Short film: Uno de Vampiros

Directed by Nicolas Sparnocchia and Dario Lucero this silent short comes in at just 2 minutes and yet manages to weigh in with an amusing denouement. It is nicely animated using digital technology.

The Mansion

It starts in a town at night and a woman, seen only at foot level, crosses the street. It is enough to alert the vampire that lives in a mansion atop a distant mountain. He leaps into action; putting false fangs in and grabbing his car keys.

the vampire

Despite the distance the woman seems doomed, Her footfall in slow motion against his race to the town. He speeds along the road, hurtling towards her… That is until his car blows a tyre… Will he change the flat in time?

As you can imagine, at only two-minutes this is an exceedingly short flick but it is also ever so sweet, the animation looking fabulous. At the time of writing there was no IMDb page.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Die Wilden Kerle 5 – review

Director: Joachim Masannek

Release date: 2008

Contains spoilers  

This is a German film aimed towards a younger audience and concerns itself with the Wild Soccer Bunch. It is the 5th in the series of films (and, from what I can gather, there is also a sixth film but with a different cast). This is the only film in the series I’ve watched.

This film takes place in what might have been a post-apocalyptic setting but apparently (according to IMDb) is in the Shadow Realm (whatever that might be). From what I can gather the earliest films were real world set – but this has clearly been eschewed.

Vanessa makes the volley

It starts with Vanessa (Sarah Kim Gries) and Raban (Raban Bieling) playing volleys in the forest, whilst kicking the ball at full power and running to make the volley. They hit the record as Raban notices his belt buckle glowing red – a warning of vampires nearby apparently. He looks into a knot hole in a tree but sees nothing – we see a figure within, later revealed to be the vampire Darkside (Marvin Unger). They return and Raban warns the rest of the companions. Vanessa doesn’t take it seriously and goes off with Leon (Jimi Blue Ochsenknecht), looking to beat the volley record again.

Blossom and Darkside

They fail to break the record – the last kick ending up in a lake. They both go in after it but Leon vanishes and then Vanessa is pulled under… They both surface, her mad at the trick. However, as night falls and they build a camp fire they reveal and pledge their love for each other. Meanwhile we have seen the bark of two tree trunks open as Darkside and Blossom (Paula Schramm) emerge. He tells her that she must take Leon and Vanessa must come to him willingly.

searching the Shadow Realm

In the morning the rest of the gang, having checked necks, go looking for Vanessa and Leon – only she is there. They saddle up their vehicles (mostly motorcycles but a car/motorised cart for the youngest two) and go looking for him – eventually reaching what looks like an abandoned industrial complex (with burning gas jets at the gates). The passage of time isn’t suggested but, later, we discover they have been searching for 10 months. Ignoring the warnings of a mysterious figure, who says Leon is dead, they go searching and end up trapped in the vampires’ lair – and there are several of them – at least 1 for each remaining member of the squad and known collectively as the Shadow Seekers.

Darkside and Vanessa

After a “3D” football match, which they lose, the humans are taken off and forced to change from their Mad Max-esque gear into a more New Romantic look for a feast. The vampires are looking to seduce the squad and Vanessa does give herself over to Darkside and is bitten (and turned – one bite turns) the others, bar one, escape, though one of the escapees Maxi (Marlon Wessel) has been bitten by Blossom (not fully, but enough to ‘plant a seed’). They need to work out how to get their friends back. The mysterious person has a cannon that can suction sun plasma and fire it but you can bet the solution will involve a football rematch.

fangs on show

Lore-wise, garlic and crosses do not work. The reason for the seductions is that drinking the blood of a person the vampire loves and who loves them in return will give then 100 years of life. Darkside finds that those he bites fall out of love with him as soon as they turn (Blossom did and Vanessa does also). However there is rumour of a cure – Leon did turn and walked into the sun to find Vanessa (the sun turning him into a statue), he holds a scroll that says if she kisses his statue form in the first light of the day he will be turned back to human (and cease to be a statue). Darkside suggest it is nothing but a fairy tale. The vampires are drawn as beautiful (bar two very young vampires) with Darkside especially sporting a beauty bordering on androgyny, with a rock star edge (and he does like to strum a guitar).

charging the solar plasma gun

The characters and background were somewhat confused as I had not seen the first four films. However the characters were drawn broad brush and a casual viewer could work out the general relationships and motivations. The setting was something you just had to accept. There was a lack of more violent solutions to the vampires (staking is never mentioned and sunlight is a tame death) as this is a children’s film. But, you know what, it had some unusual lore, it followed its own broadcasted internal logic and it looked rather nice. 5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon US

On DVD @ Amazon UK

Vampires Are Real 2 – review

Director: J.R. Timothy

Release date: 2021

Contains spoilers

The sequel to Vampires Are Real, like the first film this was improvised and like the first one that improvisation proved to be hit and miss, though I felt this missed more than the first film.

Like the first film, this takes on the format of a mockumentary, with a film crew following the film subjects around – the subjects being the members of a vampire hunting club.

fighting the ghoul

We start with a hunt of, what is revealed to be, a ghoul (Miriah Kessler) by Stewart (J.R. Timothy), who is now a vampire – turned as he was in the first film, and his new vampire hunting partner Lucy (Mary Hall). The ghoul states that Orpheus (Dave Martinez) is going to kill them for the slaying of Neena (the vampire in the last film). Camera operator Tobee is likely to faint and so he is sent behind the tree – conveniently removing the need to do any sfx as the hunters repeatedly stab the unseen ghoul (that includes no blood sfx on the stakes).

giraffe presentation

So, why is Stewart with Lucy – well it seems he and Everritt (Taylor Nielson) have fallen out. Everritt has gotten married, gotten an online degree and when they catch up to him is giving a corporate presentation (though he clearly has not totally moved on as it is about giraffes – one of the 7 kinds of monster in his book). Quickly remembering where his values lie, he goes with the hunters (though he dislikes Lucy immediately and has not reconciled with Stewart).

Orpheus lurks

What was amusing was them getting into the film interview area of their club-house and, whilst they bicker, we see a person moving behind them, peaking out, showing fang but ignored by the cast in the foreground. This is, of course, Orpheus. When they eventually notice him, and run, they are quickly caught and, after some banter, knocked out and taken to be put on trial. Orpheus plays judge, prosecution and defence through this – which may have been improvised but wasn’t truly improv as, clearly, they were shot separately (we don’t watch costume changes) and so he is not riffing off himself.

Stewart and lucy

Especially because of the rift between Stewart and Everritt, there seems less riffing and building the improv generally and more simply improvised bickering. That said I did like the vampire power Orpheus displayed where he could prevent speech and, with a gesture, would end a character’s dialogue with the actor responding quickly to the hand signal – that worked quite nicely. The story is, if anything, even simpler than before. The bickering removed the Everritt and Stewart camaraderie, and this was a loss to the improvised dialogue. Sorry guys, I’m sure improvising an hour fifteen of film is hard work but 3 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Blood House – review

Director: Tony Manders

Release date: 2021

Contains spoilers

It is a shame that Blood House, a microbudget film, works poorly because we don’t get many vampiric building films and I really wanted it to work – even at a budget level. Unfortunately, as we’ll see, it is an overly long film that really does outstay its welcome.

I need to add also that I don’t think revealing the house as vampiric is too much of a spoiler as the trailer actually states it will “feed off your fears… your pain… your blood!” The last is confirmed at the end of the film.

Elizabeth is burned as a witch

So, we start in the past and Elizabeth Blood (Shirley Dodson) is dragged, presumably out of her farmhouse (and for a moment I did wonder whether Blood House was simply reference to a family name – but it's not just that), and to a stake where she will burn as a witch. As she is set alight (the fire left to our imagination bar some visual distortion aping heat) she curses her neighbours and her descendants.

shoplifters leg it

Cut to the present day and in a car sits Alice (Meg Owlett), who is the driver and who is new to the group of friends, on a first date with Harry (Matt Hemmings). In the back seat are Jade (Gemma Harlow Dean) and Sarah (Maria Hiscock). They have been out on a reunion with Josh (Richard Wilde) and Ben (John Fisher) who come running to the car and say drive as an irate shopkeeper (Richard Sheppard) chases them for shoplifting. Alice drives off but he gets a pic of the car with his phone.

Alice in the car

Now, you might be forgiven for believing that I am (bar the word reunion) describing teens who, in good horror movie style, are up to no good and as punishment face a big bad – but these are grown adults – they are in their thirties and yet there are six crammed in a car and they are shoplifting. They are also the worst bickerers, as we’ll discover, but the reason for pointing this out is that the characters don’t gel and, at best, annoy.

arriving

They stop but freak when a cop car goes by (we get the visual cue of flashing light and the sound of a siren) and drive on but after stopping again (on a country lane) the car won’t start – Alice is out of petrol. There is no mobile phone signal but Alice spotted a house a little way back, through the trees, and so they go there. The house is clearly the one from the opening and is clearly abandoned. They go in anyway and find their way to a room with a couple of paraffin lamps. There is an empty (as Harry reports) cupboard but when the next person looks there are sleeping bags in it. Then they find a bathroom, clean with electricity and hot water (though I didn’t notice them try it to discover the water temperature before announcing that). When they next look in the cupboard there are supermarket sandwiches and bottles of water.

the gang's all here

Of course, this is all pretty freaky but its cold out, so they crash but wake up at 9 the next night. They try to leave but the way they came now leads on a quick circuit where they are at the top of stairs leading back down to the room they slept in – they cannot understand the spatial distortion where they just loop on themselves changing floors without changing floors. If people take the circuit in different directions, they return to the same point without passing each other. I thought of faery and questioned should they have eaten food, but that is not a concept that was explored.

it's behind you

Then they spend ages bickering, vanishing, re-appearing and bickering more. Eventually they are picked off one by one. Why so slowly? Probably because the house feeds on fear. It also feeds on blood and here comes the potentially larger spoiler. One of their number is not what they seem and they state that “The House sustains me so that I can bring it fresh blood when it is hungry.” They also say, “The House is still hungry, it needs blood”. That person can shapeshift also and so we have not always seen interactions with the actual character but the House’s servant. The house itself is not actually there; it was burnt down in a fire (a century before) in which the servant also died, it can create itself again physically but mostly (from outside) there is no house just a field.

grabbed

The issue… Oh god it goes on and the characters are so bland, stereotyped and 2-dimensional. The men are macho – bar Harry, who is the butt of their jokes and would have stopped hanging round the others years before, except he is drawn as a wimp who wouldn’t stand up to them. The women, ones a goth who becomes essentially non-functioning, one woman used to be with Josh and is now with Ben and the other… is called Jade. There is no character development of note, nothing to make us hang our hats on. I’d say the acting was bad but it was probably not helped by the lack of characterisation and the poor dialogue.

into the vortex

This has a good nugget of an idea – a house that traps you, plays with you and devours you. However, that could have been done as a short film rather than 110 minutes. The sfx aren’t great – hands coming through a red cgi vortex (which looked like they were burnt so might have been Elizabeth Blood’s hands, but we're not told if they are) and a killer shower curtain are supplemented by occasional cgi flashes. The reason a sentient killer house would produce supermarket sandwich packets can only be answered by 'it was what the filmmakers got their hands on' when – if it would feed them at all – it would likely have been simple fare rather than branded goods. Not great. 2.5 out of 10 reflects the kernel of a good idea.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Dracula: the Untold Story

So, myself and friend Dave (incidentally do check out Dave’s fantastic art on his Instagram page) found ourselves travelling to Manchester, to the Lowry, to watch the stage show Dracula: the Untold Story. Directed by Andrew Quick, Pete Brooks and Simon Wainwright, and a co-production of Imitating The Dog and Leeds Playhouse, this was a fascinating continuation of the Dracula story – focused on Mina Harker (Riana Duce).

The year is 1965 – 70 years after the destruction of Dracula, in this world taken as historical fact and the radio we hear at the head of the play indicates this is an alternate world to ours – similar but not the same (and this is story important). A woman, who claims to be Mina (though she appears way too young) has come to a London police station to offer information about a murder victim, found decapitated that day.

Riana Duce as Mina

Its late on New Year’s Eve and WPC Williams (Adela Rajnović) and DS Donaldson (Matt Prendergast) perhaps would rather be elsewhere – especially when Mina, reluctant to speak at first it seems, suggests who she is and confesses to the murder. Donaldson, whilst believing Dracula was an actual person, does not believe in the supernatural elements of the original story and thinks Mina delusional. However, Mina knows details of the murder not made public and they listen to her story.

Dracula's presence

It is a story of Mina – how it was her, and not Jonathan, who killed Dracula, how she absconded from Jonathan and Quincey when she realises that being forced to drink from Dracula has changed her. She doesn’t age, she heals wounds, and she dreams – she dreams of an event called the Rising, an apocalypse that Dracula will bring about and of men (always men, she acknowledges) whose actions will hasten it – men she kills through the years, changing history (hence this being an alternative world to ours). Because of this Dracula himself is a fleeting presence in the play and yet is always there, behind every aspect of the story, an amorphous presence almost.

Graphic novel-like

The play takes on the quality of a graphic novel – using technology to merge backdrop with the actors and using digital manipulation to change the projected actors (who act sometimes to one of three on stage camera and at other times more traditionally) which might make a projection of Matt Prendergast, for example, seem to be Stalin (with Rajnović and Prendergast becoming several characters each) or might make the projected image look drawn on a page. It is incredibly clever, and whilst the digital manipulation isn’t always perfect it is absorbing. There are nods throughout to other vehicles, most notably Dracula (1931) and Dracula (1992).

stage craft

The actors’ dialogue is in a variety of languages and, at the play, we probably made a mistake being front row as some of the dialogue (projected onto the screen, graphic novel style, in English) could be obscured by the onstage cameras from our vantage point. The play is available to watch online (via VoD) and I thought this might have been easier but the angles chosen by the director, which concentrates on the actor’s art as much as the backdrop, conspire to make it not so – but never you worry, the closed captions translate non-English dialogue.

The play’s homepage is here, which links to the VoD that is available for rental (for a 24-hour period once you press play) and will be available until 31 January 2022.

There's No Such Thing as Vampires – review

Director: Logan Thomas

Release date: 2020

Contains spoilers

Director Logan Thomas was behind interesting vampire film the Yellow Wallpaper, which was wonderfully surreal in places but languidly paced. The same cannot be said of this, which has a much more urgent pace – though it does veer occasionally into surreality, which needed more exploring.

It is a horror road movie, something that feels very American to me, and owes a debt to films such as the Terminator (1984) and the Hitcher (1986). It starts with a montage including a man, Joshua (Josh Plasse), thrown backwards, a spray of blood hitting his naked shoulder, wind turbines and an RV.

the opening

As the film proper starts we see a sporty car pull up in a town and Joshua gets out – he has dried blood on him. He runs into a movie theatre and shouts for them to call the police and then runs into a screening of Nosferatu. A member of staff comes after him as he has not paid and locates him where he is hiding, threatening to call the police. Good – it is what he wants. However he soon realises his pursuer (Aric Cushing, the Yellow Wallpaper) is there (though we do not see him clearly). He calls for the patrons to get out or it will kill them all. Some are angry, some laugh at him. He runs, gets in his car and drives off.

the chase

In another, more utilitarian, car, Ariel (Emma Holzer) is driving cross-country to visit friends. She gets a call asking how long she’ll be and, having ended the call, suddenly finds herself being crashed into by Joshua. She goes to check on him and he asks if her car still runs. He gets in, accompanied by lightning in the distance, and she is arguing when he points out lights further down the road and heading towards them. When they reach them, they’ll die, he says. She gets in and he drives off but the top speed of her car is poor and the RV soon catches them.

Emma Holzer as Ariel

Joshua suddenly turns off the highway, losing the RV for a moment. She tells him stop and mentions being a hostage. He tells her that they are being pursued by a vampire and, of course, she doesn’t believe him. She feels sick and demands he stop the car and when he does there is a figure… Ariel can’t believe it, it is her mother. She goes out, calling for her, but Joshua warns she isn’t there – it is an image put in her head. She snaps out of it, believing him – her mother is dead. They eventually get to a town and pull up outside a bar called the Silver Bullet and call the police (who refer to it as a werewolf bar) and are waiting for them when the RV returns. They drive off again but seem to lose it… the sun is coming up.

friends

So, running out of gas and lost (due to no gps signal) Ariel takes them to a church, where a nun (Meg Foster, Shrunken Heads) – in a marvellously OTT performance – tells them that they are in the Valley of the Dark Wind. This is something that I wish had been explored more, a force, which comes at night and that has plagued the valley for millennia, the Native Americans appeased it with sacrifices and Christians saw it as the devil. Despite saying that it had drained all life from the area, the vampire is not the Dark Wind – though connected to it. The nun gives them gas and tells them how to get to Ariel’s friends' house, which is tantalisingly close.

the vampire

What we then get is a further cat and mouse, a reincarnation aspect, and an assault on a police station. The vampire, unfortunately, is rather monstrous looking when we get to see him. I say it's unfortunate because I thought the makeup effects were average and he looked a little too unreal. That said the action was fun, the pace worked and the performances were good enough for the vehicle – with Emma Holzer especially charming in a girl-next-door kind of way. There were mentions of a wider story that deserved expanding on and it did feel, overall, like a chapter 1. Whether the filmmakers want or intend to build a series is unknown as I write this.

Overall, a fun enough way to pass 80 minutes. 6 out of 10. The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Honourable Mention: Nobody Sleeps in the Woods Tonight 2

Directed by Bartosz M. Kowalski and released in 2021, this Polish film is (unsurprisingly) a sequel to Nobody Sleeps in the Woods Tonight, which itself was a fun slasher variant film. With the sequel they’ve taken the film in a different direction (though one that won’t make too much sense if you haven’t seen the first film) but I wasn’t expecting a vampire moment, so thanks to Simon for the push in the film’s direction.

The film starts with the strains of a chamber orchestra and, as the first scenes come into focus, we see a masked ball, the participants dressed in period clothing. However, as the camera explores the room we see a girl (Zofia Wichlacz), chained against a bas relief her wrists bleeding into bowls beneath. Into the scene walks Adas Adamiec (Mateusz Wieclawek), wearing a cop uniform, eyes hidden behind shades and carrying a shotgun.

first attacker

He announces that the party is over and one of the dancers runs towards him, fangs evident… his approach is stopped abruptly as Adas aims his shotgun and fires, blowing the vampire's head off (as another franchise might say, nothing lives without a head). There is then a fight sequence with the vampires coming at Adas and he responding with shotgun and revolver until, eventually, the dancefloor is carpeted with dead vampires.

the victim

At this point he heads to the victim, releasing her and ending up in a passionate embrace – until he wakes up… It's all a dream, the girl is his co-worker Wanessa (who seems more than a little cold to him when we meet her) and, whilst he is a cop in real life, he isn’t the cool character we have just seen. He is a fairly new recruit, lacking confidence, a general dogsbody and, in honesty, a bit of a whinger. In the cells of the police station, however, are the two mutated slashers from the first film as well as the final girl (Julia Wieniawa-Narkiewicz)… it’s the day after the events of film number 1 and you just know things are going to go south.

The imdb page is here.

Short film: Mark of Lilith

This 32-minutes film was directed by Bruna Fionda, Polly Gladwin and Isiling Mack-Nataf and was released in 1986. Before I look at the film, I just want to mention the set it came with. I viewed it on the Blu-ray release Short Sharp Shocks vol. 2, the second set of British made short films (as well as infomercials and on this volume a Screaming Lord Sutch music video), often with a horror or thriller theme, that were produced between the 1940s and 80s. They prove a fascinating look back in time.

in the cinema

The Mark of Lilith is a vampire short that has some really interesting aspects but other parts that perhaps were too heavy handed. The latter first; researcher Zena (Pamela Lofton) is a researcher who is examining the demonisation of women – of the changing of Goddess forms into something demonic or monstrous. She also uses this lens to examine race and queer aspects. This is all well and good but often involves her talking to camera as though she is giving a lecture – be it her talking to a waitress (Patricia St. Hilaire), who often responds with questions for her that feel too staged, or sat in a cinema with masked patrons behind. As part of her research she also watches predatory animals (and the film interjects scenes of big cat kills and hyena feeds also).

in the film

We also see Lillia (Susan Franklyn) a female vampire and her vampire lover Luke (Jeremy Peters, Lexx). There is a strange level of fourth wall breaking – as though they are a story, told on film, and yet simultaneously part of our world, though it may be a dream for them. Lillia looks out of her movie and sees the cinema audience watching them and specifically notices Zena. She takes it upon herself to find Zena – as does Luke.

the patriarchy

Luke, however, is not searching for her for benign reasons. It has already been pointed out that he often kills his prey (where Lillia allows them to live) but it is specifically the female victims he kills, not the males. Of course, he is then a manifestation of the patriarchy that declares the femininity it can’t control as monstrous. As Lillia finds Zena, and they become lovers and she nearly succumbs to instinct (which is communicated as an abuse of the power she holds), Luke hunts and kills women with red scarves (as that is what Zena was wearing in the cinema).

Zena and Lillia

The other thing to note is Lillia’s lineage – she says her mother was a vampire and then names her directly as a lamia. The thing is, whilst I found the short interesting (as the Lillia parts worked even if the lecturing did not) it is not the greatest watch and this is a shame as the exploration it was attempting was thought-provoking and it is perhaps an earlier (intersectional) examination of gender, race and queer studies then one would expect.

The imdb page is here.

On UK Blu-Ray @ Amazon US

On Blu-Ray @ Amazon UK

Horror Noire – review

Director: Kimani Ray Smith

Release date: 2021

Contains spoilers

Horror Noire is a horror anthology released for Halloween 2021, which show cases films written and made by Black filmmakers, and I made the mistake of looking at the comments on Shudder before watching. Not that they were a spoiler but a mistake as it highlights the toxicity of some people. Since that first look, I’ve gone back and the film has now garnered positive responses but originally standing out was the person who accused it of being “More woke nonsense”. Firstly, what is wrong with being woke – to me it means you are an inclusive person with emotional intelligence and to be called it is a badge of honour. Second, when has an original film made from a specific, and underrepresented, viewpoint that uses equally underrepresented talent, been considered woke – this is addressing a real issue with the industry and we should applaud the fact that a range of voices are able to be heard. Lastly, if you approach a vehicle like this to give it the lowest score you can, and call it woke, then the issue isn’t the vehicle, it’s you.

Rant over, let's look at the film.

soul eater

Firstly, segments that caught my eye for various reasons were Bride Before You, which was just a wonderful piece, the Lake, which I enjoyed – though it perhaps needed a stronger pay-off – and it used a familiar trope part way through with eating raw meat from the fridge, and the incredibly imaginative Brand of Evil that does have some demonic soul eating. The latter is definitely a demon but the apparent activity is vampiric. The actual vampire segment was Sundown.

canvassing 

Sundown starts with a figure, Sammy (Lavell Crawford, Meet the Blacks), running through woods, as he runs he grabs a bird from a branch and holds onto it until he reaches a cave. Inside we see him break its neck. We are in a small town, Evantide, in West Virginia and canvassers, and couple, Shanita (Erica Ash) and Marcus (Tone Bell) are campaigning for Sarah Carson – a black candidate. They have had no luck – no one seems to be in but they are approaching the last house on their route.

Lavell Crawford as Sammy

Looking at the house, Shanita is sure they don’t want to go there – she served in Afghanistan and was always known for her keen instincts. Marcus, however, insists they go. They actually get an answer this time from a teen, Ellie (Zoe Lawson Dangar), who hollas to her mama and asks who she’ll be voting for – the shout confirms she’ll be voting for the n-word and that is enough – Shanita and Marcus get out of there. They meet up with the other canvassers, and it is notable that they are all white and they all struck out. Shanita asks where there is a bathroom and is told there is one in the post office.

sundown sign

She goes in and, when she starts shouting for him, Marcus follows as do all the others. There is a large sign on the wall “Whites only within city limits after dark” and in the conversation that follows Shanita explains that it is a Sundown Town – a phenomena of segregation that was often a precursor to violence for any Black person who broke the rule. The segment makes a lot of points here, one white canvasser didn’t even notice the large sign when she went in, another asks what it matters as it is in the past – ignoring the historic hurt and also the echoes that reverberate into the present.

the feast

Shanita and Marcus leave and find their tires have been slashed – as has all the others (one of the canvassers accuses them, until another steps in and points out that they couldn’t have and their tires are slashed too). By now it is dark and the sound of a fiddle is heard as the town mayor, Constantine Erebus (Peter Stormare, Marianne, Dylan Dog: Dead of Night, the Batman Vs Dracula & the Brothers Grimm), appears and tell them it is a special night, the moonlight festival, and invites them to a feast – Shanita is not happy.

staked

They get to the feast and the Sundown sign is mention but suggested to be a historical hangover that was meant to have been removed. Erebus calls Sammy – the first Black local we’ve seen and the man from the beginning of the segment – who says he’ll get it taken down. Long story short there is a cut finger and Ellie reveals the town’s true nature – it is a town of vampires. They hunt down the fleeing canvassers – though Erebus warns them, “don't eat your dark meat!” Shanita and Marcus manage to stake one vampire before being separated and Marcus being captured.

Buffy the f*ck up

Shanita is rescued by Sammy who then reveals he is a vampire – but kind of a vegan as he only eats birds and squirrels and the like. In an interesting turnaround he reveals he had put up the Sundown sign to try and warn off any Black visitors – Erebus has a liking for feeding on Black victims, Marcus is likely alive, saved for the festival finale and Sammy was turned by accident. It’s time for Shanita to get some weapons (they are in the South, there are plenty around), rescue her man and, as she puts it, “...Buffy the f*ck up.”

Shanita and Marcus

This was fun – and yes there were serious messages underneath (interestingly the white canvasser who didn’t see the sign and the one who said it was in the past are both turned and forced to stay – unhappily – in the vampire town) but the segment was also made for laughs. There was bickering banter between husband and wife but the banter always felt true, there were some clear nods towards the wider genre and, whilst it didn’t do anything that new it did it with some style. We don’t get much lore – just sunlight and staking really – but worth a watch as are the segments I mentioned above, though the running length is a bit of a marathon at 2.5 hours. As always the score is for the vampire segment only – 6 .5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Shudder via Amazon US

On Demand @ Shudder via Amazon UK