The Vampire (2013) – review

Director: Geoffrey Orlowski

Release date: 2013

Contains spoilers

I noticed this on Vimeo and, having watched the trailer, decided it was likely worth a shot. What I watched was a definitely budget indie with a lot of heart and perhaps a tad too much ambition.

Of course, too much ambition is not necessarily a bad thing and for each moment you might accuse of being a misstep, this did make a correct call and there is a base here for the fimmakers to build from.

Alissa Scherb as Zee

We start in a desolate part of the industrial underbelly of America and a man is treasure hunting with a metal detector. Eventually he bends to look at a ping and, as he looks up he sees something and immediately calls the emergency services. What he has seen is dead cats… a lot of them (we discover there are fifty or so). Elsewhere Zelene (Alissa Scherb), known as Zee, is asleep on her couch when the phone goes – she freelances for a newspaper and the editor has had a tip, he sends her to check on the cats.

scene of the crime

When she gets there she meets a lone cop, Officer Jarrett (Mark Needham). New on the force he has been given the ‘plumb’ job of watching whilst animal control check things out. Animal control is represented by Ramsey (Mark Joseph Peek) – someone who has never let a bad pun go unuttered. What they discover is the cats are in various stages of decomposition – so someone has been bringing them there, as they were killed elsewhere, for a good few months. They all seem to have bite marks but whilst they don’t seem to be animal bites, they are too sharp for a human – especially the canines. As Zee leaves, we discover that the chief of police, Belmont (James S. Cacciatore), is her dad and a face in the bushes watches her.

following the journalist

So the first half of the film follows the investigation and builds a picture of Zee. Her father didn’t want her to be a cop as its too dangerous and is unimpressed with her freelance journalist gig (he is probably overly protective as her mother vanished years ago – but they don’t go into that). She is friends with Hunter (Mu-Shaka Benson, the Shed), a journalist at the paper, but has a mutual hate going on with journalist Ava (Màiri Mason) – Zee thinks Ava whored herself into the post, Ava thinks Zee throws herself at Hunter.

cat snack

I don’t want to spoil the red herrings and false leads but suffice it to say she eventually meets Oona (Rebecca C. Kasek). A feral looking homeless girl, with pale, scarred skin and sharp teeth who subsists on blood (and predominantly hunts cats and dogs). Zee befriends her and brings her home but things, of course, go wrong. In truth the befriending seemed to occur way too quickly, though spending more time on it would perhaps have dragged a film that is not always paced as well as it might be. We also get to see some of her backstory.

Wayne W. Johnson as Varg

So from a Doctor we discover that she has porphyria and her teeth have been filed – he can’t fathom the need for blood. From her backstory we discover that she was created by Dr Victor Aldini (Nathan Faudree). In her case he created her through genetic manipulation (and there is a connection back to Zee). He also created an angry creature Varg (Wayne W. Johnson, Tales of Dracula), who is essentially the wolfman, and a Frankensteinean creation that Oona named Big Brother (Eric Inman). The jump from what seemed like a more reality-based film – feral creature that drank blood notwithstanding – to a monster mash (though the others are barely in the film) did jar a little.

bottled blood

The film was well shot and the acting not bad through the film - although it was a big ask for Alissa Scherb to carry the film she did her darndest. I liked the makeup effects around Oona. Perhaps the investigation was a tad too drawn out, less red herrings and quicker into the monster mash may have helped the pacing as it was a little off in places, as I mentioned earlier. The motivations around the making of the monsters seemed to be little more than ‘because I can’, which is fine mad scientist behaviour but doesn’t answer all – especially not the sense of the Zee connection. There were moments that I expected which weren’t there – Zee meekly sitting in a room in the police station without demanding to know if she were under arrest, for instance. Moments aside we can say that this might not be the greatest indie film out there but it is a brave effort with a lot of heart and allows the filmmakers to really play, explore and hopefully come out with bigger and better beyond it. 5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.