Short Film: Hunger

This was a 2014 short that was directed by Brian Frager and is around 18 minutes long. It is one that doesn’t broadcast the identity of the monster (in this case a monstrous child) rather there is certainly mention of a hunger, there is flesh eating (it seems) and blood drinking and so I think the tropes carry us into vampire territory.

It starts with a mother, Dawn (London Vale), holding her daughter Carla (Kristin Coffman) in the background as stove hobs seems to give off gas in the background... We then cut to them driving, with the child sitting in the back seat. Dawn promises they’ll never be apart. A truck comes hurtling by causing them to come off the road and stop. A Women’s Aid advert about domestic violence comes on the radio, which dawn switches off before driving on.

Dawn checks the house

They get to a house and Dawn looks around and is clearly jumpy and carries a knife. There is a knock at the door, with a call out, and so Dawn answers it. It is a neighbour, Beatrice (Paula Bellamy-Franklin), who hadn’t been told that there would be guests coming. Dawn says she is the owner’s niece and she is house sitting but Beatrice spots her black eye and asks if *he* is with her. She meets Carla briefly, who says she is hungry. Dawn explains that they were just going to the store.

eye injury

In the store Dawn is paying (and being made to remove her shades – store policy – and reveal her injured eye) when she realises that Carla is missing. After a frantic moment a store employee takes her to her, she is sitting in an office. On the way back to the house, as Carla eats some raw meat, they are pulled over by a cop (Lowell Dean) due to a busted taillight. Dawn adjusts her top and we see a wound above her breast and, after checking her licence, the cop makes her go to his car. There is a radio call about a murder at the store but the cop has his hands full with Carla…

feeding

So, the implication is that Carla is always hungry and clearly powerfully strong – she, off screen, overpowers the cop. When the hunger takes her, her eyes seem to go black. A radio programme later suggests that Dawn’s boyfriend has been dismembered and the assumption has to be that it was by (or on behalf of) Carla. The wound in Dawn’s chest is where the daughter suckles her blood – we see that during the running time.

This was a well made little short and it is certainly worth 18 minutes of your time. The imdb page is here.

Vamp or Not? Stoker Hills

I received the opportunity to view a screener of Stoker Hills but I only take on such opportunities if I believe a given film will fit into the premise of the blog. I checked a trailer, which suggested the taking of blood but also read a review that suggested that the film hinted at a vampiric nature because of this blood taking and the title (connecting the name Stoker to Bram). Good enough for me to have a look for the blog.

The fact that I am writing a ‘Vamp or Not?’ suggests it was not that straight forward but, actually it was straight forward – I just think the reviewer I read over-thought that aspect.

Vince Hill-Bedford as Jake

So the premise merges found footage with traditional narrative – the footage on camera being found by two police detectives, Stafford (William Lee Scott) and Adams (Eric Etebari, Kiss of the Vampires, Vegas Vampires & Castlevania: Hymn of Blood), who investigate the filmmakers’ disappearance, which is shown in a traditional narrative. The filmmakers – Jake (Vince Hill-Bedford) and Ryan (David Gridley) – are making a school project horror film starring Ryan’s girlfriend Erica (Steffani Brass).

taking blood

The film goes awry when they are doing a distance shot of her (where she is acting as a prostitute) and a car slows, she gets pulled in and kidnapped. They grab their car and give chase and soon find themselves hunted by the kidnapper who is, it turns out, a serial killer. He does take their blood when captured but does so to test it for specific medical reasons. Having set up the found footage and the narrative around what happens to them when captured, alongside the search for them, the film throws in quite a neat final twist.

Erica and Ryan in peril

This twist neatly smooths aspects you may have found somewhat OTT as you watched (such as a series of traps that just seemed too sophisticated for the killer we meet) and the somewhat outlandish reason for the killing spree. This left me with a satisfying viewing experience, however, in terms of a vampire aspect, this really does not have one. Indeed, it doesn’t particularly use familiar tropes either (with the tropes more being pulled, rightly, from the slasher genre). Definitely worth a watch and though the use of found footage carries the same health warning (about why someone would continue to film in the situation they’re in) that many others of that genre come with, the way it is used is rather neat also. Not Vamp.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Honourable Mention: House of 1000 Corpses

When it comes to horror film directors, Rob Zombie is a divisive figure with some hating his output but it also being very popular. For the record I really do like his films (or most of them, I was underwhelmed by 31) and as I write this I’m looking forward to seeing what he does with his Munsters reboot (recognising that those words may not age well).

I particularly like the trilogy of films he made, starting with his first movie House of 1000 Corpses, its sequel the Devil’s Rejects and, whilst weakest still good, 3 From Hell. It was on a recent rewatch of House that I suddenly realised there was an excuse for an honourable mention here.

exhibit

This is towards the start of the film in the murder ride that is attached to the roadside attraction (and gas station) run by Captain Spalding (Sid Haig, Brotherhood of Blood). The ride passes tableaus of serial killers – all real world killers (noting that Lizzie Borden, who in the sequence gets a namecheck only, was acquitted of murder) – until reaching that of fictional Doctor Satan (Walter Phelan, From Dusk till Dawn). One of the exhibits (and one we see in a tad of detail) portrays Albert Fish, known as the Brooklyn Vampire – we previously met Fish in the dramatized biopic the Gray Man.

sepia flash footage

We get a mannequin exhibition, an x-ray and Spaulding’s patter regarding fish (as well as some visual representations of Fish, in quick cut sepia – the actor is not credited). Spaulding tells the riders “…the infamous Albert Fish… Masochist, sadist, child killer and most importantly cannibal. Fish, born 1870, and enjoyed spankings with nail-studded paddles and stuffing needles deep into his groin…” That’s it, a fleeting visitation – no more than a mention with some shot footage – of a serial killer sometimes dubbed by the press as a vampire. However, it did give me the opportunity to crowbar Zombie’s series into the blog, which are among my go to non-vampire horror films (especially the Devil’s Rejects).

The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon US

On DVD @ Amazon UK

Origin Unknown – review

Director: Rigoberto Castañeda

Release date: 2020

Contains spoilers

Hitting the 2020 festivals – notably Frightfest in the UK – this is a Mexican vampire movie that ties secretive vampire hunters and the cartel into the action. They come together in a well shot piece that perhaps flinches when it comes to the dénouement.

It starts, however, with a head rolling across the screen after we hear a particularly visceral slashing sound. We are straight into action as a group of vampire hunters and vampires battle it out. Stood in the chaos is a little girl, Lina (Paulina Gil). One of the vampires indicates that she should run as he is stabbed through the heart.

ouija

A cavalcade of black cars run through the countryside. It returns Pedro (Daniel Martínez) and his bodyguards home. In the car he hesitates on a money transfer for $20m US and eventually cancels it. As he gets home, a compound that is a veritable fortress, we discover that he lives with his children the teenage María (Ana Paola Marín) and the younger, and disabled, Beto (Matías del Castillo). Their mother is dead and he is now in a relationship with their Aunty Francis (Lisette Morelos) a fact accepted by Beto, not so much by María. There is a hint of the supernatural from the get-go with Beto using a Ouija that Francis gave him and the planchette moving whilst untouched – it says “She is coming”.

Lisette Morelos as Francis

Arriving at the house are brothers Alan (Horacio Garcia Rojas) and the mute Eric (Ramón Medína). They are part of a cartel and their presence at the house wasn’t that clear to me. Pedro is trying to get out (later Alan confirms the only way out is a high payment or dead) and the $20M he hasn’t yet paid is the severance payment. It seems they brokered the deal for him and he is worried about cartel assassins – so I guess they were there as insurance for him. Later, however, Alan indicates that he was meant to receive the $20m – it’s a tad confused but not that important.

flash of fang

What is important is that the house is surrounded by armed guards and has a state-of-the-art security system. We see Lina in a field, lights behind her, and then there is an alarm that goes off in the house. A guard finds the rear gate has been ripped at and then finds Lina. However the lights draw closer, they are drones, and the guards are attacked with crossbow bolts – one going through the back of Eric’s skull and out of his mouth.

big sword

They lock down the house (though a roof skylight shutter doesn’t shut due to a tree branch – and somehow the system doesn’t detect that). This is where the film needed to tighten up for me, for instance they are now surrounded by tattooed warriors using melee weapons and they have killed all the guards outside – yet they fail to spot María who went for a sneaky smoke just before the attack. The warriors are after Lina, obviously, but she is not yet fully a vampire as she hasn’t drunk live blood.

Lina goes full vamp

So that is the turning aspect. The backstory we get is that she was an orphan, the vampires took her from the orphanage (with a view to turning, it appears) and she had leukaemia. They have drunk from her, given her vampire blood but her body is in turmoil, becoming ill again pending drinking live blood (whether live means not from a vampire or absolutely fresh isn’t elaborated on). When she does feed, she goes full on vampire and takes the fight to the warriors… her speed, her wall and ceiling crawling and her (almost) flight (it might be flight, it might be giant leaps) makes you wonder how the hunters faired so well against adult-sized vampires.

an Arcane

The hunters are called Arcanes and they have been trained from birth to hunt the soulless vampires, which they refer to as strigoï. They have no apparent regard for human life or collateral damage their activity leaves behind, making one question who the bad guys really are. Ok, Lina is warded off by a cross but she at no point threatens to hurt the family (indeed Beto’s mother, on her deathbed, told him that a girl would come who would cure him). The adult vampires (from Lina’s viewpoint) saved her, tried to cure her and did not a lot else except dance. It is an interesting viewpoint – other than Lina being overpowered without reason.

adult vampire

The film is well shot and mostly well-acted. I was less sure of Lina as a vampire then as Paulina Gil’s performance of a hunted and scared girl. The latter worked well but the decision to give her a strange ‘goblin’ voice when vamping out didn’t help and she didn’t carry sinister off when in vampire mode, at least for me. However the action was generally well done and there was some nice gore. The very end of the film contained an aspect that I thought was a tad weak, unfortunately, but I won’t spoil that here. The storyline is fairly simple – vampire hunter home invasion meets members of the cartel – and this works overall. 6.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Short Film: Avulsion

With a ten-minute run time. This Steve Boyle directed short is a classy (and gory) piece that – to understand why it is here – needs to be spoiled and so I apologise at the outset. Spoiling it also allows me to touch on a nice piece of lore at the very end.

Portia (Erica Field) puts on a gramophone record and muses that you never really know if *they* will go through with it. They being her clients.

We see Marty (Cameron Hurry) enter the house, he carries a briefcase awkwardly, clutched to his chest. He takes a seat and fiddles with objects on the table next to him, accidentally dropping one – the noise it makes prompts Portia to invite him into her room. He says that he has brought some things and, the impression we get is that of prostitute and trick. She needs to know what he wants, exactly, and he whispers his desire into her ear.

gory work

She is fixing a drink for them as he comes behind her, pulls a plastic bag over her head and begins to stab her violently. He wants her to look at him as she dies. He puts a plastic sheet out and begins (as per the title) to dismember her, starting with her limbs. However, when he starts to cut at her neck her eyes flash open and she says, in a commanding voice, “no” (and this is our big spoiler, of course). The one-hour bell rings and he gets photos on his smart phone (up to now the technology we've seen has placed us decades before) and leaves.

true face

Of course, we now know that she might be dismembered but she is very much still alive (or animated, at least). Torso reaches out with tendons to pull the limbs back into place. She looks to the mirror, which was hidden behind a painting, and what she sees reflected is monstrous, not the human face she shows the world and it is this that was the nice lore, not entirely original but I like it when the mirror trope is changed to make it show the true face.

Erica Field as Portia

And I have to apologise again as the fact that she is a vampire, making money by allowing people to live out their murderous fantasies is the twist. She has two rules, never sever the head and no mirrors (for obvious reasons). The short is well done, pretty darn gory and a lot of fun.

The imdb page is here.

I’ve not embedded the short as it is age restricted and only viewable on YouTube but you can watch it here

Dark Whispers: Volume 1 – review

Directors: Lucy Gouldthorpe & Katrina Irawati Graham (segments)

Release date: 2019

Contains spoilers

Dark Whispers is a portmanteau film with a wraparound that sees a woman, Clara (Andrea Demetriades), sorting out the effects left by her deceased mother. Among them is the book Dark Whispers, which she starts to read – until the book unnerves her but then she finds she cannot destroy it and must continue reading.

Not a shock to discover that the shorts – which seem to have been previously made shorts, as is often the case – make up the stories of the book. Whilst they do contain supernatural elements the film didn’t feel horror to me, more thriller with almost a Tales of the Unexpected vibe to some. The shorts are all directed by female directors. We are looking at this for one film in particular plus a vampire connection in another.

a bite

The vampire film is called Grillz and was directed by Lucy Gouldthorpe. Milla (Lucy Gouldthorpe) is playing the online dating game and is getting a lewd suggestion from one prospective beau. He doesn’t show for a liaison so she meets a second, username Derwentparkdreamboat (Jared Goldsmith). Whilst they are having a drink we notice that her teeth seem too numerous for her mouth. Later, in an underpass, she comes on to him, but as she bites his neck she breaks her canine teeth – an accident that does not help her date, however.

new fangs

Her next search online leads her to look for a date with a dentist, and she successfully hooks up with Graham (Tosh Greenslade). On their date she is self-consciously hiding her teeth, he makes her show him and takes her to his surgery. Some dentistry magic and she has some fancy metal fangs… But what will be his reward for such an act of altruism? That I won't spoil but we can note that the vampire in this has a reflection. It is a short, short – only around the 5–6-minute mark and so the story is very simply drawn, the filming black and white.

childbirth

The other I want to mention is entitled White Song and was directed by Katrina Irawati Graham and tells the story of Raesita (Alana Golingi) and her heartbreak when her love, Andrew (Luke Wright), dies. The story is told by the Kuntil Anak (Derty Eka Putria) who is drawn to her sorrow. The credits to the film contain a note that “Also known as the Pontianak, the Kuntil Anak is the traditional Indonesian ghost of a woman who dies in childbirth.” Sometimes the kuntilanak is depicted as vampiric of course.

giving comfort

In this not so much. She does tell us her story, of her being married and her husband (I Gusti Made Oka Wibawa) being physically abusive and subjecting her to marital rape. Of the difficult birth that kills her and a child born in anger. However, her interaction with Raesita is one of comfort and love – though her idea of comfort is to make the pregnant Raesita become as she is… This was interesting and a nice take on the myth.

standing above victim

The other shorts were of a varying quality, though the collection altogether is worth looking at. However, mark the caution that it is more thriller (perhaps chiller) than horror. In the case of anthologies, I score for the vampire segment(s) – in this we only have the one – White Song being more of a genre interest as there is no vampiric activity. Grillz is cute enough but is really short and very simplistic – 5.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US  

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Honourable Mention: The Show

Directed by Mitch Jenkins this 2020 piece of modern film noir was written by Alan Moore and I guess you could call it Noir by way of a British take on Twin Peaks, a stroll round Northampton where strangeness abounds.

It was both it having been penned by Moore, in and of itself, and the blurb that caught my eye: “A man of many talents arrives in a strange and haunted town on a mission to locate a stolen artefact for his menacing client, Fletcher finds himself entangled in a twilight world of vampires, sleeping beauties, Voodoo gangsters, noir private eyes, and masked avengers. Welcome to The Show.”

Clive and Fletcher

Obviously, the reason for featuring this here is the vampires mentioned, though in reality it is one vampire and maybe not a real one. Fletcher (Tom Burke, Dracula), using a series of assumed names, is looking for a man named James Mitchum (Darrell D'Silva) and has tracked him to the hospital, but when he can’t locate him on ward he speaks to an orderly named Clive (Julian Bleach, the Brothers Grimm) who takes him to Mitchum – in the morgue… Clive has a lot of New Age speak, wears a Bauhaus tee and has a patch on his uniform that says “So Goth I’m dead”.

Julian Bleach as Clive

When he contacts Fletcher again, he gives his name as Clive, or Orlock, which is his vampire name. We meet him briefly one more time (wearing a different Bauhaus Tee). Is he actually a vampire, or perhaps he identifies as a vampire, or perhaps he's just a Goth who likes acting like one? Actually, in the bizarre world of the Show it might be any of the three. It is, however, a fleeting visitation whichever one it might be. The film itself is low on action but high on strangeness, reminding me very much of Twin Peaks: The Return in tone, at least in places. The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Maggie Shayne's Embrace the Twilight – review

Director: Carlos Dunn

Release date: 2019

Contains spoilers

Using an author’s name in a film title is (perhaps low-grade) controversial. It suggests that the resultant film will be to the author’s original vision and very often it really isn’t. Within the vampire genre there is an all too obvious example of this.

Equally it is odd with this, not because it doesn’t match the original vision but precisely because I (and I’m sure many viewers) couldn’t tell you. I am sure Maggie Shayne is thrilled that a film has been made of her novel. I am also sure that, despite more than 70 novels (according to Wikipedia), she isn’t a household name (and for clarification that isn’t an attack, just a fact) and whilst I am sure that her fans will seek out the film (and would have done without her name in the title), the use of her name will not draw in those of us unaware of her work.

tortured

This brings us to the film, which starts with cut scenes, one set being set in the past and a gypsy fortune teller, Sarafina (Theresa Byron), telling her story and the bad blood between her and her sister. Intercut are scenes in recent Afghanistan and concentrating on a captured American soldier Colonel Willem Stone (Logan Shephard), who is tortured and brutalised by the Taliban. Whenever the pain gets too much, he enters a fugue state through which he watches Sarafina’s story – however it is more than that as she (being psychic) is also aware of him and thinks he is a spirit.

Theresa Byron as Sarafina

Eventually Stone is able to escape and hobbles miles (his foot looks about ready to drop off) before passing out. He has seen, in his visions, Sarafina being turned and her sire, Bartrone (Christian Miguel Rangel Aguirre), facing the sun in a moment of vampiric suicide. Stone wakes in a hospital (Stateside), his foot has been saved (though he will limp for the rest of his life) and he is a national hero. One night in the hospital he is wandering the halls and comes across a thief, Jameson Bryant (Jason Klingensmith), stealing blood and recognises him as a vampire. He covers for him.

burnt

Once home, and missing Sarafina, Stone actually smashes his injured foot with his cane to summon the fugue state again and sees a burnt Sarafina climb into her coffin. Bryant visits him and offers him a job. Stone has no need of money and so wants the payment of meeting Sarafina – Bryant finds out where she is and Stone does meet her, but the meeting doesn’t go that well. The job is for Stone to follow Bryant’s daughter, Amber lily (Bridget Messaros) as a surreptitious bodyguard whilst she goes on a trip with her friend.

Amber Lily and friend

Amber Lily was conceived by her vampire mother whilst Bryant was still human and she is a rare half-breed. She needs large amounts of protein (but not blood) – difficult as she is a vegetarian, has telepathic and telekinetic powers and can walk in the sun. Because of this a group of vampire hunters have targeted her. Unfortunately, she realises Stone is following her but not what his reason is (he is resistant to mind reading), reaches out psychically for help and Sarafina answers and kidnaps him leaving her exposed and ultimately taken prisoner. Sarafina, thinking Stone is a wrong-un tries to break his will and make him a slave but Amber Lily’s family need Stone’s help rescuing their daughter.

Stone bitten

So I have mentioned the hybrid's powers. As for the full vampires they need blood, have mind reading abilities, and can use their blood as a controlling drug to ensure loyalty if they make a slave. They appear to be fast and strong (and, not being au fait with the source material, this made the reliance on Stone, who may have been a military hero but was also physically compromised, a puzzle) but are not necessarily that strong (a prison cell can hold them) and they burn in sunlight. We do see an invisibility trick.

newly turned

So, this was fairly involved and I suspect followed the novel plot (or part of it as the book is part of a longer series) quite closely. Unfortunately, film plots and novel plots do not, often, neatly match and this lengthy indie film was just way too long for its own good. It was ambitious, no doubt about that, but again perhaps too ambitious for an indie (some mismatched exterior shots could have been avoided but in the main the budget constraints were simply unfortunate). I can’t take away from the ambition however. The acting was inconsistent, with some performances of a higher quality than others – but sometimes the rather stagy dialogue didn’t help.

antagonists-r-us

This is an independent film and you need to understand that going in. With that in mind it has ambition and felt like it had a respect for the source material (though I stand to be corrected, being unsighted). However, it needs a re-edit badly, as it is way too long – sadly director Carlos Dunn passed away during the production and, I will say, this is a cut above his previously reviewed film Katherine (which he wrote and produced). The cast try with what they have got – actually probably favourite but unmentioned as I went over the plot was the performance by Aja Nicole as Amber Lily’s aunt Rhiannon – but as mentioned above the performances are uneven. There is a love story side to this but the film doesn’t remain fixated on it. 4 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Little Vampire – review

Director: Joann Sfar

Release date: 2020

Contains spoilers

Based on the French series of books, Petit Vampire, by Joann Sfar, I’m not sure that there is a connection with the Angela Sommer-Bodenburg series despite having seen at least one critic positively connect them. Whilst the premise of a child vampire finding a mortal friend is the same, the whole aesthetic is completely different. My understanding is there is also a long running animated series as well as this film.

about to be sacrificed

The film begins with Pandora (Camille Cottin), along with her son (Louise Lacoste), pursued by a Prince (Alex Lutz) as he intends to marry her – a fate she does not wish to consider. Rejected, he decides to sacrifice them both to the God of the Depths and is throwing them into an exposed pit when Pandora offers her life to anyone who can rescue her.

newly turned

Her call is answered by Les Capitaine des Morts (Jean-Paul Rouve), a skull faced pirate, with a giant hat, in a flying galleon. The pair are rescued but, on being rescued by the living dead they are turned into vampires – Pandora gaining fangs and a greyed complexion, where Little Vampire (as he is named throughout), takes on perhaps more of an Orlock visage. Neither seem too upset at becoming vampires, although later Pandora states that one can only be turned if they have a broken heart.

settled at the mansion

As for the Prince, he is grabbed by the God of the Depths and swallowed in order that he might be transformed into a crescent moon headed creature called the Gibbous, in order that he might get his vengeance on the Capitaine and Pandora. The credits then show the Gibbous chasing them around the globe over the intervening centuries until, eventually, they stop at a mansion that the Capitaine cloaks in a magical barrier that will hide them from their enemies (Pandora does ask why he didn’t do this centuries before).

the vampire and friends

It is here that the story proper starts – with Little Vampire apparently suffering amnesia (not only does he not remember how he became a vampire, but seems to have forgotten the centuries of being pursued and by whom). He lives with monsters (and his demonic dog Phantomato (Quentin Faure) who serves the purpose of being a snarky Jiminy Cricket), whose highlight seems to be watching a weekly horror movie. Little Vampire is bored and wants to go to school and, sneaking off, begins a friendship – by correspondence in a school book, at first – with orphan Michel (Claire de la Rüe du Can).

Gibbous and Michel

Meanwhile Gibbous is still out there, with a habit of turning people into bugs called kawai that serve as his eyes and ears, as well as his galleon crew, but also serve as a resource to torture and kill when he gets angry. Gibbous still wants his vengeance (or for Pandora to marry him – either will do as a solution). Clearly Little Vampire will end up in peril after breaking the rules and leaving the protective barrier.

Nosferatu poster

This was an odd beast. Take the animation; gorgeously detailed backdrops meet very basic, clean animated characters that, for the most part, worked really well. The story had its odd moments (such as the apparent amnesia that is never mentioned), its surreal moments in the characters themselves and yet followed an overall plot that was quite obvious and by the numbers – though as this is a children’s animation that was understandable. It had the opportunity to be rather dark and yet managed (despite the subject matter) to keep things light. It perhaps doesn’t have the underlying elements that would make this as attractive to adults as it might have been – however, it should work for the kids 6 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon US

On DVD @ Amazon UK

Use of Tropes: Star Trek: Nemesis

2002 saw the release of director Stuart Baird’s Star Trek: Nemesis and, for some reason, it was one of the few Star Trek movies I never got around to watching. Later I told myself I had to, especially as Simon Bacon has identified it as a vampiric text.

Concentrating on the Romulans, the film has the Romulan Senate destroyed at the head of the film with a device that emits 'thalaron radiation' – a radiation so deadly that it consumes organic matter on a subatomic level – in film essentially turning the Senate to stone in seconds. Meanwhile, elsewhere, Riker (Jonathan Frakes) and Troi (Marina Sirtis, Castlevania: Hymn of Blood & Vampire Riderz) have got married and are being taken to Betazed when the Enterprise diverts having detected signs of an android like Data (Brent Spiner) eminating from a pre-warp planet, and again when sent on a diplomatic mission to Romulus.

Ron Perlman as the Viceroy

The new Praetor, a Reman named Shinzon (Tom Hardy) has reached out for peace but in reality it is a convoluted plan to get Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart, Lifeforce & Sinbad: the Fifth Voyage), in the first instance, and then destroy the Federation. The Reman are a slave caste from the planet Remus. Before we meet Shinzon we see his Viceroy (Ron Perlman, Cronos, Blade 2, Hellboy: Blood and Iron & I Sell the Dead). This is how the original screenplay for the film describes the Viceroy (in a scene not in the final edit): “He is a terrifying sight. A powerful, monstrous alien creature; a tall, ashen-skinned ectomorph who bears a disturbing resemblance to the original Nosferatu. He is vampiric and lethal. He is a Reman” This is the first trope, basing the Reman on the design of Orlock.

Tom Hardy as Shinzon

Shinzon is not, biologically, a Reman – rather he is a human and, it quickly transpires, a clone of Picard specifically designed to infiltrate the Federation in a subsequently abandoned plan. Sent to Reman to die in the dilithium mines, the cloning technique used “temporal RNA sequencing” which, when triggered, would rapidly age him to the requisite age for infiltration. Because it hadn’t been triggered Shinzon is dying as his cellular structure breaks down. The only way to save him is through “a complete myelodysplastic infusion from the only donor with compatible DNA.” That is Picard and he needs all of Picard’s blood to live – in other words he needs to drain Picard (we’ll ignore the fact that there should prove to be a non-deadly way of doing this in the futuristic setting).

dying for need of blood

This need for Picard's blood is our next vampiric trope and whilst there is only one possible victim, the draining blood to live is a fairly solid trope. The viceroy, we discover, is a psychic. I thought, as I watched the film, that his putting his hand on Shinzon’s chest when the clone is in pain was perhaps some temporary healing but, according to the script, it is “an ancient form of Reman telepathic medical diagnosis”. He does, however, invade Troi’s mind (when in coitus with Riker) making her see her husband as Shinzon and then himself. Troi, much like Mina in Dracula tracking the fleeing Count, is able to reverse that connection and pinpoint the Remans’ cloaked ship. Shinzon is killed by being impaled in the chest – making the antagonist’s death a staking of sorts.

And there you have it, lots of tropes – actually probably enough to call the film a vampire film but, if not, certainly of strong genre interest. The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon US

On Blu-Ray @ Amazon UK