Honourable Mention: Last Goodbye

As I like to say, vampires get everywhere and they are the first thing we see in this 2004 film, directed by Jacob Gentry… almost. We actually first see a woman in a warehouse and get the sounds of bats. A man comes at her, grabbing her neck and pushing her to a wall. “Give in to the pleasures of the night,” he snarls as his fangs become apparent before he is staked from behind.

The woman’s rescuer is Jade (Clementine Ford), a vampire slayer who then fights several vampires with moves that include a double dusting. It’s all very impressive but as the camera pans so far out that we see that this is on a TV screen and being shown in a bar. The actress playing Jade is Agnes Shelby and she is one of the primary characters in this exploration of several interconnected lives including a drunk office worker (Christopher Rydell), a rock band, a teenage runaway (Sara Stanton) and a drunken evangelical (David Carradine, Killer X, Sundown: the Vampire in Retreat & the Last Sect).

a double kill

The show is not the focus for the story, in many respects it isn’t even the focus for Agnes’ story, but it does come on a few times through the film and we discover that the character Jade may well be a vampire slayer but she is also a vampire herself and that the evil vampire Victor (Justin Welborn, Psychopathia Sexualis & Siren) is trying to get her to turn on the humans and work with him, claiming he loves her. Too bad he killed her parents. So that is that – perhaps a tad more than a fleeting visitation and, in terms of the world we are in, literally acting like a vampire in a TV show. The actual film is an interesting, non-linear, narratively strange slice of several peoples lives and the ties that bind them.

The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon US

On DVD @ Amazon UK

The Bend (Dime Novel Dreadfuls #1) – review

Author: J.H. Kimbrell

First published: 2022

Contains spoilers

The blurb: Arizona Territory, 1888 - The train doesn't stop in Mica Bend anymore. The silver mines are played out and the post office is about to close, but there are still people. People who will not be missed if they disappear. A small western town going ghost is an ideal buffet for a clan of vampires working their way across the southwest.

Recently widowed and grieving, town marshal Hiram Wells is confounded after two prisoners are found brutally and bizarrely murdered in his own jail. Then body parts are discovered half-buried in the desert near town and his oldest daughter goes missing, driving Hiram on a desperate search for answers that may lie in the pulp stories his children love to read. With time running out, Hiram finds himself caught in a war with an ancient enemy, his resolve utterly tested and his humanity at stake.

The review: Vampires and the Wild West – it has been done but there is plenty of scope in the concept and I’m pleased to see that this novel flexes well within that scope and creates a satisfying read that feels authentic to the Wild West genre as well as the vampire megatext.

Mica Bend is a town that is dying and the mayor invites a theatrical troupe to the town in order to boost morale. The troupe are, of course, vampires and their thralls and the invitation to the town reminded me of Salem’s Lot, as did the attack on the town generally – though the vampires are not for making a whole bunch of vampires and that was a divergence point. That is not to say that this apes the famous King novel, just that the attack on a town and invitation overtone (explicit in this) brought the older book to mind.

It is within the desire to not create other vampires that we can start looking at the lore. The vampirism is a (supernatural) disease and if someone is bitten then they contract that disease, this stage of turning (whether it be a survivor, a victim killed or if diseased flesh is eaten by a scavenger such as a coyote) the vampires call the pestilence. If left to run its course it will turn the infected into a revenant, mindless and instinct driven. The infected blood of the pestilence is black and we see a vampire cleanse themselves of such blood that has got on them by facing sunlight. A noble (the main, intelligent vampires) can intervene before the pestilence fully consumes a victim and ensure they are blooded – drink the blood of a noble – to properly turn them. Equally a human can be fed the noble blood to make them a thrall and this gives extended life.

The thralls can go out into sunlight and step on holy ground, which the vampires and revenants cannot – the sunlight was interesting. Given the theme of penny dreadfuls within the story (which is where some of the lore is garnered from in text) sunlight shouldn’t be an issue (having not been introduced to the megatext then). I’d have forgiven the conceit anyway, sunlight being such a cornerstone now, but the author addressees this and makes it clear that the sunlight bit isn’t in the pulp fiction of the time. The impact of religious things (hallowed ground, crosses and holy water) is tied to the energies such things produce. The vampires can move with extreme speed, turn to mist, control weather and transform – in particular we see transformation into an owl (specifically a strix). They have a really strong line in eye mojo and we get the story touching on a wider world and a conflict within the vampire society.

The prose is very strong, with Kimbrell creating a believable world with strong characters and a story that does hold you. The historical accuracy of the Wild West world is something I can’t speak to but it felt authentic from the point of view of someone whose knowledge is garnered from the films set in the Old West, and given the novel grounds itself within media this seems fitting. This is a good read, a strong entry in the vampire/Wild West sub-genre and certainly worth your time. 8 out of 10.

In Paperback @ Amazon US

In Paperback @ Amazon UK

What we Do in the Shadows – Season 4 – review

Director: Various

First aired: 2022

Contains spoilers

The fourth season of What We Do carries directly on from the events at the end of Season 3 – if you have not watched that season yet then this review will absolutely spoil season 3 and I suggest you watch it before reading. My reviews of the other seasons can be read on the following pages: Season 1, Season 2 & Season 3.

Nandor's holiday snap

The end of Season 3 was all change for the vampire housemates living on Staten Island. Energy Vampire Colin Robinson (Mark Proksch) reached his 100th birthday and died – a fate that befalls energy vampires, it seems. A depressed Nandor (Kayvan Novak) decides to leave to see the world and Nadja (Natasia Demetriou) is promoted by the Vampiric Council and given a position in England. Laszlo (Matt Berry, Snow White and the Huntsman) is meant to travel with her but in the last minute he bundles Guillermo (Harvey Guillén) into the shipping crate – meaning he misses his rendezvous with Nandor – and returns to the house, as he has found a baby that has crawled out of Colin’s chest (and has Colin’s face).

the guide, Nadja and Laszlo

Any thought of how the show would deal with the disparate locations is soon lost as the season starts a year on and the housemates have all returned home – to a house that has fallen to wrack and ruin under the stewardship of Laszlo (the laziest vampire in the world, according to Nandor). Colin Robinson is now a toddler. This season belongs mostly to Colin and to Nadja – though all the housemates get their moments. Nandor discovers he is in possession of a Djinn (Anoop Desai) lamp, for instance, and starts using wishes to set himself up for a wedding (starting by resurrecting his human brides to see who would be best to marry again).

Colin the child performer

Nadja, frustrated by not being listened to in England – especially about starting a vampire nightclub – converts the Staten Island vampiric council chambers into a nightclub and, with the help of the Guide (Kristen Schaal, Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant) and a workforce of wraiths, runs said club to various levels of success. The storyline proved the funniest and Nadja was bob on through the series. Intertwined through this is Colin Robinson becoming a child performer – apparently vampires love child performances for no explainable reason – under the tutelage of his guardian/manager Laszlo.

Matt Berry as Laszlo

The Robinson storyline was fun but, more, it offered an opportunity for Mark Proksch to extend his range as the energy vampire goes through growth spurts and displays different temperaments to the energy vampire we’re familiar with. There was also scope for celebrity cameos such as Sofia Coppola, Thomas Mars and Jim Jarmusch as themselves. The issue the series is, thus far, avoiding is falling into laziness. Sometimes, as a comedy show goes on, I find that the writers fall back on gags and catchphrases that have worked previously. Some of that is unavoidable, of course, but some is lazy and just lowers the quality. WWDitS, thus far, is managing to keep itself fresh whilst keeping the characters front and centre. 7 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Short Film: Drifters

This was a film released in 2010 and was directed by Alexander Hoggard. As the viewer watches it you can pick up themes that owed a debt to both the Lost Boys and Near Dark within its roughly 20-minute running time.

It begins with a car, driven by Chris (Eric Hardman), moving through the US landscape. He stops at a bar and grill, goes to the bar and orders a whisky and whatever is on tap. Spotting a girl, later revealed to be Nikki (Taressa Costello), he goes over to speak to her but she blanks him. Just then an altercation begins at the bar.

Eric Hardman as Chris

A patron, Stephen (Alex Heckman), refuses to pay for a drink. The bartender is handling it but Chris goes over, intervenes, and there is a bar fight. Eventually Nikki pulls Chris away from Stephen (whom he seemed to have been punching ineffectually) and out of the bar. She kisses his cheek – a thank you, Stephen was her douche ex-boyfriend. Chris suggests they watch the sunrise but she declines.

 sleeping arrangement

He wakes in his car – his normal sleeping arrangement – and goes into the bar to buy a bottle of water. The barmaid tells him, when asked, that the next town is a 3 hour drive, and suggests that he leave town before sunset. The film then becomes a tad confused by showing a driving sequence but then has him stop with Nikki, Stephen and three others on the road. It becomes apparent later that he is still (or back) in the town but no real answer is given to the narrative cue that leads to the driving sequence seemingly ignored.

Taressa Costello as Nikki

Spokesman for the people before him is Michael and he questions Chris, who in turn asks whether they want him to join them – this was the aspect that felt like it owed a debt to the Lost Boys. He then goes with them to a diner where they terrorise the two patrons and this had more a Near Dark feel (without the gore and visceral atmosphere of the bar invasion scene from that film). Chris does leave the diner, followed by Nikki, and tells her he came for her. Will he get her away from the vampires (especially as he doesn’t seem to have worked out what they are)?

encounter

The vampire genre borrows from itself and cannibalises, so it is perfectly natural that one should see a couple of classic genre films reflected in this. It is clearly made by enthusiastic amateurs – some of the acting definitely needs some work – but it is interesting to see a short where the director is playing with the Americana trope of the road. Unfortunately, it is difficult to explore that in a short but it was a start of the exploration, at least. The film had been on Vimeo to watch but is currently set at private.

The imdb page is here.

Honourable Mention: Ghost in the Water

This BBC production from 1982 was directed by Renny Rye and, first airing on New Years Eve, it was kind of in the mould of the classic Christmas Ghost Stories but was a children’s production. As such it was more a mystery than anything. It had a sense of atmosphere and minor unease for sure but no horror at its heart and it was not made for scares.

It followed schoolgirl Tess (Judith Allchurch) and her friend David (Ian A. Stevens) as they conducted a school local history project and investigated the death of Abigail Parkes (Joanne James) a young Victorian woman who died in what was deemed a suicide. As they investigate Tess starts to dream about Abigail and then see her. It becomes apparent that her death was not what it seemed and that there might be more of a tie between Tess and Abigail then she could have known.

Daniel D'Arcy as Dracula

The vampire aspect is fleeting and actually confirmed by the credits rather than in film. Towards the beginning of the film there is a film shown on TV (clips made for the show, I believe), and we see a figure in a graveyard and a Victorian style funeral in the same location. There is a mention in the dialogue of the living dead but it is the credits that suggest the figure is Count Dracula (Daniel D'Arcy). So, it is a fleeting visitation of a vampire film within the film – my thanks to Kim Newman whose Daily Dracula feature put me onto this.

The imdb page is here.

In Paperback @ Amazon US

In Paperback @ Amazon UK

Sumpah Pontianak – review

Director: B. Narayan Rao

Release date: 1958

Contains spoilers

This is actually the third and final of a series of films about a pontianak and is translated as Curse of the Pontianak. I feel (as I have watched this standalone without having seen the other two films) that this does follow on – you can feel the threads coming through, the taken for granted moments that the earlier films likely addressed – but it is perfectly watchable in its own right. It has some bizarre musical moments (satay song, I’m looking at you) and some truly awful looking creature costumes that have a charm to them nevertheless.

Salmah Ahmad as Maria

It starts with a torch wielding mob pitching up at the village chief’s house but Samad (Mustapha Maarof) calms them, suggesting that the pontianak will not go against her daughter’s wishes. The daughter is Maria (Salmah Ahmad) – the bride of Samad. From what I could gather Chomel (Maria Menado), the pontianak, must have agreed to have a nail in her neck to limit her powers and to leave the place.

Maria Menado as Chomel

We see Chomel, who looks like she has some form of skin condition, approach a grave and speak to the occupant who is her father. She admits that she had used magic to try and make herself look beautiful. The spirit of her father speaks and says it is too late for her, she carries the curse of the pontianak. She hobbles off into the forest and eventually finds a new village where she manages to find work.

Satay song

Maria, however, misses her mother and when she doesn’t appear to her (though she does hallucinate her in her beautiful form), she sneaks off and searches for her. This leads Samad and a group of men from the village to go out looking for her. One of the group is a local satay street vendor and he gets two songs about satay during the film – the first sees him leading a chorus of kids pied piper like through the village. It is truly bizarre.

the pontianak

So there are a few misadventures through the film. Samad splits the group up, going on his own and ends up rescuing Maria from an Orang Hutan who has kidnapped her. The other group reach the village where Chomel has moved to, where livestock and people have been killed. A pontianak is blamed – and the finger pointed at Chomel. It is actually a strange beaked human-sized lizard killing people. During that misadventure Chomel, running from angry villagers, pulls a bamboo stake from the floor and out of a buried corpse, who then comes to life. He was cursed to live pinned to his grave 50-years before and the staking is reminiscent, of course, of western vampire myth. He takes a fancy to Maria and, in a strange costume, steals the popular young woman.

pulling the nail out

To be able to save her daughter Chomel needs her powers and convinces the villagers to pull her nail from her neck. There is some doubt as they do not want her to suck their blood but they agree, though pull it out with a very long piece of string so they are a distance away, and this allows her to take a fanged pontianak form and to fly. The pontianak form looks awful but is also kind of fun, in a B-movie sort of way and that sums up the film.

flying

Not a great piece of cinema, with songs that break pace and an awful comedy character in the form of (and named as) dullard Dol. Yet there is some naïve fun to be had in this. After all, it's 1958 and this is perhaps pathing the way for Malay(/Singapore) creature features of the future. Jamming the various monsters in means it doesn’t allow itself to get boring. I mean, it might be strange but even the first satay song is kinda fun (not all the songs are welcome, however). 4 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

The Corpse Vanishes – review

Director: Wallace Fox

Release date: 1942

Contains spoilers

The poorest of poverty row, The Corpse Vanishes was one of a series of low-quality films that the late, great Bela Lugosi made and, like many of them, his presence does make the film pick up when he is on-screen but I probably wouldn’t ever have watched it were it not for Simon Bacon suggesting it is a vampire movie.

And it is, though Lugosi is not the vampire, rather he is a mad scientist and it is his wife, a Countess (Elizabeth Russell), who is the vampire. This is a really early example of a vampire, created by science whose access to the essence she needs for her vampirism is supplied by a scientist.

Sandy and Pat

It starts with a wedding and, just after saying “I do” the bride collapses dead. At the scene is social column reporter Pat Hunter (Luana Walters) and her photographer Sandy (Vince Barnett). The body is taken to a hearse, in the back of which is Bela – later revealed to be Dr Lorenz. The hearse drops off one of the men who carried the body to it, the driver paying him off. Back at the church the funeral parlour arrives to take the bride’s corpse and there is a realisation that this is the kidnapping of another dead bride.

Alice and the orchid

Another one – yep, there has been a spate (and all from socialite circles). That doesn’t stop Alice (Joan Barclay) from wanting to marry Dwight. Her mother (Gladys Faye) is less than happy but the DA (Eddie Kane) assures her safety. Before the wedding an orchid is delivered, Alice assumes from Dwight, and she too dies at the altar. The real hearse picks her up but the police escort is distracted by a burning car and the Lorenz hearse does a switcheroo and later, when stopped, the coffin inside contains the ‘corpse’ of Dr Lorenz.

The countess awaits her shot

So Lorenz gets the corpse back to his home where, aided by the strange servant Fagah (Minerva Urecal) and her children, brutish son Angel (Frank Moran) and diminutive son Toby (Angelo Rossitto, Dracula Vs Frankenstein), he prepares the corpse as the Countess cries in agony, urging him to hurry and bitching like a harridan. He extracts something by syringe (implied to be from a gland) and creates a concoction he injects his wife with. She apparently becomes younger – there isn’t much difference to be fair.

Dead brides

So meanwhile Pat finds the orchid (and its strange scent) realises it’s a clue and gets referred to orchid hybridiser… Dr Lorenz. The story gets really quite strange, she meets and falls for Dr Foster (Tristram Coffin) and finds a secret passage whilst they both stay overnight with Dr Lorenz. The Countess, Lorenz himself and Angel have all entered her room through it and she finds both the lab and at least two of the brides (who seem to be in a state of death-like sleep, and if so the question is why he needs so many) but Pat has a habit of fainting at danger and wakes in bed as though nothing happened and Foster can’t remember her speaking to him in the night… because hypnosis!

Bela Lugosi as Dr Lorenz

Equally unlikely is Lorenz reacting to a “sting” wedding when he knows it is a trap and then deciding to kidnap Pat. His downfall comes about mostly because of his mistreatment (read murder and abandonment) of his servants. The vampirism seems to be an actual thing – Foster confirms that, whilst she looks thirty, the Countess has the organs of a seventy year-old. The misogyny is rife too. At first I was impressed with the Pat character, a plucky female reporter taking on her sexist photographer and editor (Kenneth Harlan), whilst tracking down the criminals, but her habit of fainting at the slightest hint of danger and her later willingness to abandon her career for matrimony and suburbia undermines what could have been a great female character for the time.

coffins for two

Bela is, of course, Bela. He’d played the mad scientist before and relied on his presence to carry a naff plot. In a paper I wrote for Palgrave’s Handbook of the Vampire I argue that Lugosi was so deeply associated with the vampire, especially Dracula, that he is a genre trope in his own right. This is not a modern phenomenon, that association was apparent through his career and this may be why Pat, when wandering his night-time house looking for Foster, opens the Lorenz bedroom door to see the couple sleeping side by side in coffins!

All in all, it’s a mess. However, it is a really early science created vampire and it has Bela. It is barely worth 2.5 out of 10 despite that, however.

The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon US

On DVD @ Amazon UK

Honourable Mention: Dead Vision

This feature (at a few seconds over 60 minutes) by director Kavan Mulvey was released in 2021 and is getting an Honourable Mention (rather than a scored review) as you can watch it for free on YouTube (though it does have Troma distribution also). It is seriously zero budget and has some of the issues one would expect from that (not least sound issues when ambient hiss appears and disappears in a scene depending on shot direction), as well as a glaring anachronism. Nevertheless, it was a first feature effort and it has been made available to watch.

masked persuer

The film starts with a red filter and a girl runs. A man in a vampire mask and cape watches her run past and then appears ahead and stabs her. A cop comes along and he runs at the cop and is shot for his trouble. Cutting to an unfiltered scene and a shifty looking man digs, we later discover it is Sheriff Landis (Jon Korns), until his spade hits metal. He gets a bottle with holy water and pours it over the unearthed relic and it steams. He says that he’ll see them in 5 years.

Caelan McMurchy as Mason

Mason (Caelan McMurchy), long haired and leather jacketed, and Lucas (Ezekiel Lowe) leave school after detention. They’re friends but Mason got them detention when he fired a spit ball at Lucas. From behind comes Derrick (Kavan Mulvey) and his girlfriend Neve (Courtney Wise). He knocks the books from Lucas’ arms and queries why Mason would hang out with someone like Lucas – it seems Derrick and Mason are on a sports team together. Derrick and Neve are picked up by Kayla (Kayla Carter), who Lucas is attracted to (and it's mutual). Mason and Lucas goes back to Lucas’ house to play video games.

TV anachronism

Now for the anachronism. Lucas plays Nintendo, clearly quite an old one, and later shows he has a Walkman. The setting of the film would seem to be eighties (and thus neatly sidesteps why none of them have mobile phones) but we later get a breaking news item on a very contemporary flat screen TV! Anyhow, Mason leaves to go home but is chased by the man in mask/cloak and, eventually, brained and his spirit runs off.

Ezekiel Lowe as Lucas

Lucas, the next morning, encounters said spirit and freaks. After calming down they decide to solve his murder (as far as the police and his parents are concerned he is missing, as there is no body, though the Sheriff knows more than he is letting on). The kids we have seen so far either appear as ghosts to each other, if they are killed, or can see the ghosts. As they are all connected. Mason and Lucas find a (conveniently dropped by the killer) stone with a symbol on it and, as the library is shut, ask a random goth what it means. She knows that it is a curse that is part of a ritual for immortality involving the sacrifice of five kids.

Mac McMurchy as Drake

The vampire Drake (Mac McMurchy) is pulling the strings of the ritual, the killer is his minion. It was these two the sheriff had sealed with holy water but one wonders how it is that vampires, who can return from being nothing but bones, need to have a ritual to gain immortality. However they are effected by garlic and holy water and can die by stake through the heart and their motivation is best not looked at too deeply. There are five curse stones, one for each kid, and they can be used to (it would seem) devour the spirits once the kid is murdered.

Master and servant

So this is very amateur, the cast are kind of like rabbits trapped in headlights at times but everyone has to start somewhere. Given the lack of budget a decapitation effect was a very brave choice. Ok it looks rubbish but it was brave. There is a nice play on Lucas speaking to Mason and most people thinking he is talking to himself. This isn’t the greatest film but you aren’t paying to watch it so it is easy to cut the film and its creators some slack and it may well be just the first faltering step on a path that they’ll soon start to navigate with more confidence.

The imdb page is here.

Short Film: Wake Up

Wake up is a five-minutes-long stylised vampire short directed by Busarin Phukhang and is a silent piece. It starts with a girl walking into a coffee shop and meeting a friend. There is dialogue but it is lost, muffled deliberately. Suddenly the girl is walking backwards as the film goes into reverse taking her out of the shop. Perhaps it is memory, perhaps a dream? Whichever we see a white car parked before she sits with her mobile phone looking at the screen.

fangs

We see her in the dark sat in the open door of the car. She takes out a cigarette but someone approaches and takes it from her. They climb into the car and we see it is another girl. The first is leant against the new girl and they appear to be lovers but lips part, she leans to the prone neck and fangs are revealed. As for how this will end, the clue is in the title.

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

Fangs Out – review

Director: Dennis Devine

Release date: 2023

Contains spoilers

This is a low to no budget vampire flick that had a kernel of a good idea, in broad brush, but then spoilt it with poor effects, juvenile humour, lacklustre performances and some really silly ideas. That said, it is potentially a (one off) watch with mates and booze flick.

The film starts with a woman, Brenda (Charity Rahmer), in the woods and wearing a hospital gown, it seems something/one is following her. Suddenly Mariangela (Desiree Alexandra Estrada) jumps out at her and Brenda begs for her to let her go. Brenda is stabbed. Elsewhere a woman speaks to her daughter about what a beautiful day it is, but it soon becomes apparent that the daughter has a gun trained on her. Cop, Lee (Randy Oppenheimer, Blood Moon Rising, Arise of the Snake Woman & Amityville Vampire), takes the shot and shoots the gun out of her hand. Mother and daughter make up instantly and turn on Lee for taking the shot.

the gang

Four college friends are off on a road trip, with a difference. They are heading to an area off grid, where they will get directions at a bookstore that will take them over the border (to Mexico) where Dr. Pavor (Samuel Code) runs a black-market plastic surgery clinic. Of the friends, Skylar (Marlene Mc'Cohen, The Boneyard Collection, Vampire Boys & Vampire Boys 2: The New Brood) wants breast augmentation, Allana (Heidi Hemlock) does porn and wants her vagina tightening and her boyfriend (Brian Easter Jr.) wants a penis enlargement. The fourth friend, Madison (Stacy Aung) thinks it is a bad idea but is going to support Skylar.

Veronica Ricci as Nurse Anna

Suffice it to say that all is not as it seems and Dr Pavor, along with Nurse Anna (Veronica Ricci, also Arise of the Snake Woman) are vampires. There is something odd going on with Anna as it looks as though she is wearing stark yet patchy, white face-paint (and it is thusly remarked upon in dialogue) but it was actually the result of a punishment for being greedy meted out by Dr Pavor. Mariangela is also a nurse but is the human servant who can go out in the day. Lee is drawn in as his daughter, Faye (Jessie Vane), is a prisoner in the clinic. It did seem strange that it took Lee’s Ex calling him for him to listen to the plea for help voicemail from his daughter, but nevermind.

tattooed cross

So the idea is Pavor does the surgery (which involves blood flow manipulation rather than implants) but what he actually does is change them so they overproduce altered blood and are farmed. If there is no farming then the excess blood will kill them. Strangely the altered blood is sold to the cartel (as you do) as humans can get buzzed on it and it is addictive. I mentioned at the head that the idea was initially good (vampire run plastic surgery clinic) but went silly (the over-production of addictive, narcotic blood). However, there were some good moments too, one of the best being a tattoo of a cross acting as a cross – not necessarily original but it worked. Less so was the idea that the person with the tattoo had been blessed so often by nuns that their blood was like holy water!

in sunlight

The effects really were shoddy – being destroyed by sunlight was done in CGI modelling that didn’t even try for realism. The locations were clearly limited and so the operating theatre was a room with drapes over the walls to hide what the location actually was. But I can’t be too cruel. I don’t think this would get multiple watches by most and most on the first watch will hate it. But, if you like low budget horror it has a charm and, in a group, with enough beverages, this could prove fun. 3 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Dampyr – review

Director: Riccardo Chemello

Release date: 2022

Contains spoilers  

A comic book film, this is based on the long running Italian Dampyr series and, for the most part, it looks pretty darn slick (there is an exception to this, which I’ll come to). However, for those not immersed in the comics already, I suspect the story will feel just a tad underplayed.

It starts in an undefined point of time in the past and three crone like midwives attend a woman (Madalina Bellariu Ion) in labour. One looks through the window (for a second a flash reveals her as younger) and says *he* is coming. The *he* is a rider coming through the forest, Draka (Luke Roberts, Dracula: The Dark Prince & Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities – the Autopsy). The crone casts a spell of protection in blue, the vampire lord (for that is what he is) sends power outwards in red. The mother is bleeding heavily and dies in childbirth and the vampire wants his son. The witches (for that is what they are) weather his mystic storm and tell him they will raise the baby until he is old enough to choose.

Kurjak arrives

Of course, he is a dampyr, the son of a vampire father and human mother but before we meet his adult self, we are in the Balkans in the 1990s, as war tears the region apart. We meet a Commander, Kurjak (Stuart Martin) as Walk on the Wild Side plays. He leads an advance vehicle into a town but the town is deserted except for bodies. As they examine them, they seem odd, bereft of blood. One of my issues was here. The faces of the dead seem to have been post-production touched up, perhaps to give them an uncanny feel, but it doesn’t look great to me. Similarly with the vampires when they get ‘vamp face’ – that looks a bit rubbish too. These visual effects are the exception to the general slickness, that I mentioned.

victim

The church seems to have a pile of bodies within and Kurjak orders them buried. Before that a surviving old man appears and raves about getting the dampyr but a soldier shoots him. That night a couple of guards hear a woman, Tesla (Frida Gustavsson), asking for help as she comes down the street. As one approaches her, her claws come out and she attacks him. Gun fire brings the other soldiers out (a full convoy met the advance vehicle) and several die at the hands of a group of vampires. In the morning Lazar (Radu Andrei Micu, Bloodrayne) tells Kurjak he knows who the dampyr is and gets sent to get him.

Lazar and Harlan

In the meantime, we have already met Harlan Draka (Wade Briggs) and his manager Yuri (Sebastian Croft, Penny Dreadful) who drive from village to village "saving" them from vampires. Sometimes it is clinging to a graveyard gate and reciting nonsense that they sell as words of power and others he actually has to stake a corpse. Harlan does not believe in vampires and the inference is he was called a dampyr by the kids in his village (where Lazla grew up also). As he was meant to have been raised by the witches this seems slightly off.

Tesla biting

Anyway, he is found and taken at gunpoint to the town where he is left outside at night and approached by Tesla but she smells something wrong with his blood. Another vampire slashes his chest and the vampire's hand starts to melt (Harlan’s blood is like acid to vampires). Killing a vampire causes the master vampire, Gorka (David Morrissey), to telepathically recall the vampires – except for Tesla who he orders to stay and watch the dampyr. The soldiers, in the morning, desert and subsequently are captured by Gorka, along with Yuri. Harlan, Kurjak and Tesla go after Gorka (though Tesla is the master vampire’s creature).

sunlight exposure

So the master vampires are called Lords of the Night – they can walk in sunlight, procreate (and create dampyrs), create other vampires and have loads of groovy magical powers. The ordinary vampires are slaves to them, and subject to being possessed by their Master’s will, and burn in sunlight. The dampyr’s blood is like acid (as mentioned) and bleeding on bullets make them vampire killing implements (don’t over think how that works when using a fully automatic rifle spitting out bullets and he’s only bled on a handful). The dampyr has the ability to fast heal, they age slowly and he seems to have an untapped reserve of powers that will emerge in the future.

Gorka

The background around Harlan feels empty as there seems to be more set up for a series than answered in this (especially around Draka). I was disappointed with David Morrissey’s Gorka – normally a fine actor the evil vampire didn’t project much in the way of menace. Most of the characters were woefully 2-dimensional. However, I did like the film as a comic book action film. The larger, more mystic effects worked well, it was just that post-production touching up – especially of faces – that let that side of the house down. All in all, this was not too bad as a take your brain out comic book film and the setting worked in its favour – though it probably works better if you know the original comics. 6 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK