Use of Tropes: Stuck in the Darkness

An Italian horror film that was directed by Alessio De Bernardi and released in 2020, this was a film that struggled with itself, leaving quite a garbled mess behind.

Opening with an image of a military officer injecting the neck of someone, we then move to a group of spelunkers who are exploring, what is later described as, a bomb shelter but is much larger in scope than one would expect. There is little time to get to know the cavers as one, Luca (Stefano Villavecchia) wanders off and is attacked and then they are all attacked.

bat creature

It is within the creature design that we get our primary tropes. Some look like bat-faced creatures and later we see one resting whilst hanging upside down and another unfurl wings. There are others that wear gasmasks, though it looks like they have large ears. As the film progresses we get back story of military experiments splicing DNA from mice and bats into people. The type with wings clearly have bat DNA and I assume the others have mouse.

gas mask creatures

The creatures attack those who enter their lair and we do see neck biting and some flesh eating. The film introduces a second group of spelunkers looking for the first and then an armed rescue squad. We also get a side story of Mauro (David Scarantino) raising his daughter as a single father – though he is drawn as a drunk and violent man. She finds the bunker and, it is clear, is aware of the creatures. Unfortunately, the film just throws these elements in without due narrative diligence and the whole thing becomes garbled. Having some scenes take place out of linearity doesn’t help in this case, either.

drawing monsters

As for the trope, it is a predator that looks like a bat creature, they were human and created by science – though the film fails to explain how they lasted down there, what they fed on normally or whether they bred.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Painted in Blood – review

Director: Aaron Mirtes

Release date: 2022

Contains spoilers

I was torn as to whether to review this as a vampire film or honourably mention it. It isn’t a typical vampire film, by any stretch. The creature (Dylan A. Young) seems demonic almost but, at the same time, was reminiscent of Orlok (albeit an eyeless Orlok), there is a blood motif and the stealing of souls. There is a connection in the genre between vampirism and artists – be it the Vampire by Jan Naruda whose sketches died, or painting through a medium of blood as in the film Drawing Blood or even the vampirism causing the artist to tap into their inner genius as happened in Bliss.

It is also a budget film that absolutely rails against its humble origin with an intriguing, interesting story; offering a dark, atmospheric film and a mighty fine central performance that hands the viewer a satisfying, unusual filmic experience.

Deiondre Teagle as Malik

Malik (Deiondre Teagle) wakes in his studio, which is in the garage, and he is late. After his housemate, Carson (Brad Belemjian), runs some juvenile interference he manages to get ready and get to work but he is sacked for repeated tardiness. This leaves him financially impoverished as he barely sells his landscapes (an artform he specialises in because they are commercial). Carson mentions that a local community gallery is due to show a valuable painting and they may be looking for security – a job he has done in the past.

Deborah Seidel as Trisha

He goes there and the gallery curator, Trisha (Deborah Seidel), admits they could do with someone – they normally rely on cameras outside the building but this is a piece that was thought lost, is on tour and she managed to get it. It is called The Dead Speak Again, something said by the original artist before he killed himself. She gives Malik the job. That night he hears noises in the gallery (an old building and he was warned that it creaked) but the noises seem to come where the painting is stored. He hears a banging from its crate and opens it, becoming mesmerised and sitting in front of it.

the painting

Come the morning, Trisha gets there early to hang the painting and Malik just about gets the crate resealed so she doesn't know he had opened it. Once hung we see that the painting is dominated by a blackness that, when looking closer seems to be a demonic face. The painting haunts Malik, whose own work becomes influenced by it. Plus he hears a voice, mocking at first, and the creature seems to be able to leave the canvas and walk in our world. Soon Malik is its apprentice and his first lesson is that all painting should seem as though it is painted in his own blood – something he literally does. So we have the painting in blood but why have I gone down a vampiric line?

Malik's new style

The creature – be it in the canvas or, indeed, in its own place (a pocket dimension, it might be argued, where the view is of the universe) is the repository of, what Simon Bacon calls, undead memory. The creature brings out the inner genius of the artist it works with, through pain, to the point where it drives the artist to suicide and the suicide paints a canvas in the artist’s lifeblood, stealing their spirit and embedding it in a portrait that it hangs in its own place. So, through blood, it steals the soul (whether it then feeds itself on the soul or is nourished by the art is not explored) and captures the memory of the artist and their art forever, but represses it by taking it to its own place. Suicide is, of course, also something that the genre is associated with.

the gallery of artists

You might think this tenuous, I think this worked through that lens very well and, beyond anything else, it is a film that works well within its own budget with the creature seen in shadow most of the time. However, the reason the film works so very well is down, in great part, to Deiondre Teagle who offers a powerful performance as Malik. His tortured artistry is believable and his performance very natural and strong enough to bear the weight of the film. This is a great little indie 7.5 out of 10. The film has been reviewed from a provided screener.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Blood Hunters: Rise of the Hybrids – review

Director: Vincent Soberano

Release date: 2019

Contains spoilers

This is another aswang movie to come out of the Philippines, though the film’s country of origin is the USA and it was recorded in English rather than Tagalog. Rather than embrace horror this is very much an action film and whilst the Aswang (or hybrids – I’ll get to that) look similar to some flicks we don’t actually see anything particularly vampiric.

It starts with a comic book as the opening credits roll and then a voiceover tells the viewer about battles between humans and aswang, the latter led by an Aswang Queen. The humans were represented by Section One, a group of soldiers and mercenaries, and they captured the Queen. They took her blood but the Queen was killed and one of the commanders injected himself with her blood and became a hybrid of human and aswang. Where we are now is a place where it is the hybrids that are being hunted.

Sarah Chang as Gabriella

We move to Gabriella (Sarah Chang), who is in the forests. Nearby, on an abandoned, decrepit bus, a girl cries and she is approached by the hybrid Gundra (Mekael Turner). Gabriella gets to the bus, they fight and he, moving at astounding speeds, throws her out of a window and… well he buggers off, it seems. This is where we get a weakness, in that things kind of happen without good explanation or being referenced, even. Later we do hear that they are keeping Gabriella alive but we’ve already had the suspension of disbelief damaged.

Mekael Turner as Gundra

Gabriella is actually hunting down Naga (Temujin Shirzada), as he killed her husband and child when she was a cop, Gundra is more a ways and means. She manages to track Gundra down again and takes a shot with a projectile that blows up something he’s stood on. She is thrown by the explosion, he seems to have totally escaped the explosion and stands over her. After a family exposition dream sequence she awakens in a bed, where hunters Kali (Roxanne Barcelo) and Max (Ian Ignacio) have taken her… again we don’t know why her enemy didn’t finish her off.

aswang

So, she is at a training camp and after she passes the news on that Naga is back, with Gundra, it is decided that they will have to take the fight proactively to them and need the hunters Monte (Monsour Del Rosario) and Bolo (Vincent Soberano), who is a hybrid himself and seems to inject hybrid blood. The film then essentially has them raid a hybrid encampment using guns at first and then hand to hand combat (as guns don’t work – so the one’s they took out with guns were presumably human?). The action works well but there is a betrayal telegraphed, which was obvious as the character was the only one available to be the betrayer and the return of a family member that had no emotional impact.

the queen

This is the issue with the film, the dialogue delivery was wooden and the narrative fairly broken, so there was no emotional attachment to the characters. The story was poorly constructed but the action lifts it up that bit. There isn’t much else to say for this one – the action with more careful plotting and decent delivery (in the actors’ first language) would have left us with an interesting action flick. As stands, 3 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Vlada: a Dracula Tale – review

Author: Christopher Denmead

Illustrator: Ken Hunt

First Published: 2021

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: We take the entire cast of Dracula and Gender Swapped the cast, Its (sic) the classic story with new twists and turns. This is a prose novel. Very akin to Bernie Wrightson Frankenstein with 24 black and white illustrations by Ken Hunt.

The review: If the (Amazon) blurb is sparse then it is no sparser than this retelling of Dracula, which spans just 69 pages and contains a large number of full-page illustrations. So let us start there. Ken Hunt’s illustrations are absolutely lovely and capture the story so very well.

There are, however, some issues with the prose. Not that it is badly written but the language is simplistic and necessarily so as we go breakneck through the story. However, it did make we wonder at what demographic this was aimed at – it was perhaps too specialist for the young-adult audience the prose suggested. I should mention that there are Americanisms that wouldn’t be used by Brits – Grade school for instance – and this is a modernised version of the tale, though there is nothing wrong with that, in a fictional version of Whitby.

I think one thing that didn’t make much sense to me was the gender-swapping of the entire character cast. Now, before you question why I would say that, I will reiterate (as said elsewhere) that I have no problem with gender swapping characters of beloved stories in general. However, to do it for the sake of it, as it feels here, seems pointless. Making changes for inclusivity reasons aside, if you gender-swap (or change a character’s ethnicity or sexuality) use that to explore the narrative in new and subversive ways that enhance or even challenge the original vehicle’s vision. I have seen excellent stage productions where Renfield has been gender swapped – in both cases bringing something different and interesting to the narrative. Simply swapping every character and then doing nothing particularly new with it just seemed a wasted opportunity. Sorry. Though perhaps, if the prose had been expanded the author would have offered those enhancements or challenges of which I speak.

In short, beautiful illustrations but sparse prose, which make for a quick read. This does not make it a bad volume, but it doesn’t raise itself above other vehicles. 5.5 out of 10. My thanks to Sarah who bought me this for Christmas.

In Paperback @ Amazon US

In Paperback @ Amazon UK

Honourable Mention: Abnormal Attraction

Directed by Michael Leavy, this film was released in 2018 and runs on a premise that monsters and folklore creatures are real and living openly amongst humans. Through this it touches on racism and, more openly, on sexuality but, mostly it is a fantasy flick that aims towards comedy and a little bit of action.

It follows a group of protagonists and antagonists who are interconnected in ways they don’t understand and starts proper with Dr. Stanley Cole (Bruce Davison, Corbin Nash, The Librarian: Curse of the Judas Chalice & A (Schizophrenic) Love Story) leaving the hospital for the day. His office has 12-step posters and it pushes us to assume (correctly) that he’s a recovering alcoholic.

Nicole Balsam as Alyssa

He is approached by colleague Dr Nick Lane (Nathan Reid), who has just argued with his fiancée, Alyssa (Nicole Balsam), and later we discover it is because he has made an excuse not to be at home that evening. He is meant to be leading an AA meeting and he persuades Cole to take his place. Our first vampire moment is a mention in passing at the AA meeting. The meeting itself befuddles Cole as he thinks it is an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting but it is an Abnormal Attraction meeting, a self-help group for humans obsessively attracted to non-humans.

in the hut

The actual vampiric moment is during a battle at a non-human camp, when Alyssa (who, unknown to Nick, has a burning hatred of monsters) leads an attack on the camp. She doesn’t know that Nick was kidnapped by Andy, the Abominable Snowman (Michael Barra), and taken to the camp. He had chains, making the non-humans believe he is a monster hunter but they were for himself as, unknown to Alyssa, he is a werewolf and there is a full moon that night. During the fight Alyssa enters a hut.

Steven Della Salla as Vincent

Inside a man is tied up, as a vampire, Vincent (Steven Della Salla), stands nearby. The vampire says “I want to suck your…” well its not blood he’s aiming to suck, put it that way. Alyssa repeatedly shoots the vampire, much to the chagrin of the tied up human – who was a willing participant. Of course bullets are not going to keep a good vampire down and later we see him emerge from the hut, shading his eyes from the sun but otherwise not worse for wear in the daylight. And that’s it, a mention in passing and a fleeting visitation.

The imdb page is here.

Broadway on Showtime: Passion of Dracula – review

Director: Bob Hall

First Aired: 1980

Contains spoilers

This stage play version of Dracula (based around the 1979 Bob Hall and David Richmond adaptation) was recorded for television at the Ed Sullivan Theatre and its theatrical pedigree can be seen in the staginess of the production. It is set in 1910 and limited to a single set – the drawing room of the living quarters in the sanatorium of Dr Cedric Seward (Gordon Chater). This is reminiscent of the authorised Dracula plays of Deane and Balderstone, which also limited locations.

This is not necessarily an easy broadcast to source and the version I watched was a washed-out version but it was still fascinating.

Malachi Throne as Van Helsing

So, the cast changes thusly – we have the (forename changed) Dr Seward, whose niece Wilhelmina Murray (Julia MacKenzie), known as Willie, is suffering from a mystery ailment. To help ascertain her diagnosis and treatment his acquaintance Abraham Van Helsing (Malachi Throne) is visiting but we also have the fascinating Austrian Doctor Helga Van Zandt (Alice B. White), a Freudian psychiatrist. She essentially takes on a Lucy role as we discover her affair with married Lord Godalming (K.C. Wilson).

Elliot Vileen as Renfield

Also within the cast we get the patient Renfield (Elliot Vileen) who is constantly escaping (and referring to a nameless master) and so we often see him chased down by orderly/butler Jameson (Brian Bell). Into the fray comes reporter Jonathan Harker (Samuel Maupin) who is looking to tie lapses in sanatorium security with the murder of three girls with their throats torn out that have occurred in the vicinity of Whitby. He and Willie quickly bond.

Renfield and Dracula

Dracula (Christopher Bernau) is there also – living in nearby Carfax abbey and posing as a folklorist. Van Zandt states she would love to psychoanalyse him. Clearly he is murderous (we can assume he is the killer of the three locals) and when he kills Van Zandt it is in one attack, rather than over time. So why take his time with Willie? His designs on her are different, he has a desire to make her a bride and breed with her and she must come willingly to him.

Dracula and Willie

As I mentioned this is incredibly stagey, with the cast indulging in high theatrics. There is a streak of comedy through this and I rather enjoyed it for the high camp it represented – despite the bad transfer. It would be nice to get hold of a decent transfer, though I suspect that is unlikely. Still, it is a refreshingly different story despite seeming awfully familiar in places (given its proximity, in many regards, to the Balderstone treatment). The imdb page is here.

Vamp or Not? Sweet, Sweet Lonely Girl

Having upgraded to Blu-Ray, I was giving classic horror Let’s Scare Jessica to Death a re-watch and on the disc was a brief interview with Kim Newman. He mentioned a couple of more modern films that he said owed something (in style) to the aforementioned movie. One was the 2016, A.D. Calvo directed Sweet, Sweet Lonely Girl, a film I had not seen but was available on Shudder.

Now Kim Newman had not suggested a vampire connection and I didn’t watch the film expecting one, but what I got was a great, almost psychosexual, drama with airs of Let’s Kill Jessica but, also, I think a touch a Mario Bava – specifically the section A Drop of Water in Black Sabbath. When I thought about the film, as it reached its conclusion, I realised there might be something vampiric about it. Truthfully, I had already thought about Carmilla during the running time (more in a relationship way than anything else) but to explain why, well I’m going to have to spoil the ending entirely. You’ve been warned.

Erin Wilhelmi as Adele

The film follows Adele (Erin Wilhelmi) and the opening shots follow her during the day in the countryside where she lives and, truthfully, it does paint her as lonely. She lives with her pregnant mom (Lainie Ventura) and her stepfather. Her Aunt Dora (Susan Kellermann) requires a live-in carer and her mom wants her to go. Her reluctance is overcome as we see her in the bathroom and her step-father leering, peeking through a crack. The film hints at abuse. So she moves into town, in to her Aunt's house.

picture of Dora

Aunt Dora does not leave her room, has given her the instructions (written) of always shut the door and no house guests, and has left money for her to buy the groceries she wants. The film does a grand job of generating a feeling of unheimlich, the house itself seems like a snapshot of memory (the film is set in a pre-digital year, Adele has her tape Walkman, telephones are house implements and wired but the house has an older feel still). There is a distinct wind sound when the door is open, that is blocked when closed again. We later discover that Dora is her mom’s step sister and substantially older, that she is agoraphobic (and has a heart condition) she never leaves her room when Adele is near and passes notes under the door. We see a photo of her when young with another girl blurred in the background.

seeing Beth

Shopping Adele spots a woman, with whom she seems immediately fascinated (probably due to her sense of style as much as anything). This is Beth (Quinn Shephard). Later Adele goes to a coffee shop with people but seems out of place and leaves before being served. She goes to a virtually empty diner and orders a soda and a slice, before realising she can’t afford the food and amends her order. Beth is in a booth and pays for the snack, asking Adele to sit with her. She noticed her looking at her in the supermarket. They then meet again whilst Beth is running past the house and invites herself in, despite the no guests rule, breezing past Adele's weak protestations.

Beth and Adele

As the two become closer Adele’s behaviours change. She starts buying cheaper brands for her Aunt, allowing herself the difference in change and, persuaded by Beth, buys off the shelf heart medicine rather than filling her more expensive prescription – this will eventually lead to Dora’s death, which jumps us to the climax of the film. Whilst a relationship is growing, and they do kiss, Adele’s feelings become apparently greater than Beth's, and discovering that she has slept with a (strange to Adele) man, she allows herself to be picked up by a random guy for some absolutely dispassionate sex. The pick up is observed by Beth, though she seems to vanish like a ghost (and Adele has been seeing Aunt Dora, perhaps due to guilt, so there is the chance her appearance was a figment of imagination). Beth then visits her at home entering through the door, which was left open by the man after the hook up.

like an apparition

When Adele saw Beth for the first time at the Supermarket, Beth had a pomegranate and Adele bought one, tried it but gave up trying to extract the seeds. That pomegranate seems to have sat on the table and Beth, as Adele investigates a noise, now eats it voraciously. There is, of course, the association of the pomegranate with death and tricking Persephone into returning to the underworld. Adele ends up hiding in the basement, Beth follows and seems to become a floating apparition. The film cuts forward in time and Adele's sister Dory (Frances Eve), with whom her mother was pregnant, arrives at the house, now a young woman, to look after Adele – who seems to be a prematurely old woman.

prematurely aged

So why do I think this is vampiric. Adele seems much older than she should be, her eyes milky and seems to be in Dora’s place (she sits in her Aunt’s rocking chair). However, as Dory goes through the house, we see the picture of a young Dora (framed, unlike earlier) and the girl in the picture is not blurred and it is clearly Beth. The implication for me is that Beth stole Adele’s youth and vitality (as she did Dora's before her) and is clearly much older than we knew. The fact that she devoured the pomegranate, and descended into the underworld to turn into a corpselike floating apparition that menaced Adele (we only see Adele scream and not the subsequent interaction), is clearly symbolic and all of this would indicate to me that she was an energy vampire – at least that is one reading. And I think it a fair reading for a fascinating, really worthwhile film.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Shudder via Amazon US

On Demand @ Shudder via Amazon UK

Blood (2022) – review

Director: Brad Anderson

Release date: 2022

Contains spoilers

This one vexed me, with high production values and a great main performance this should have been brilliant but there was just something slightly unsatisfying about it. I think it was in the characterisation generally (beyond the primary character) but I guess I’ll sort my feelings out as I type.

Starting with a dead tree that looks almost blasted within a clearing that looks like an eye – we will discover later that this is a pond that has dried up, bar a layer of mud (that remains consistently muddy, apparently), with the tree having been there when there was still water (we see a photo of it) and the tree has no foliage and burn damage around a tree hollow.

Michelle Monaghan) as Jess

Jess (Michelle Monaghan) and her kids, Tyler (Skylar Morgan Jones) and Owen (Finlay Wojtak-Hissong), are moving in to her parents’ old farm. She is recently split from Patrick (Skeet Ulrich) – who has a new kid with ex-nanny Shelly (Danika Frederick) and has left him with the house. He is suing for custody of the kids and she, a doctor, has recently come out of rehab for the use of (what sounds like sedative) drugs. She does still have a job at the hospital and the relations between them doesn’t sound great.

Owen and Pip

Owen seems to have a devil may care attitude (we see him, despite Tyler’s protestations, jump from a barn into hay) and this worries Jess as she fears that she’ll lose custody. They have a dog, Pip, and he seems to be wary of something in the woods. One day Tyler and Owen go fishing but find that the pond has dried up. Pip runs into the pond, towards the tree and Owen, chasing him, gets stuck in mud and has to be rescued by Tyler. At night Pip barks at something out there and then runs off into the night.

drinking blood

Owen is convinced Jess doesn’t care (because dad got him the dog), though that doesn’t seem to be the case, but when the dog comes back under his own steam, its eyes sort of glowing, she is unable to prevent him attacking Owen (trying to drag him off and savaging his neck). She has to kill the dog to save the boy, who then ends up in hospital. He seems to come round, eats something and then fits soon after. Subsequently Jess is witness to him, having come round from his second collapse and removed his own incubator, taking the plasma from a drip and drinking it. She quickly associates him remaining healthy with blood drinking and manages to steal some plasma before taking him home.

Skylar Morgan Jones as Tyler

Unfortunately, he wants more than she has, and the hospital has realised that some went missing and has beefed security. He fits from animal blood, prefers it warm and she ends up kidnapping a cancer patient (June B. Wilde) (who had tried to kill herself but had discovered a new fight for life before being taken) to feed her son. Tyler, not being stupid, also gets drawn into this and Jess is suspected as being back on meds as she fatigues herself by giving her own blood also. More and more it isn’t enough though…

feeding

So it is a “how far will a mother go for her child” plus a “child vampire” film. As he loses control, he becomes feral and one of the issues I had is that, beyond Jess, all the characters seemed two dimensional. Even Helen, the cancer patient, who should be our character to root for was two dimensionally written and so her 'road to Damascus' not wanting to die was a bit meh. Another issue was around what it was that caused this? We never discover – though Tyler associates it with the tree hollow we never know if that is true (and certainly something was there in the woods near the house for Pip to sense). Owen is simply 'little kid going feral at times', and I would have liked to see him calculatingly evil.

looking a bit zombie

Michelle Monaghan carries this, her character has depth and we understand her turmoil but the rest of the film falls a little flat. Its not that it is bad, and the production values are decent as I mentioned, it is just that it could have been a whole lot more and there could have been a genuinely creepy kid and some genuinely interesting lore. Instead we just get mention of anaemia, Owen’s eyes developing tapetum lucidum and him looking (frankly) a bit zombie when he becomes hungry and going feral. 5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Blood Herring – review

Author: E H Drake

First Published: 2023

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: Enjoy this fast paced mystery with an all new spin to vampire lore.

Why did the vampires hide for so long?

It's been three years since the massacres and Detective Gabriel Collins still doesn't know the answer. They took everything from him and he'll never know why. Until finally, Gabe has his chance. A real vampire murder, a chance to put one of the blood suckers away. But when a vampire saves his life, Gabe doesn't know what to think.

How can he work with one of the monsters responsible for all his suffering?

Lily just wants to know why a vampire drug is flooding Portland. The last thing she needs is to cross paths with the police. But when her identity is exposed to the vampire detective, she's forced to keep her enemy closer.

Will they be able to save their city or will their own biases ruin everything?

The review: This is a first book in a series, with a feel of urban fantasy, though the only supernaturals we meet are vampires. Set in a world where three years before there was, suddenly, a series of massacres when vampires announced their existence by slaughtering people (the Portland massacre being an attack on a mall). This has changed the face of the world. Police forces have set up Vampire Police Bureaus in the force to hunt down vampires and all vampire related entertainment, be that films or books, have been banned.

The cops have little to go on, however, everything the humans know is muddied by the tropes from media. For instance, Gabe (one of the two main characters and VPB detective) believes that a stake in the heart will kill a vampire – but it is actually ineffective. In this world it is the brain that must be destroyed (or severed from the body, one assumes). Rather they find themselves dealing with vampire wannabes and copycats, sometimes seizing contraband media, Renfields (those humans pledged to a vampire and given vampire blood) and, mostly, human killers disguising their murders as vampire kills to try and elude arrest.

What Gabe doesn’t know is that there is a hierarchical society of vampires – the Court, headed by a queen – and it was not the Court that committed the atrocities, rather a rogue group of vampires who believe that they should rule, control and farm the humans. Part of the Court is Lily, a PI and vampire who is sent by the Court to investigate the distribution of Cheri Coke – cocaine cut with vampire blood. This overlaps into a real case Gabe is investigating and they end up crossing paths, she saving his life with her blood, even after she discovered that he is one of the rare humans immune to a vampire’s hypnotic powers. He discovers that the foundation of his beliefs might be wrong – that all vampires are not necessarily evil – and have to re-evaluate where he stands.

The book alternates from a chapter from Gabe’s point of view and then a chapter from Lily’s. The author offers each their own voice, essential as the chapters are first person, and this makes for a good reading experience. The writing, generally, is crisp and the story works well.

Some of the lore we get is that, as mentioned, vampire blood can heal and also makes a person temporarily immune to the vampire mind control, adding years to their lifespan, but there has to be intent involved to turn. A sire and their prodigy have a psychic tether between them that activates when the sire is in danger. Vampires are allergic to silver but the way it works is interesting, they cannot properly metabolise it and so their body tries to break it down but it ends up in the brain, causing seizures and eventually death. Sunlight is a slow methodology to kill a vampire, causing bad sunburn rather than immolation that the vampire’s body heals and thus prolonged exposure uses up energy reserves.

A good, strong start to the series that I can only see being built on. 7.5 out of 10.

In Paperback @ Amazon US

In Paperback @ Amazon UK

Short Film: Vampire Story

Directed by Gary J Byrnes, this 2013 short comes in at 8:30 and is a very stylised piece that chooses imagery over direct narrative – though the film does have a story to tell across its short length.

Set in modern-day Dublin, the film follows a writer (Philip English) of vampire stories, who for 100-years has written but been rejected. It becomes apparent that this was not always the case and he was once a successful writer who gave the world… Dracula. We also see him discovered and hunted, whilst getting a new identity through the bank (the implication, of course, that the bank fronts vampires is one that fits the idea of the vampire as capitalism).

bite

The film leans heavily into the imagery, as I mentioned, but also the soundtrack that dominates the frames. True, Philip English looks nothing like Bram Stoker but I think we can forgive the filmmakers that conceit as this is definitely a love letter, placing Stoker at the heart of the genre his novel dominates.

At the time of writing, I could not find an IMDb page.

The Vampire Next Door – review

Director: Myles Gaia

Release date: 2022*
*Date based on YouTube posting

Contains spoilers

This film, written and directed by Myles Gaia, is astounding for it being an amateur production, shot on iPhone and released as a feature on YouTube. The skill that has gone into it, for a film made clearly with so little, cannot be underestimated. If nothing else, and there is plenty more, the cleverness demonstrated as the film works around its lack of budget deserves applause.

That is not to say that it is perfect – it isn’t. But it is an entertaining film that manages to do more than many distributed films.

Kaylee Thompson as Evelyn

It starts with an interpreted lift from Nosferatu - specifically the words from the Book of the Vampires regarding the source of vampirism being the seed of Belial. We then get a voice over from Evelyn (Kaylee Thompson), who speaks of what a lifetime is and of her hunting the night (where her victims tend to consist of the homeless or low-lives). She is walking along the road when a car pulls over and John (Myles Gaia) offers her a ride. As he drives, he discovers they live on the same road.

the werewolf

The film then goes back in time to 1723. Evelyn is an orphan (her father recently died, her mother died in childbirth) who now lives with her Aunt and Uncle in France. She develops reciprocated affections for a young man named Jean (Myles Gaia). He then tells her that he has to leave the area, though in truth he sequesters himself in a barn – I am assuming not too far from the village – and, as the moon turns full, turns into a werewolf. The film is not forthcoming on how he was cursed, its not his story, but I did wonder whether the filmmakers had a connection to the beast of Gevaudan in mind. That night Evelyn has left the house to draw and her Aunt and Uncle search for her and the werewolf gets them.

first feed

Distraught, Evelyn takes herself into the forests where legends suggest there are creatures with powers and they are, of course, vampires. Sensing her desire for revenge she is turned – interestingly they mention that she must reject all that is good. At first she starves herself until she can no longer stand it and feeds from a young girl. Eventually she faces the beast that killed her family and, of course, when it dies it becomes Jean. She removes a corpse from its coffin in a crypt, takes the wedding dress it was buried in and lies in the coffin – sleeping until the early 19th century. After which she moves over to the New World.

meeting Jo

The film does an excellent job of showing the passing of time and, by the early 20th Century she meets a vampire named Josephine (Kayle Workman). Jo teaches her, amongst other things, English and, when we get to hear their ages, is a younger vampire than Evelyn. However, she has much less regard for human lives than the older (and somehow more innocent) vampire and this will eventually bring them into conflict – a conflict that will resolve in the 1989 primary setting of the film.

cross

The vampires are pretty traditional; they avoid sunlight and a stake through the heart or beheading will kill. The dead vampire will burn up. They also need invitation to enter a home and are warded and injured by crosses. This makes Evelyn’s choice to carry the cross jean gave her, albeit wrapped in fabric, telling. There is a theme, of course, of reincarnation underpinning the story. What I won’t do, for this free to watch movie, is give it a score. I will say, however, that I have seen much (and substantially) worse. It can be found on YouTube.

At the time of writing there was no IMDb page.

Let the Right One In – Season 1 – review

Director: Various

First Aired: 2022

Contains spoilers

Some time ago I wrote an article for online magazine Vamped entitled Defending Abby: Nothing Wrong with ‘Let the Right One In’ Remakes. It addressed the unjustified, in my opinion, vitriol Let Me In received – a film I still feel is one of the best vampire films ever made and superior to the also superb Swedish film Let the Right One In.

I also addressed the hate a proposed TV adaptation was getting, sight unseen. Indeed so sight unseen that I do not believe that this adaptation is the one they talked of at that point, rather that this is so far removed, time-wise, it is a different adaptation. I still believe that there is room for more adaptations of the book and I believe that a series that took not only the vampire premise, but also some of the real world horror addressed in the novel, would be one of the darkest TV series ever made.

peeking out the case

This adaptation is not that and, unfortunately, I think that this adaptation draws very short of what it should be. Indeed, it took me a while to get through the series as it failed to hold my attention and, though late to the show, I was far from surprised when I heard that it had been cancelled before I finished watching it. Now I do not believe that an adaptation has to embrace all from the source material, especially when the timeframe and location are radically changed, but there were some elements of this where the choices were ill-conceived and it was worse for it.

Madison Taylor Baez as Elanor

So, our Eli/Abby character is now Elanor (Madison Taylor Baez), who was 12 when turned. However, that turning took place only 10-years before. This means that she is not the vampire of great, but undetermined, age of the two films. I realise the book keeps her mentally at the age of turning so there was no need to play the character older, but the short time frame didn’t gel. More so because her companion Mark (Demián Bichir) is actually her father. The predatory nature of the Håkan character of the book and to a degree the Swedish film, and the grooming of her companion, which the US film explicitly suggested, are gone. As she is Mark’s daughter, we know that the gender queering/trans element that was in the book (and shown in a “blink and miss it” moment in the Swedish release, whilst virtually lost in the US film) has been totally removed.

Ian Foreman as Isaiah

The Oskar/Owen character is now Isaiah (Ian Foreman) and whilst bullied, like his counterparts, he has none of the internal darkness that the other incarnations had (in fact quite the opposite). Nor does he fight back against the bullies, with Elanor’s guidance. Rather she swoops in and solves the bullying with a quick confrontation and broken finger early in the season. Isaiah’s father (Ato Essandoh) is a recovering junky (and active pusher) who goes missing (murdered) early in the season and his mother an homicide cop (Anika Noni Rose) who happens to be working a case of brutal, animalistic attacks.

vampire ape

These attacks are by junkies who are using a new drug that gives them some vampiric side effects – with the inventor (Claire Logan) using it to fund herself as she searches for a cure for vampirism for her brother (Jacob Buster). The idea of vampire-like drugs has been done before, of course, and the idea that this vampirism is a virus didn’t sit well with the supernatural elements (like needing to be invited, which still causes haemorrhages if it doesn’t happen). The vampires burn in sunlight, which again feels rather supernatural given the ferocity of the blaze (this is an inferno, not extreme sunburn) and do not seem to be able to self-heal. The vampire-like drug-users seem to be forgotten really quite early on in the season but we do get vampire apes (though not much more than them being interesting window dressing as they are lab animals). The first half of the season has two timelines out of kilter and doesn’t tell you until they converge but that was not a massive issue.

crispy vampire

The series just didn’t work well for me – for instance Demián Bichir is a fine actor but the character’s actions (which have been occurring for 10-years) are utterly at odds with his Catholic sensibilities and guilt (made manifest towards the end of the season by the hallucinations of a mocking Catholic priest (Michael Patrick Thornton)). The father/daughter dynamic is meant to be a public display, reversed in private, but it was the actual relationship. Overall, the worst thing is, I just didn’t care for the characters… at all. 4 out of 10 is generous. It might help if you can divorce it from the source, but it wasn’t like one of those vehicles that are nothing like the source but still brilliant, and it certainly showed an abject failure to understand what made the source so powerful. I still say a decent TV adaptation would be welcome – although this might have put a nail in that coffin for a while.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK