characters unlucky enough to don it.

Luckmoore and Sheila

The first of these buys the dress. She is Sheila (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) a bank clerk who, near the head of the film, discovers that her ex-husband is dating again and starts to look at doing the same through personal ads – though her son Vince (Jaygann Ayeh) is less than impressed with the idea. She arranges a date (ultimately, a bad date) with Adonis (Anthony Adjekum) and goes to the Department store Dentley and Soper’s, who are in the January sales period, and is convinced by the mysterious Miss Luckmoore (Fatma Mohamed, the Field Guide to Evil) to buy the dress despite the fact that it isn’t what she would normally wear. Strangely it fits, despite the size not being the size she would wear. The dress is the only one like it they have.

sale signs

Let us look at the store workers as they are, very much, part of our trope. I have seen them described as vampire like and they also draw the mind to Susperia. Wearing almost Victorian dresses, the staff are female bar Mr Lundy (Richard Bremmer) and the (almost Renfield like) Pitcroft (Adam Bohman). Lundy seems to have some authority and, as the store opens Lundy kneels and the female staff stand, beckoning the customers in (something that occurs in their almost psychotropic television advert also). This is a surreal extension of Strickland’s experience as a member of staff and the ‘first customer’ greet in TGI-Fridays but could also be tied to “Welcome to my house! Enter freely. Go safely, and leave something of the happiness you bring!” from Dracula. A quick note that the “sale” signs converts the ‘l’ to two parallel lines bringing to mind trails of blood from a vampire’s bite.

in the dumb waiter

If they are strange in store, with their commercial patois, for example “The hesitation in your voice, soon to be an echo in the recess in the spheres of retail” and “Did the transaction validate your paradigm of consumerism?”, then in the back of the store they are something else. Miss Luckmore, we see, removes her hair to reveal it as a wig, her head bald (the implication being the female staff, at the very least, all are), and this makes her more like a mannequin but also draws Roald Dhal’s the Witches to mind and Count Orlock. Miss Luckmore descends further into the bowels of the store by crouching in a dumb waiter. The mannequin’s and the store staff seem to be interconnected – not only do the staff seem to resemble the mannequins but there is a scene where they are revealed to be more than they seem.

at the window

One of the staff takes a mannequin to dress it and lifts her skirts, sitting over its head in a scene that suggests oral sex. Miss Luckmore strips the underwear from the prone mannequin revealing that there is pubic hair and it begins to menstruate. Miss Luckmore masturbates the mannequin – as Mr Lundy watches from within the shelves, pleasuring himself at the sight, and then she lifts her bloody fingers and tastes the blood on them. It is a strange and surreal scene that did land the film with some controversy with censors. The last thing I want to mention about Miss Luckmore specifically is a scene of her looking out of a window down at the milling consumers waiting to be allowed entrance to the store. At the window she again reminded me of Orlock in the window of his house in Wisborg/Bremen.

the dress on the ceiling

The dress itself, when worn, causes a rash on the breast/chest of the wearer and is able to move of its own volition. It seems to cause disturbing dreams (like the vampire type the mare does) and we also see it seem to attack – including Gwen (Gwendoline Christie), Vince’s older girlfriend, that it seems to smother in her sleep. When placed in a washing machine it causes the machine to break, and also seems to ‘heal’ itself – having been ripped in a dog attack and burned in a fire it reappears none the worse for wear. It lands on a canary cage in the night and the bird is dead in the morning – smothering is mentioned – and seems to cause a box of fresh fruit and veg to rapidly decay. Smothering by a mare, and the nightmares it brings, is often a description for energy vampirism and the causing of vegetation to rot is a trope used in many genre films and also ties to energy vampirism.

Richard Bremmer as Lundy

The dress has the phrase, “You who wear me, will know me” embroidered inside it and there seems to be a definitive connection between Miss Luckmore and the dress (a scene of her rapidly moving in the back of the store matches the movement of the dress in a wardrobe). She also refuses to take the dress back from Sheila and when Sheila sees the dress in the store’s catalogue her reaction is sharp, trying to hide the page (and later ripping the page out and intimately hiding it). The dress is described, in the catalogue, as being arterial red (connecting the dress to blood) and it is revealed that the model of the dress was killed (run over on a zebra crossing), making her the first victim. When the dress finally causes Sheila’s doom the dress ends up in a charity shop and bought for the stag night of washing machine repairman Reg Speaks (Leo Bill) – who is forced to wear it and gets the rash. His fiancé Babs (Hayley Squires) later wears it too.

Reg and Babs

To touch on the dreams a moment – now we have met Babs and Reg. Sheila has a dream of her dead mother but the dream also seems to foreshadow her death. Reg’s dream involves the staff of the store as nurses, giving Babs a caesarean section and his new-born daughter, in the dress, giving him the finger. Babs dreams that she is in the store and is pictured in the catalogue. She gets thinner and thinner (she has body dysmorphia as it stands) as the sizes of dresses seem to get larger and larger. The catalogue is cut apart and placed in a coffin where she is entombed.

The dress

The final thing to mention is the ending, with Miss Luckmore descending in the dumb waiter where it passes cells. In each cell is a victim sat at a sewing machine, creating another dress, the red thread in the machine that same arterial red. It is as though the dress has taken the souls of the victims – perhaps consumerism stole their souls – and has eternally put them to work. There are empty cells also, awaiting new victims.

tasting mannequin blood

So, is it a vampire film? Whilst you could argue a case for energy vampirism, I would say that more it uses, likely unconsciously, tropes. There is, incidentally, a thread of people being placed into ecstatic trance but this is by Reg Speaks as he drones his technical specs around washing machines and this is a take on ASMR. A wonderful and strange film. The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon US

On DVD @ Amazon UK