Captain Sabertooth and the Magic Diamond – review

Directed by: Marit Moum Aune & Rasmus A. Sivertsen

Release date: 2019

Contains spoilers

This is a Norwegian kids animation and the version I saw was dubbed into English, with Norwegian actor Kyrre Haugen Sydness providing the voice for Captain Sabertooth, reprising his original voice work, but new voice talent for the other characters. I will be listing the actors who provided the English dub voices.

What I probably need to touch on, to begin with, is the vampire aspect and the vampire is not pirate Captain Sabertooth – despite his character’s pasty pale complexion and name. Rather it is bad guy Maga Kahn (Luke Griffin) though he is never named as such.

Maga Khan

So, as well as the V word never being used and the fact that there is no biting or feeding, this character does have fangs and burns when in direct sunlight. He can fly (and cast fireballs). That he is a vampire is left for the audience to decide. However we start with young characters Pinky (Tighe Wardell) and Veronica (Robyn Dempsey) in lunar bay. Veronica has to help out at the beach café but dreams of being a pirate, Pinky was erstwhile deckhand for Sabertooth and is enjoying chilling out.

Captain Sabertooth

Meanwhile Sabertooth and his crew are searching for a magic diamond (that grants one wish per person when bathed in the light of the full moon). They find the chest (which contains a chest, which contains a chest etc). Opening the last they have a musical box – the diamond has already been found by Baltazar (Garry Mountaine), who has taken it to Maga Khan who wants it to become a daywalker (my words not his). Unfortunately, the diamond is taken by a starving urchin who looks like Pinky. This leads to Sabertooth, through a broken rumour, thinking the deckhand has hidden the diamond and Pinky being shanghaied. Veronica sneaks aboard disguised as a lad.

Pinky and Veronica

The animation was lovely on this, bright cgi, but the film itself lacked a charm. A kid’s film is always difficult to score as an adult and I like to look for adult nuance, of which there was little. Beyond that the songs were lack lustre, the characters strange but not quite zany (though I did enjoy them designing one pirate as a hipster with a coiffured beard, man bun and coffee cup tattoo) and everything seemed a little bland. I’m sure it will charm some kids (and they are the target audience) and fans of Sabertooth – in Norway there are several stage plays (the original format, I understand), theatrical films (live action and animated), a television series, games and books. This gets a below average 4 out of 10 for me, watchable but ultimately bland.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Honourable Mention: Cry of the Werewolf

Directed by Henry Levin and released in 1944 this is very much a werewolf film (of the four-legged variety) but a little scene at the beginning makes it worth mentioning here.

The film starts at the La Tour museum, in New Orleans. The museum was once the home of the La Tour family but is now maintained by the Society of Psychic Research under the guidance of Dr. Charles Morris (Fritz Leiber Snr). As the film starts there is the final tour of the day.

The tour guide is Peter Althius (John Abbott, the Vampire’s Ghost) who promises the tour tales of vampirism, werewolfism and voodooism.

exhibit

The first room he takes them into is the vampire room. In that room, decorated as a vampire nest (as he puts it) based on an ancient description, there is a life-sized vampire dummy/waxwork stood over a sarcophagus. In that we see a skeleton with a stake through the ribs – the prescribed method of killing a vampire. And that’s it, vampires mentioned in passing… the tour moves on to the voodoo room and the film itself involves werewolves, gypsies, murder and disbelieving cops. At just over an hour, it doesn’t outstay its welcome but it isn’t up to classic Universal.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

These Savage Shores Vol. 1 – review

Author: Ram V

Artist: Sumit Kumar

First published: 2019 (TPB)

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: Two centuries after the first European ship sailed to the Malabar Coast and made landfall at Calicut, the East India Company seeks to secure its future along the lucrative Silk Route, in the year 1766.

An old evil now sails aboard a company ship, hoping to make a home in this new found land. But he will soon find that the ground along the Indus is an ancient one with daemons and legends far older than himself.

Along These Savage Shores, where the days are scorched and the nights are full of teeth.

art sample

The review: A beautifully drawn tragedy, I guess one could call it, focused on the exploitation of India by the East India Company and the British, this starts in England (after we very briefly meet the characters Bishan and Kori in India) with vampire Alain Pierrefont caught in toothsome activity by vampire hunter Zachariah Sturn. Though he escapes, he is badly burnt and his secret exposed and so his maker has no choice but to exile him to India.

What Alain doesn’t realise is that there are creatures older and more deadly in India and the masked advisor of the boy Prince of Calicut, and the paramour of Kori, is no mere man but a raakshas (an alternate version of rakshasa, I guess). When asked by Kori how he came to be made, Bishan tells a tale highlighting an all-consuming hunger. Taking the form of a man, mostly, he can also become a horned creature.

What happens with Alain, and subsequently the political and warfare machinations, will impact them all, and draw in Alain’s creator Count Jurre Grano (I assume an allusion to Jure Grando, promoted to Count). Whilst characters in the novel wonder at who is truly the monster, it is fair to say that the true vampire of the tale is British colonialism and the greed (which is, of course, a capitalist greed) which threatens to consume all and, as one character alludes to, “put a price on its soul”.

This was a really good graphic, the art suited it perfectly and the story was interesting and kept you hooked. I’d like to say there is an adventure there but, as I said at the head, it is more a tragedy. That said, there are some great action sequences – especially standout was an epic battle of primordial supernatural forces at the end of the book. Really worthwhile – 8 out of 10. My thanks to Sarah who got me this for Christmas.

In Paperback @ Amazon US

In Paperback @ Amazon UK

Short Film: One for the Road (2020)

I am sure many readers are familiar with the story One for the Road – Stephen King's short story sequel to Salem’s Lot. This 2020 production of the story as a film is actually the fourth short I’ve looked at based on the story, previously we had: Wrong Way, One for the Road (2011) and For the Road.

This version was directed by Joseph Horning and comes in at 43 minutes, and my thanks to Gary Smith, who spotted it and posted it in Facebook Group Crypt of the Undead. It starts, after some voiceover work that tells us of the Lot burning down but the curse still being there, with the Lumley family going on a trip for grandma’s birthday. There is dad Gerry (Eric Slodysko), mom Janey (Sandy Lawler) and their daughter almost sixteen Francie (Veronica Garrubbo). Francie doesn’t want to go and dad seems a tad frazzled all the way through.

entering the Lot

After some travelling suddenly his sat-nav starts trying to recalculate the route and he has lost gps signal (and Francie’s phone losses signal). He sort of knows the route (mostly the family come to them) and he stops at a garage to get a map or directions. Whilst inside Francie notices the crosses painted on the building. The proprietor (Louis DiPilla) shows him a map and suggests a route but Gerry spots a shorter one. He is warned off it, no one takes that road as it goes through the Lot. Gerry leaves, the proprietor still warning him.

vampire eyes

It is night by the time they pass the Salem’s Lot sign and the roads become poorer and poorer. He takes his turning and comes to a sudden stop at a ‘bridge out’ sign. He tries to turn but Janey sees something (the glowing eyes of a vampire floating behind the sign) and he ends up with the rear wheels in a ditch. Unable to get the car out, freezing cold with snow threatening to fall, and with no cell reception he decides to leave wife and daughter in the car as he goes to get help. However, even if he reaches civilisation would someone from the area go to the Lot at night to help? As he leaves, he doesn’t see the figures with glowing eyes moving towards the car…

This follows the story and so if you are familiar with that, or another filmed version, you’ll know what happens. But, if you don’t, you can find out below…

The imdb page is here.

Ten Minutes to Midnight – review

Director: Erik Bloomquist

Release date: 2020

Contains spoilers

A film that did well on the festival circuit (including the UK’s Grimfest 2020), it really does defy expectation. A simple blurb for it would read – disc jokey turning into a vampire has to make it through the night. But it isn’t that, it really isn’t, and it is a disorientating and yet strangely introspective film.

It is also a wonderful vehicle for Caroline Williams who was the main turn in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 as radio DJ Stretch… and in this takes centre stage as a 30-year veteran late-night DJ named Amy Marlowe.

bat bite

Amy is having a bad night, she gets in later than normal for her job due to the hurricane fuelled storm, which took a tree down and made her walk part of the way. On her way in something bit her neck. Security guard Ernie (Nicholas Tucci), who was whittling what appears to be the beginnings of a stake as she comes in, asks if it was the raccoon but on hearing it was flying… maybe a bat… suggests she gets herself to the ER – they carry rabies. Later in the film Ernie will list some of the symptoms of rabies and , whilst in reality they wouldn’t impact that quickly, the symptoms she displays might be rabies – its all part of the disorientating nature of the film.

Sienna and Bob

Ernie tells her that radio boss Robert (William Youmans), "call me Bob", wants to see her and, as she goes in his office she can see him flirting with a young woman, Sienna (Nicole Kang). There is another thread to this, where the film touches on #metoo – with it clear that Robert sexually exploited Amy, in order to get her radio break, that Sienna plays on that (making him think she will when she won't) and him inappropriately touching Amy when she is in trouble. He tells Amy that Sienna is her shadow tonight, that she is her sub… in actual fact he is giving Amy one last show before replacing her. Everyone at the station knows, only Amy is in the dark…

bite

However she is not in the dark too long. Her engineer Aaron (Adam Weppler) certainly lets it slip – though Amy appears not to notice. However when she takes listener calls as the show starts she is uncharacteristically caustic and it ends up as an on air attack on Sienna. The live feed is cut and an argument ensues and, during it, Amy bites Sienna’s hand (leaving two punctures, though we don’t see fangs). She runs to the toilet and vomits but then removes a tampon from the waste bin and sucks the blood from it. She looks in the mirror – but the angle cleverly doesn’t let us see what she sees (or doesn’t).

vampiric activity

From here on in it is a hallucinatory trip, with moments back when she started in the show, Sienna apparently turning too (at first looking rather decayed), Amy self-harming without effect and, in the final act, the actors changing roles so that no character bar Amy is played by whoever played them through the preceding acts – which also involves some gender swapping. I said the film was introspective, and it is, with Williams exploring Amy’s loss and grief at being forced into a retirement and looking back on what it all meant and was it worth a damn. The film explicitly states that it is about transition (be that stages of life, vampirism or any other – Amy's show starts at ten minutes to midnight for that reason, her moving through the transition of one day to another with her listeners). And, of course, we also get vampiric activity including attacks and a staking.

Amy angered

You go into Ten Minutes to Midnight expecting… well I expected vampires, perhaps a shock jock and a fairly run of the mill horror… Instead I got a film that is trippy, introspective, explosive and thought provoking. Most importantly we get a powerhouse performance from Caroline Williams and maybe a dotted line from Stretch to Amy. This one will baffle some, annoy others but for many of us it will become a favourite. 8 out of 10. The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

Xane: The Vampire God – review

Director: Johnny Pendragon

Release date: 2020

Contains spoilers

This one looks as though there was some budget involved and, in many respects, that is worrying as the film was on shaky grounds all the way through. Using a premise of the first vampire being the biblical Cain (Robere Kazadi), the storyline flirts with time paradox – always a concept that will be difficult for any but the adept writer to pull off.

Xane and Frost

So, the paradox starts with some time travel and, thus, we start in the distant future on an apocalyptic earth. Xane (Parker Boles) is hidden within hooded cloak as a ball of light, a spirit called Frost we later hear, comes to him and says that he has found it… this 'it' soon becomes apparent as being the temporal location that Xane wants to travel too. Xane can’t let *them* see his face, so he puts a mask on.

Jenna Farden as Jocelyn

Following a hugely pretentious voiceover, we meet Titus (Parker Boles) – or Ti – who is in the family home, sat at a piano. He speaks briefly to friend Jocelyn (Jenna Farden) and goes to see little brother Lucas (Maximus Xavier Lopez). Lucas is clearly ill (leukaemia we hear later) and Ti gives him their dad’s dog-tags to encourage him to be strong. Back with Jocelyn, he admits that he isn’t going to college, she assumes he is going in the military but he says no. She gets mad with him.

mask

He has a brief chat to mom (Leslie Lelo Lopez) and then he is off camping with Jocelyn and mutual friend Sonny (Dylan Wood). Sonny’s step-father (Jon A. Ravenholt) abused his mother and killed her and Sonny is out of therapy but the tension over Ti’s decision to ‘drop out’ upsets him. Later Jocelyn will be told about the leukaemia and Ti’s plan to work to pay towards treatment (hint – the military pay their recruits too) and feels bad that she was so judgemental.

Brennen Davis as Cpt Henry

Anyway – let's stop mucking around. A mysterious vampire, later revealed to be Captain Henry (Brennen Davis), has been watching them and reports to Cain that Ti bears the mark and they are heading out. They are not long at the campsite when a girl, Gentry (Michelle Oneida), runs up and screams ‘vampires’. All this is in daytime as sunlight appears not to be an issue. They all leg it to an abandoned factory. Sonny has anti-vampire gear as he believes his step-father was one (he was).

Robere Kazadi as Cain

Nevertheless, they are doomed. Gentry is an agent of the vampires and Cain turns up to take Ti and have henchmen kill the friends. However, Xane appears after Cain leaves with Ti, rescues them and kills the henchmen. So, what’s going on? Cain wants to die and only one of his mortal descendants, a first-born son with the mark of Cain, can kill him during a certain astrological moment. Xane is Ti – not a stretch, nor a spoiler really, who killed Cain, took his curse (as someone must have it) and went mad. He essentially destroyed all life on earth and has come back from 10,000 years hence to put things right. Unfortunately, he has caused a paradox and in this altered timeline Cain goes off and kills his mother and kidnaps Lucas.

Cain and Lillith

Cain also has his wife, Lillith (Zoë Kelly), change Ti’s memories so that he sees Xane attacking his friends and not Cain – why Cain wants to be seen as the good guy with the person he wants to kill him is not explained. Lillith also changes Jocelyn’s face in his memories with Gentry’s, to control him. This leads to the odd looking technique of switching actresses as she speaks to him, which didn’t make a lot of sense except to indicate the filmmakers didn’t think the audience would keep track.

Cain's true form

There are numerous things wrong with the film – beginning with the performances. Not helped that this was dubbed (presumably by the original actors, in studio to improve audio quality over the location recording) the dubbing is obvious and the delivery from every single actor is an abject and hapless lesson in why melodrama can be a film’s undoing. I mean every single one. There was no nuanced emotion, just melodramatic delivery that served no good purpose. Simply awful.

origin animation

Given that, we have no sympathy for any character and the two-hour running time is painfully drawn out and the film absolutely outstays its welcome. For the fact that it looked like it had a budget (and the photography was crisp and clear, in outdoor shots, though a tad gloomy, though lacking in atmosphere, in the bad guy's lair) the number of sets were very limited. Story aspects seemed bolted on (like Sonny’s step-pa the vampire). There is a nice animated flashback to Cain’s origin – however there is no mention that such a mythology would make Lillith Adam’s first wife nor why she then wound up with Adam's son.

shedding blood tears

This was hard work to watch. Blood tears, which are simply makeup smears, might be shed for the project. The dubbing might have destroyed the performances but I suspect it was all as melodramatic when shot and at least 30 minutes needs to be cut from the running time. However logic-less moments, like changing his memories, which for me only served the screenwriter and not the character’s motivation, also need expunging and that probably couldn't occur within an edit. 2.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

Short film: Wicked Conclusions

This 2016 short film, directed by Phillip G. Carroll Jr., was just over 12 minutes long and opens with a street scene as someone puts a poster up for a missing dog.

In a kitchen Ben (Erik Searle) makes pancakes and practices what he is going to say. He takes the finished stack to Amber (Chloe Carroll), it’s just…

Amber is chained up in the basement as is a young boy, Henry (Boy-Yo Korodan). It seems that Amber went on a date with Ben, they came back to his place but she looked in the basement… It is clear that he bashed her head but he genuinely seems to want to make her understand. Henry is, he suggests, a monster.

bleeding

Of course, who could the actual monster be? The angelic looking child, the apparently innocent date or the madman who has two people chained in his basement? The film looks to answer that and, of course, by dint of me featuring it here, you know it involves vampirism. All told a fun little short.

The imdb page is here.

Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror - A Film by F. W. Murnau: A Shot-by-Shot Presentation – review

Author: Roy A Sites

First published: 2014

The blurb: Nosferatu -- Does this word not sound like the Deathbird calling for you at midnight? Beware of it, otherwise you will fade away and images of your life will be shattered, nightmares will quickly rise in your heart and feed upon your blood.

From the mist shrouded ruins of Transylvania to the deserted manse in Wisborg……
He is coming!

-- Vermin, plague, misery, insanity, death –
...hide in the shadow of the Vampire...

The great 1922 silent horror film classic presented in story-board form with a shot-by-shot presentation. Every shot in the film is represented with a frame enlargement, narrative comments and a fresh translation of every original German intertitle card. In addition, brief comments are provided relating to cinematic devices used by Murnau in his seminal film, as well as backstories, then-and-now photos, sources for viewing the film, and more. This is F. W. Murnau's horror masterpiece presented as never before. This is where the cinematic legend of Dracula begins. With over 600 photos and illustrations!!!

The review: Murnau’s Nosferatu was a seminal moment in cinema history, never mind horror cinema generally and vampire cinema specifically. This book is a useful tool for the student of the film, recreating the film in a storyboard format. However, its weakness is here too. Each page has 2 columns of three rows, on a row we then get a text descriptor and a still from the film. Unfortunately, whilst some stills are iconic others are not so – sometimes too small for the detail within (a distant shot of the hyena, for example, is too small, lacking in detail, whilst the close up is iconic). Part of the problem might be the fact that this is self-published and therefore the print quality and paper quality is lower than a dedicated publishing house might have provided, part of the problem might have been the source. The pictures are black and white, not tinted.

You might then ask of the point but, as I say it is a useful tool for the student of the film. Firstly, because there are times that flicking through pages is more convenient than firing up a DVD/Blu-Ray, but also the move to a paper format changes the viewer lens and it is possible that a different thought may hit the reader than if they were using the film format.

There are appendices that go through filming techniques, brief biographies of those involved in the film (or at least the primary persons) and a listing of various releases of the film (US market orientated). Useful if the details contain something new for you, though nothing that hasn’t been offered elsewhere. Most useful in the appendices is the shooting script for the film (in English, the author does not have details of the translator but is convinced of its authenticity having compared to fragments of the German script – so whilst useful do take account of the caveat).

This is only really going to be of interest to students of the film/director/genre. For those, an interesting tool gets 7 out of 10. My thanks to Ian, who got me the book for Christmas.

In Paperback @ Amazon US

In Paperback @ Amazon UK

Honourable Mention: Shopping Tour

This Russian film, directed by Mikhail Brashinskiy and released in 2012, was a found footage styled film that had the footage shot on a mobile (with the world’s longer battery life, apparently). It suffers for this and would have been better shot as a conventional film.

It isn’t a vampire movie – indeed it is a cannibal film – but it manages to other an entire country in quite spectacular fashion and references vampires several times. It is for these references that it is getting its honourable mention. Trope wise it owed as much to the zombie genre as any other (though again it isn’t a zombie film either).

Tatyana Kolganova as the mother

It follows a mother (Tatyana Kolganova) and her son Stas (Timofey Yeletskiy) as she takes him on a coach trip from Russia to Finland. Stas has a new phone and is filming everything. The first part of the film is his fly on the wall filming of the trip (including him illicitly getting a beer and them falling out over it when she realises). This does build the characters, neither coming out as particularly pleasant – she has a childish streak, he is immature. What we do discover over the course of the film is that his father, her husband, died a month before.

shoppers/zombies

When Stas realises that the trip is a shopping tour (travelling abroad simply to shop) they have another argument. He then references vampires when he says that she is like a vampire and that she has sucked the life out of him, especially over the last month (ie since her husband died). He sees the trip as being all about her at that point. The exchange not only uses the term vampire but also tied it into consumerism as he assumes that she booked the trip only to go shopping. The likelihood is she picked the trip as it was cheap.

finding the body

Just before that, and just over the Finnish border, having gone through customs, the tour guide (Tatyana Ryabokon) is approached by a blonde woman (Satu Paavola). Back on the bus she tells the shoppers that the itinerary has changed. There is a large new store and they will have to wait an hour or so but the store will be opened early especially for them. They go there (Mom not speaking to her son) and Stas sees the blonde woman locking them in. He finds blood, gets his mom to go into the employee area of the store where they find a dead body (of one of the coach trip patrons) and then realise that the staff are attacking, killing and eating the tourists.

the blonde

So, having been locked away from the carnage and hiding they manage to get out of the store (and kill the blonde in the process) and escape. As they walk down the road there is a discussion as to whether the staff are vampires. This is dismissed by Stas as vampires don’t exist. They get to a garage and ask the clerk (in English, which seems to be the common language) to phone the police – which she pretends to do and then jumps the mom and bites her neck. Again they get away but, when they approach a pair of policemen, they are arrested and placed in a cell.

bitten

The final vampire reference occurs here, as mom worries if she is infected and then feels ill and falls into a deep slumber. There isn’t an explanation – it is likely the stress – however, when she awakens she is scared she will get the urge to bite Stas (again, not actually a thing). They then discover the truth and it is the spectacular othering I mentioned. All the way through there has been comments from the Russians about how nice and progressive the Finns are, denigrating their own country in the process. Suddenly we hear that the Finns have a celebration at midsummer and are compelled to then eat foreign nationals. They only do it for the one day and the way to survive is by lasting until the next day or by turning the tables and eating a Finn – though this means you are like them from then on and have to take part in the festival going forward (which offers a supernatural/infected bent that isn’t further explored). It really then denigrates and others a nation, it takes their progressive nature that has been praised and suggests there has to be a dark price for that progress.

So, not vampires but a nation who once a year has to turn a cannibalistic hunger on anyone not of that nation. But a deliberate invocation of vampires in the relationship between mother and son, in the query of what is happening and in a panic of ending up like they are.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On DVD @ Amazon UK

Queen: the Awakening – review

Director: Trevor Ford

Release date: 2020

Contains spoilers

It really irks sometimes. You get a movie, its from out of nowhere but as you watch you get photography and locations well above the standard for indie efforts. A complex storyline was there and, most marvellously, it was a film that featured a mainly black and Latino/a cast. The number of vampire vehicles that are geared towards black and Latino/a actors are noticeably low and of a definitely mixed quality. It was a pity, therefore, when this was marred by both melodrama and a poor pacing that highlighted that whilst the background to the storyline and the relationships felt complex, the storyline was actually fairly dull and the film’s pacing was rubbish.

Sister Tabitha's vamp eyes

After establishing shots of the city, we see a woman, Joyce Winters (April Melody Dillard), enter a large house that we are told is part of the House of Zaccaus. She is meeting a nun, Sister Tabitha (Jullita Pourciau). Tabitha can move at an astounding speed and have the hollows around her eyes go black because she is a vampire. She is telling the mortal reporter all about their kind, and this is our history/lore. After the murder of Abel, Cain felt his punishment was harsh and was held by God to comfort him, and Cain bit God. He was cursed to only survive off blood and cast into the night.

Mario Colenmenero as Solomon

So this is another vehicle where Cain is the progenitor of vampires (though Cain biting God was a good addition). Vampires are then split into elders (currently sleeping), elites (of which there are three ruling three houses – Solomon Zaccaus (Mario Colenmenero), Horus (Derrick Jackson) and Ka’Aurah (Porsche Zeraia)). There are also newborns. We also hear about flaws that some have, such as not having a reflection or being hearing impaired. Why Tabitha is telling all this to Winters I don’t know – perhaps I missed that titbit or perhaps it was simply just a convoluted background dump. Be it as it may the Awakening (where an elder will reawaken) is close.

shenanigans

So we then get the machinations of the various Houses. Solomon is currently the vampire in charge of all the houses but is trying to resurrect the Order of the Dragon to ensure he does not lose control when the elder awakens. There is some misogyny behind this as he is opposed to the ‘weaker sex’ being in charge and the expected elder is female. Horus and Ka’Aurah are loyal to the Queen. There is also some attachment to organised crime, it would appear. Unfortunately, the film hid its narrative under a bushel and not a huge amount really happened. Yes, there were some deaths (of people we knew little about and cared even less) but not the hooks that were needed.

killing a vamp

The effects varied with the ‘exploding’ into bats to fly being perhaps the worst of them and the acting was, without exception, filled with melodrama. It is clear that this is an opening to what might be a franchise but at the end they killed the best character. This one was a struggle for me, and that struggle was made worse because I wanted to like it and, as it opened, I suspected it was going to be a superior quality. Sorry 3.5 out of 10. At the time of review I couldn’t find an IMDb page.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Dark Forces – review

Director: Bernardo Arellano

Release date: 2020

Contains spoilers

Ah Netflix, you can bring us some films from all over the world, introducing us to new and strange vistas… But some of them come with a serious WTF.

Take Mexican horror flick, Dark Forces. It looks magnificent but it really decided that cohesion was for other movies. Great Dollops of the occult, vampires, criminals and cracking lighting but whilst the basic story seemed to be there, characterisation wasn’t and lore was occult in the worst possible way – so obscured as to be frustrating.

Tenoch Huerta as Franco

So we see a city and Franco (Tenoch Huerta) riding a motorbike through the night. He stops at a hotel, a decrepit place where he rents a room. He is there, it seems, to consult an albino girl who is a medium but there is a financial cost and the consultation cannot take place for two weeks, until the full moon. Meanwhile he meets some of the occupants of the hotel most notably femme fatale (and barmaid) Rubí (Eréndira Ibarra) and occultist Jack (Dale Carley).

vampire attack

Whilst there he starts to suffer either dreams of a vampire or an actual predation. He also needs the money for the consultation, so he and Ruby go on a heist, which leads to her getting a nasty head gash that he has to sew but is strangely missing (as is the blood) in the subsequent sex scene. The consultation is to find out where his sister is being held – which given it turns out to be at the compound of crime lord, and Franco’s erstwhile employer, Max (Mauricio Aspe), shouldn’t have been a stretch to discover by conventional means.

leech parasite thing

Then there are the leeches. Somewhat phallic creatures that live inside some of the characters and seem to be the actual vampires. Or maybe not. You see the film doesn’t tell us. It throws concepts into the ring by the bucketload but doesn’t actually then explain what it is doing with them. In some films this could be a clever thing, in this it isn’t handled with enough aplomb to convince that it is anything other than a conceptual mess. If we take the leeches as an example, we never know what they are, their bearers become veiny in the face when they appear but Franco shows the same veins in a reflection before being infested. Once he is, he sees the previous host who speaks to him but perhaps that is no more than a hallucination.

Rubí vamps

The same might be said of the vampires. He seems to be preyed on whilst asleep and then, when he sleeps with Rubí for the first time she develops fangs but that is never revisited and the inference is he hallucinated it. Later he stakes a vampire but then it is another person who he has stabbed. The film fails, however, to direct the viewer to just how it wants us to view these things – real, hallucination, allegory – perhaps we should just take them as seriously trippy and leave it at that.

a vampiric ghost

Yet if the story seems to want to be 'Argento meets Lynch' with a slice of 'action hero meets anti-hero in a horror arena', and does not manage to get to where it aspires to be, the film does manage to look absolutely gorgeous (except for the flashback scenes to his sister, which feel mundane and this was, clearly, purposeful). It has so much style it drips, in location and lighting especially (though some of the cgi, especially around the leeches, could be better). Tenoch Huerta is wonderfully stoic in performance but his character needed more building by the scriptwriters. Style does not necessarily make the film. I was taken by this, even though I shouldn’t have been, but can’t suggest that more than 4 out of 10 would be fair (and I’m probably being generous).

The imdb page is here.

Killadelphia Volume 1: Sins of the Father – review

Author: Rodney Barnes 

Artist: Jason Shawn Alexander

First published: 2020 (TPB)

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: When a small town beat cop comes home to bury his murdered father-the revered Philadelphia detective James Sangster Sr.-he begins to unravel a mystery that leads him down a path of horrors and shakes his beliefs to their core.

The city that was once the symbol of liberty and freedom has fallen prey to corruption, poverty, unemployment, brutality...

...and vampires.

But the mystery goes even further when Jimmy's investigation leads him to uncover the source of the outbreak is long-thought dead President of the United States John Adams--a man secretly biding his time as he builds an undead army to start a new and bloodier American revolution.

There's a reason they coin a phrase, “you can't go home.” Welcome to Killadelphia.

Collects KILLADELPHIA #1-6

The review: What to say about this graphic novel? Set in Philadelphia it tracks what is hoped, by the character of the centre of the conspiracy, to be the start of the vampire apocalypse. The patient zero is 2nd US president John Adams and he believes that America has fallen so far, this is the way to rescue it from itself. Pitted against him is a small-town beat cop, James Sangster Jr., whose father has been murdered on the job (he was a Philly detective) and the medical examiner who, with Sangster Snr, had uncovered the vampire menace – neither of them able to tell their superiors as they wouldn’t be believed.

There is a viral aspect to the vampirism with a strain of yellow fever detected in victims. But, despite this, we are talking a supernatural state and there is a story thread about a mystical book that Adams had entrusted to him but has been unable to have translated.

The writing is tight, the story fairly simple but with a nice level of characterisation around the primary protagonists. What made this for me, more than anything, was the artwork; atmospheric, gorgeous and it complemented the story totally. This is not a one-shot and volume 2 is expected towards the mid of 2021 but it can certainly be read, and enjoyed, as a standalone. 8 out of 10. My thanks to Sarah, who got me this for Christmas.

In Paperback @ Amazon US

In Paperback @ Amazon UK

Short Film: Dépression saisonnière

Viewed at the 2020 IVFAF, Dépression saisonnière, or Seasonal Depression, is just under 8-minutes long and was directed by Yohann Thiou.

Elisa (Vanessa Larose) is watching TV (Night of the Living Dead) when there is an insistent knocking at her door. Reluctantly she answers, letting in her friend Vincent (Mathieu Lorain Dignard), who wants to know why she isn’t coming to the party; indeed, she hasn’t been to any parties lately. Elisa is depressed and, having checked on Google, she thinks it's due to the winter season. Vincent is incredulous – winter is the perfect time of the year. It is, she states, due to the lack of sun.

fangs

To convince her that it isn’t depression (certainly not related to a lack of sun) Vincent does what any self-respecting friend would do. He kidnaps a psychiatrist (Carmen Sylvestre) so that she can listen to Elisa and put her straight. He does, during the session, come up with the idea that her lowered mood might be down to the fact that all the blood in Elisa’s fridge is of the negative type. For he and Elisa are vampires… So, what will the psychologist diagnose, could a vampire be impacted by Seasonal Depression and will the psychologist get out alive? This is a neat little short that might use a mental health impairment at its core but is certainly not disrespectful to it.

The imdb page is here.