Nundead – review

Director: Donald Farmer & ors.

Release date: 2023

Contains spoilers

This is an anthology film, as well as a nunsploitation, and the IMDb page lists a whole load of directors including schlock meister Donald Farmer. Given that the segment I’m reviewing this for was recycled into (I assume, though this could be the recycled piece) Farmer’s flick Debbie Does Demons then I assume he was responsible for the segment.

stake

After an opening with a medieval warrior carrying a pendant, running through woods and finished off in a stream by (revealed to be vampire) nuns, the segment begins with a couple undergoing (and truthfully, it does seem undergoing is the correct descriptor) couple’s therapy. The therapist is a dick, no two ways about it, but he has a plan. He is so horrible to his clients that they see the good in each other! Anyway, after the session a woman (the therapist's ex-wife, it would seem) comes in and there is no love lost between them. However, she says that their son is missing. He was convinced that vampires ran a brothel and went to investigate he has not come back.

got by the nuns

She takes his enthusiasm for wanting to find their son as a reaction to the word brothel… but it seems he is a vampire hunter, he puts on priest’s vestments, grabs a stake and a book – with the pendant from the opening – and off he pops to the brothel. The brothel is the Church of Hallowed Holes – which will be used in Debbie Does Demons, and all the footage as he goes in is also in the other film. The vampire leader awakes as the priest is shown round a variety of fetish orientated rooms and then they attack him (he being wholly ineffectual as a hunter) and lob him in a coffin.

demon  nun

He at least asked about his son, though he got no answer. Then a demonic nun appears and starts killing the vampire nuns and eventually gets him out of the coffin, becoming his ex-wife, who then gives him a hug and that’s the segment. No answer about the son, no real story and footage that will be reused. All in all, it’s a damp squib. There is another segment with a nun who claims to feed on life but the actual segment only really shows slasher tropes. So, the score is for the Hallowed Holes segment and it really doesn’t deserve any more than 2 out of 10 – it fails to hold a narrative, we don’t know what the deal is with the wife, the priest/husband is ineffectual and who knows what happened to his son.

The imdb page is here.

Handbook of the Vampire: Blood Is Life. Life Is Blood: The Psychology of Vampirism

Written for Handbook of the Vampire by Nikki Foster-Kruczek and Catherine Pugh the Chapter Page can be found here.

This entry into the Handbook of the Vampire looked into the psychology of vampirism and so like ‘Beyond Humanity’: An Expedition Charting Non-Human Identities did touch into those who identify as vampires, though I felt this had an edge of critical thinking that was less obvious in the other chapter. The authors took a particularly Freudian view of the subject, using the work of Ernest Jones quite extensively. Because of this they looked at arousal through bloodplay, which was noticeably missing in the previous chapter. They also, early in the chapter, posit “clinical vampirism technically does not exist” (3), instead tying the consumption of blood with other fetishes and, later in the chapter, go beyond Freud and look at hemomania, suggesting the need for one’s own blood exhibited with that condition might develop through poor impulse control to a wider need.

What I thought interesting was the take on identity and the idea of narrative identity (defining one’s identity through storytelling). If an individual identifies as other-than-human, then there is difficulty in becoming part of a community and a clash with the typical perception of normality. This underlines the importance of the vampire community for the individual but also indicates why media generated ‘rules’ are adopted into that identity and that the consumption of texts around vampires helps shape the narrative identity and, ultimately, self-identification is the key.

This was a fascinating chapter of the Handbook.

Father Brown: the Dead of Night – review

Director: Carys Lewis

First aired: 2024

Contains spoilers

The programme Father Brown has featured on TMtV before and, like that time, Ian contacted me and told me that the latest episode of the programme had a vampire theme – though more so than last time.

The series is set in 1950s Britain, where the amateur sleuth is a Roman Catholic Priest, the eponymous Father Brown (Mark Williams, Being Human (UK)) and, to be honest, I’ve never watched it after the last episode I featured here.

at the grave

In this we begin with a gentleman, Bernard Ross (Nicholas Woodeson), going through the nighttime graveyard and being spooked by bats. He gets to a grave and screams. Going to a phone box he makes a call and says that she (his daughter (Bethan Leyshon)) has risen as a vampire. The next day Father Brown is preparing for a requiem mass for said daughter when he is told that Ross is refusing to attend – he goes to his home.

crosses

There the door is opened by Gilbert Gallamore (Nicholas Asbury), who is holding a cross (and there is one on the outside of the door also). Father Brown bustles his way in and Ross is convinced that his daughter is a vampire and Gilbert is equally convinced. Before she died, a year before, she had grown pale and ill, she had mood swings and blistered in the sun and eventually she committed suicide. She is buried on hallowed ground because the church deemed her not in her right mind.

Ray Fearon as Silas O'Hagen

Evidence is a desiccated mouse (she’s been draining animals before working her way to humans) and the disturbed earth of her grave. Now… one might have asked why she had only just risen (as she has just started feeding small on mice) but the programme and protagonists do not. Equally, I’d have been concerned about the grave being dug up, if the soil was disturbed and the turf vanished – but the turf is not mentioned. Brown, of course, believes it to be poppycock but things are complicated when Silas O'Hagen (Ray Fearon) shows up, a vampire hunter returned from Romania, and a body appears with apparent fang marks in the neck.

hunter's kit

The episode trades in movie tropes but that’s ok as the setting is late enough that sunlight, for instance, has entered the megatext and public perception. It also uses porphyria but in a way that makes sense and doesn’t try to tie it to folklore or suggest it was known as a vampire disease and actually tie it into the findings around the disease from the 1950s. It also has the vampire hunter selling apotropaic measures to a panicked village which was mildly amusing.

a daughter returned

However, I’m sorry but the episode didn’t do it for me. I guess, as someone not invested in the series, then the series regulars meant very little and I found the figure of Brown sanctimonious (which he may be meant to be). The mystery was a tad vanilla, a moment with the daughter walking the halls was ill-explained (a dream, of course, but the dreamer’s reaction underwhelming). Whilst I know that now the Catholic Church will allow the burial of a suicide, and I don’t know for certain about the time period we are looking at, I found the idea that a 1950s priest knowingly allowed a burial of a suicide on church ground unlikely. Not for me, 4 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On DVD @ Amazon UK

Satanic Hispanics – review

Director: Eduardo Sánchez (segment)

Release date: 2022

Contains spoilers

Another portmanteau film, this one features segments directed by Latinx directors and Hispanic themed stories with a wraparound that sees the Traveller (Efren Ramirez, Constantine: The Saint of Last Resorts) the lone survivor of a massacre.

As the police question him it is revealed that he is an Aztec and an immortal and the segments are the stories he tells the police. This includes the segment we’re interested in, entitled El Vampiro.

Hemky Madera as El Vampiro

Starting at a Halloween party, where there has been a massacre conducted by the vampire (Hemky Madera, From Dusk Til Dawn the Series – season 2). There is one survivor (Missy Merry) and she manages to sneak out of the bar when he goes after her and captures her with mojo – getting her blood on his satin shirt and getting a stain removal pen out to clean it up. A dog walker (Michael C. Williams) sees this and is convinced it is a ‘Halloween prank’.

with Maribel

The vampire is called by his vampire bride, Maribel (Patricia Velasquez). He has snuck out for the slaughter and also forgotten daylight savings time… he has a very short window to get home and the film follows his misadventures across the city – failing to turn into a bat, being attacked by young hoodlums and staked on the wrong side of the chest, trying to mind control two cops and ending up inside a church. The segment is played for laughs.

stake

And as a segment played for laughs it works ok. It isn’t the funniest vampire comedy but it does do it with love, and the segment is perhaps a bit more throwaway than others in the film. The effects are absolutely fine for the segment, with a decent amount of gore, and the bickering with Maribel works really well. It doesn’t shy away from a tragi-comedic ending and it is pretty good, but not mind blowing. With anthologies I score the vampire segment only and this probably rolls in at 5 out of 10, fun but not spectacular – there are more impressive segments in the film.

The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon US

First Impressions: Abigail

So, Number 1 son and I went to see the new big screen vampire release, Abigail. This is from Universal and the opening (and recurring) musical theme in the film is Swan Lake. This, of course, ties the film back to Dracula and I have seen press suggesting this is either a remake of or connected to Dracula’s Daughter. Let me scotch that right now, from its narrative it is not in any way, shape or form related to the 1936 film. Indeed, despite the musical call back, there is nothing in this to suggest that the paternal vampire (for there is a vampire dad (Matthew Goode, A Discovery of Witches) and daughter dynamic here) is Dracula. He is referred to by another name and suggests he has been known by many, but that’s the top and bottom.

the crew

Indeed, the film has a lot more in common – in its basic strokes – with the film Blood Trap. In both films a crew of criminals are gathered to kidnap the daughter of a crime boss and become trapped in a mansion where the daughter is revealed as a vampire. There are differences, of course, the daughter is Abigail (Alisha Weir) in this and she is a child (albeit a notably long-lived child she is not the adult daughter from the earlier film) and the crew take her to a mansion (unbeknownst to them belonging to the crime boss) rather than being trapped in the mansion they sought to kidnap her from as per Blood Trap.

Alisha Weir as Abigail

Characters and plotting are different, of course, and the bottom line of this flick is it is great fun. As for lore, the vampires are incredibly strong, dexterous (especially Abigail who is a ballerina) and she displays the ability to fly. Abigail also displays the ability to puppet control someone she has bitten from a distance. There is a commentary about the age of the vampire being connected to the powers. A head shot doesn’t phase her and death comes about through staking, one vampire draining another and exposure to sunlight. The deaths are wonderfully gory with the vampire exploding across the room, and anything in the way, with bucket loads of blood and viscera.

I’ll revisit Abigail with a review and proper synopsis once it hits home purchase but it is one I’d say is worth catching at the flicks.

The imdb page is here.

Corruption – review

Director: Robert Hartford-Davis

Release date: 1968

Contains spoilers

This is another film where medical processes are used in a vampiric way – this time to restore beauty, which makes it analogous to Atom Age Vampire, indeed like that film the disfigured woman’s scarring is on half her face and like that film the mad doctor undergoes a Jekyll and Hyde like transformation – the difference here being that his transformation is not physically into a monster but mentally through the stress of the position he is in.

leaving theatre

It starts with an operation and the lead surgeon is Sir John Rowan (Peter Cushing) who has completed a monumentally long surgical procedure. He goes home and falls asleep to be woken by the telephone. It his fiancée and model, Lynn Nolan (Sue Lloyd), who reminds him of a party that photographer Mike Orme (Anthony Booth) is throwing. When the couple arrive in the car we can tell it is a May to December relationship and once in the party it is clear that Sir John does not belong in this swinging (sixties) scene.

injury

Mike clearly has a thing for Lynn and spurns another model (Vanessa Howard, the Blood Beast Terror) to photograph her. When he starts encouraging Lynn to undo her dress, suggesting the shots get kinky, Sir John intervenes and the two men fight. A photography light is knocked over, landing on Lynn and badly burning her face. In the hospital the fiancé is told they have saved Lynn’s sight and her distraught sister, Val (Kate O'Mara, the Vampire Lovers) arrives.

scarred

Lynn wakes screaming and Val is by her bedside. She is back home and Val tells Lynn that Sir John is working day and night to find a way to rejuvenate her skin. For her part Lynn, knowing that her modelling career is over and knowing she is now disfigured, simply wants to die, asking for a bottle of pills to be left for her. Sir John, for his part, is irritable given setbacks. Eventually he decides he has found a cure and shows Lynn a Guinee pig he claims to have injured in the way she was and cured.

surgery at home

He goes to the hospital and performs an unauthorised autopsy on a car crash victim stealing her pituitary glands. He is caught by his mentee Steve (Noel Trevarthen) who reluctantly turns a blind eye. At home he has made a surgery theatre with laser medical implement (the film was also released under the title Laser Killer) and operates on Lynn with Val assisting. Whether he transplants the gland (ala The Man In Half Moon Street or makes some form of injection I couldn’t tell, but the surgery also involves cutting scar tissue with both scalpel and laser.

the kill (UK version)

The next scene has a dinner party with Steve attending and Lynn’s face is back to normal. Lynn and Sir John are to go on a cruise but they return early as her face reverts to what it was. Sir John decides it is because he used a dead gland and must use a living one (how long it is deemed ‘living’ is questionable given the violent removal, as we’ll see). This sees him visiting a flat of ill repute and here the film has two versions. The UK and US versions have him visit a prostitute (Jan Waters), there is a bizarre scene of her taking a phone call and discussing clients, him getting cold feet and it all leads to an attack that is mostly unseen. In the continental version the prostitute (Marian Collins) strips and he gets cold feet, she demands payment and he begins a frenzied attack. In both cases he cuts her head off. All three versions are on the Indicator Blu-Ray.

Peter Cushing as Sir John Rowan

Long and short, the “living” gland also degrades but slower and Lynn demands another operation before the scarring returns. However, it is Cushing’s deranged attacks on victims that makes quite a ludicrous narrative (which includes a home invasion by criminal beatniks – or British cinema approximations of such, a most audacious train carriage murder/decapitation, and a mass laser killing) watchable. Cushing offers a superb performance, from suave to manic, with regret, shock and pathos. He makes this worth watching. Sue Lloyd likewise offered a chillingly sociopathic performance. There is an undercurrent of misogyny to the murders, which matched the cinema poster tagline “Corruption is not a woman’s picture”. The coda scene fails to hit the mark but I won’t spoil it, nevertheless 5 out of 10 for a superb Cushing performance.

The imdb page is here.

On Blu-Ray @ Amazon US

On Blu-Ray @ Amazon UK

Short Film: Nosferatu Rising

This is a short film that director Sean Genders released in 2018 and comes in around he 7-minute mark. I have to thank friend of the blog and correspondent Billy for making me aware of it.

There is not too much to say about this one, after an establishing castle and bats shot, we see four vampire hunters enter the castle and an Orlock styled vampire, credited as Nosferatu (Jac Charlton), high above them.

Inside the castle is a captive woman (Elena Renn) and the hunters have come to save her. They carry pretty steampunk inspired weaponry, for instance a steam powered stake thrower and an illuminated holy water squirter. The vampire has the keys to her manacles, of course. The look of the vampire was really nicely done but the film is pretty dark, murky even. I suspect that was both an aesthetic choice and as a way of obfuscating the joins.

The imdb page is here.

Handbook of the Vampire: Black Vampires and Blaxploitation

Written for Handbook of the Vampire by Jerry Rafiki Jenkins the Chapter Page can be found here.

Opening with the thought that “Blaxploitation film history… …is, in part, “a vampire story””, Jenkins' chapter proves to be a solid look at the Black vampire film and the ideas, explored within, of Africanism Vs African American and the concepts of Black Maleness and Femininity. The texts that the author uses are, for the primary ones, Blacula, Scream, Blacula, Scream and Ganja and Hess. Within those there would seem to be more a social connection between Scream, Blacula, Scream and Ganja and Hess then there are between Scream, Blacula, Scream and Blacula, which was interesting in and of itself. I think I would like to have seen Da Sweet Blood of Jesus, Spike Lee’s remake or reimagining of Ganja and Hess, at least touched on, though the chapter is not lacking by its absence.

Perhaps a touch more unusual choices as texts were Vampire in Brooklyn and, more so, Def by Temptation - not in terms of content, they fit into argument well – but more in them being texts used less often by authors. There was, I felt, much more room for exploration of the themes that was curtailed simply by word limit and the author has opportunity, I feel, to expand on their themes in much more depth – perhaps even to the point of a monogram and it would certainly be a monogram I would read. Inciteful content and solid writing make this an excellent entry in the Handbook.

Deep Undead – review

Director: Dave Castiglione

Release date: 2005

Contains spoilers

This is a budget flick that has had the Blu-Ray treatment by Vinegar Syndrome and has a respectable score on IMDb, which as you watch you wonder why? In some respects I fear being harsh, after all it was early work by inexperienced filmmakers and writer/director Dave Castiglione came up with a concept that became a brave attempt at, evidentially, biting off more than he could chew. On the other hand, it is a blooming difficult watch.

divers

The film begins with a couple of divers looking around a shipwreck. Kudos to this budget production for pulling off underwater sequences but… this is ten minutes of pretty murky footage of divers round a wreck, with no real narrative driving it. One scares the other and then one clutches their head and, at the end of the sequence, they have both died. This cuts into a news report about spills from a drum of radioactive waste produced by a nuclear power station by the lake.

Pamela Sutch as Megan Flowers

The report is by Megan Flowers (Pamela Sutch), a reporter who believes more is going on there. The report mentions that the NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) are investigating. Indeed they have arranged for a diving team, led by Kirk Taylor (David Maul) and contracted to the power company, to go into the lake to find the missing divers. The team fails to do so and Taylor has to go in when it appears his team is in trouble. They end up pulling out their diver, Cujo (Vince Butler), but not finding the bodies. There is, they have discovered, radiation round the wreck and Cujo reports seeing an angel who breathed life into him – and has neck punctures they put down to fishing hooks.

Flowers and Ronnie

Flowers tries to get some info but Kirk ain’t talking. Kirk’s girlfriend Ronnie (Dawn Murphy) is going to the beach with her daughters, Kimberley (Caitlin Morgan) and Lisa (Christina Rose), when Flowers approaches them and manages to get Ronnie talking. She leaves them on the beach just before Lisa gets in trouble in the water and yells that something has hold of her and suggests she has been bitten. Ronnie gets into the water to pull her out – Lisa's leg is caught in a fishing net but the body of a diver bobs up also – and Flowers runs back to the beach, only to be grabbed by someone in hazmat gear.

hospital vampire

Meanwhile Kirk loses his contract with the power company, who offer the divers direct employment for ropey sounding work. Cujo becomes ill and the NRC order a purge of water with the divers still in the system. So, we have conspiracy and big business and regulatory bodies acting rogue… but what about vampires. Well, there is one in the wreck (Debbie D, Vampyre Tales & Requiem for a Vampire) who was bitten by another as the ship wrecked in the 1920s and who has, as far as I can tell, been hibernating until the increased heat of the waters (and, I assume the radiation) woke her. Who is the main vampire? I won’t spoil but will say they sound as though they are a separate species to humanity.

plastic fangs

This is a struggle. The narrative isn’t best communicated and scenes drag on. There are logical lapses aplenty also. However, I can’t take away from the fact that there was an ambitious idea here and a budget film using underwater photography was impressive. Other moments are just bizarre – a vampire visiting another in the hospital and the pov over a pair of plastic boobs was just odd. Similarly, Flowers breaking herself and the kids out of a hospital, meeting up with a conveniently parked Kirk (all with a comment about the kids being safer with them) and then taking them out in a rubber dinghy whilst he night dives to the wreck… well their idea of safety isn’t the one I have. I must also mention the line where Kirk describes his wetsuit as having material that shields radiation, hilarious as it is a suit with no arms leaving them exposed, Flowers buys that, at least. Not great but ambitious, 2.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Blu-Ray @ Amazon UK

Terror of the Master – review

Director: Jeff Kirkendall

Release date: 1998

Contains spoilers

A straight to video film now on disc from SRS Home Video this was (according to IMDb) the directorial debut by Jeff Kirkendall and is full of the issues one would expect from a first effort, weirdly off framing being one such issue and just the strangest set of scene timings towards the end. Yet despite this I think it was better than some of his later films (I’ve reviewed the Temptress and the short 3 to Murder).

Maitely Weismann as Drew

It starts with a woman being chained in a cellar and, after the gun toting guys leave the cellar she tests the chains and girder she is chained to, in case she can get away, and then sees a shadowy figure – she screams. In an antique store, after hearing a radio bulletin about the latest in a string of kidnappings of women, a customer goes to the counter and believes she recognises the shopkeeper, Drew (Maitely Weismann), before realising she is also a news anchor on a local news service. The woman confides that she likes Drew better than that Dave Rydell (David Louis).

some odd framing

Why is she working the shop? It appears that it is a family business she co-runs with her sister Amelia (Jennifer Birn, The Temptress and 3 to Murder). Drew mentions her frustration with Dave to her boyfriend Jeff (Jeff Kirkendall, also The Temptress, 3 to Murder, Shadow Tracker: Vampire Hunter) and Sharkula) who councils patience, she’s only been at the station a year and she’ll get her break. He is frustrated with Amelia though, as she has been depressed since splitting with her boyfriend. To be honest there is a pap talk scene between Drew and Amelia, which was meant to establish character and relationship but just kinda dragged – and the film is only 75 minutes long.

a victim

Working in the store again, Drew seems ready to call it a night when a nervous looking woman, Beth (Kelly Chaisson Warner), comes in. She knocks over a cheap ornament, drops something and then leaves. A man’s face appears at the window. The next day Drew is doing a fluff piece for the station and, when she gets back to the office, discovers that a voice mail has been left telling her to be careful, if she goes to the police the woman will die. After she sees Dave’s latest kidnapping editorial she realises that Beth is the latest victim.

Drew, a cop and Ame;ia

She speaks to Amelia and decides to investigate – she dare not go to the police after the threat. Beth dropped a matchbook from a bar and a parking garage chitty and the game is afoot – but doesn’t last too long before Drew is kidnapped also. Amelia tracks her and Dave follows Amelia… And here is our strange timing… Drew is in a trunk of a car and taken to a derelict house… Amelia has been able to follow (but we have no sense that she is in a car)… Dave follows her and calls for a camera… as we cut between scenes it is apparent that it only takes the camera tech Lewis (Tim Hatch, also The Temptress, 3 to Murder, Sharkula and Shadow Tracker: Vampire Hunter) about a minute to get there. The timing is off.

Tony Turcic as Worthall

So, what is going on? Vampire Christopher Worthall (Tony Turcic, also Shadow Tracker: Vampire Hunter) was betrayed by vampire friend Darden Porter (James Carolus, also The Temptress, 3 to Murder and Bloodlust) over a female vampire (Shannon Von Ronne) who was a mutual romantic interest and was killed by hunters. Darden blamed Worthall for her death and poisoned him with strychnine (who knew that was a thing). Weak, Worthall got to the derelict house, to find it occupied by bank robbers and now has had them kidnapping women for him to feed on and get his strength back. Worthall has a line in hissing, long brown nails, fangs and we discover vampires can be killed through decapitation or a shot to the head. There is an ability to mesmerise also.

James Carolus as Darden Porter

The only other notable piece of lore (if you can call it that) is that before you discover his name the optional subtitles call Worthall a ghoul. The film had issues, as I have mentioned but it was actually quite good fun and very earnest. Despite the sisters' conversation moment that dragged, the short run time meant it didn’t overstay its welcome. The VHS transfer is as you would expect but, you know what, if you like straight to home video films there are a lot shoddier films out there. Don’t get me wrong, it’s far from a masterpiece and 3.5 out of 10 seems fair but you could do worse.

The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon US

Invasion – review

Director: Shahram Mokri

Release date: 2017

Contains spoilers

This film is the third feature by Iranian auteur Shahram Mokri and it carries themes and techniques from those earlier films as well as creating a hypnotic sci-fi/noir vampire movie. It is thoroughly arthouse and, if such films are not your scene, then you may wish to turn away now. For those still with me the three films all deal with non-linear storytelling where we see the narrative in temporal loops. What this shares with Fish & Cat (2013) is that this was filmed in one take.

Abed Abest as Ali

It opens with a set on intertitles that I’ll reproduce in full: “The darkness started three years ago and the sun has gone from part of the world. To avoid illegal migrations, fences are everywhere. Lots of diseases have spread to many people. But one is especially significant to the authorities. Ali (Abed Abest) is arrested for murdering his friend, Saman. He is taken back by the police to reconstruct the murder scene.” The film takes part in a stadium and dressing room area for a sport that is never quite defined but is suggested as being one unique to the film

Ali and Negar

Ali is brought by the police in order to reconstruct the crime – in total three are dead but it is Saman, whose body is missing, that is the focus. It is suggested that Saman killed the other two team mates. It is revealed that Saman is a vampire and the team were providing blood for him but he started to demand more. To aid the reconstruction(s) Saman’s twin sister Negar (Elaheh Bakhshi) enters the masculine space of the team – an interview with Mokri indicates he chose the sport as a masculine space as it resembles Iran in that regard and he specifically wanted the disruption of putting a woman into that space.

sporting bite marks

It is quite difficult to put a synopsis together for this as it sees the reconstruction repeated but with the perspective shifting. Ali ceases to be himself in the reconstruction, his place taken by others, and he watching or collaborating as others. Negar, it is revealed, would live in a suitcase and she and Saman would trade places so, when Ali has spoken to Saman in the past, he might have been actually speaking to Negar. The demand for extra blood was to satisfy both brother and (without the team knowing it) sister. We do see two of the team with bite marks (I took these as being the murdered pair watching the investigation unfold) and Negar with blood across lips and teeth.

the worm in the pillow

One interesting side part was the primary investigator confiding to Negar that his wife was ill with some kind of unknown disease that as left her bedridden and vegetative. Negar suggests that there are worms that live in pillows that can drink blood from the sleeper’s neck and cause similar symptoms. Towards the end of the film Ali sees, through video, the investigator go to his wife and cut open her pillow. Inside is a large (pillow sized, worm – suggesting a parasite. How this ties to Saman and Negar’s vampirism is not revealed. There isn’t much in the way of lore… we do see vampiric levitation at one point and a vampire killing kit full of stakes (there is a conspiracy to do away with Negar under the noses of the police).

blood at mouth

What you get out of this film will really depend on your kinship with arthouse cinema. I found the film mesmerising and the one-shot technique was beautifully done – especially given the difficulty some of the compact spaces, and larger cast, would have presented compared to the exterior shot Fish & Cat. Some of the lighting is very well done, with greens and reds, and I can only see the interior lighting adding a further layer of difficulty to the task at hand. The technical skills on display demand 7 out of 10 as a minimum, the story is deliberately obscure, the non-linear nature of the temporal loops are something that a viewer will either enjoy or otherwise.

The imdb page is here.

On Blu-Ray @ Amazon US (part of a collection)

On Blu-Ray @ Amazon UK (part of a collection)

Short Film: Night Rulers

A short film from director Blake Ridder, who was behind a short Morbius Fan Film (which I’ll feature in the future), this is a 4-minute short and was released in 2022.

It starts with Jess (Sorcha Verey) in a car park, on the phone. As she hangs up, we can tell she feels nervous, aware of a presence. She gets through two sets of fobbed doors into the lift area and, as the lift comes and she gets in, it sounds as though a fob is being used. However, the door shuts and she ascends the building.

When she gets out, she steps onto an open area and a figure moves behind her, she spins baring fangs at the man, Brian (Louis James), who suggests he is "one of you". She questions what he’s talking about when there is a rush and Christina (Sarah Alexandra Marks) leaps over the balcony wall. She has heard Jess’ cry for help (presumably telepathic). Brian doesn’t smell like one, they say – and there is also a denial of the name vampire.

bite

A woman (Julia Hural) comes out for a smoke and this is the opportunity for Brian to prove himself and so, with fangs bared, he fast moves at her and… doesn’t bite… he’s new to this and has never killed anyone. The film has very little substantive story, it feels more proof of concept, but if there is a reason to watch it is the slow-motion bites inflicted by the two female vampires, which are very nicely done.

The imdb page is here.

Handbook of the Vampire: ‘Beyond Humanity’: An Expedition Charting Non-Human Identities

Written for Handbook of the Vampire by Adam Owsinki the Chapter Page can be found here.

This was always going to be a tough one for me to look at objectively as it examines those folks who claim to really be vampires. Now, I am cool with people being who they want to be, and I will say it is well written by the author, but my honest opinion is that such folk may have a belief that they are vampires (though some clearly are role players) but the reality is that they are creating a construct and they do not physically need blood. The author ties them in to the general “Otherkin” heading – which involves claims of all sorts of internal identities and, at least, addresses the point that claims within such communities are more often driven by media than by folklore and there is an inherent tendency to adopt things that were simply invented by an artist when plying their craft.

The author breaks down several types of vampires, namely psychic, sanguine, false sanguine, vegetarian, hybrid and lifestylers. The latter, of course, are role playing, they are creating an aesthetic drawn from favourite media vehicles. I was interested to see the author trace psychic vampires, or the use of the name at least, to Anton LeVay but what he described, as the author concedes, were not actual energy sucking vampires. I think it safe to say LeVay could have replaced "psychic vampire" for "narcissist". Although she (Dion Fortune) didn’t use the phrase "psychic vampire", I think Owsinki would have been better reaching as far back as Dion Fortune and her Psychic Self-Defence volume, which speaks of a belief in actual energy feeders.

When it comes to sanguine and false sanguine vampires, then the distinction the author draws is that false sanguine vampires are the so-called vampire killers. Sometimes dubbed vampires in the press, sometimes modelling themselves on vampires, the actual cases do go much further back than touched on – certainly one cannot forget such killers as Peter Kürten and Fritz Haarmann in the 1920s or the 19th century, press-dubbed, Vampire of Montparnasse Sergeant François Bertrand. His crimes included corpse mutilation and necrophilia. That these are “false” vampires is a bias in argument that sees the positive in ethical sanguine vampires equating to a truth, where arguably those who display unethical and criminal activity are closer to some versions of the folkloric vampire. Having mentioned Bertrand it would be remiss not to mention that this chapter does not touch on sexuality as a driver for building a vampire identity, yet those who associate blood consumption and sexuality have been reported on, for an early instance we could look to Richard von Krafft-Ebing’s Psychopathia Sexualis (1886) though the word vampire is not conflated with the phenomena in that volume.

Of all of them, the term vegetarian vampire is perhaps the strangest and the author mentions the fact that consumption of animal blood (rather than human) is starkly out with actual vegetarianism. I have used the term myself, describing fictional vampires with ethical concerns about their feeding, of course.

As mentioned, this was well written and for those with a genuine interest in the phenomena it is a good primer that maintains a sympathetic view to non-human identification. Having tried, in the past, to be open to people self-identifying as vampires, I find I do struggle as it feels like a mental construct patched together from films but it appears that the construct does good for the individual concerned, and so long as dangerous activities are ethical and consensual, who am I to judge?

Sunset on the River Styx – review

Director: Aaron Pagniano

Release date: 2020

Contains spoilers

This is quite an arty film that plays around with time and leaves it to the viewer to understand what is going on with it. As such it could have gone very wrong but an intelligent format and some very good use of editing means that it maintains its narrative thread.

It is, ultimately, a love story but that aspect doesn’t overpower the story and the characters are intriguing enough to keep the viewer interested.

Will's life

It begins with flashes of imagery including fangs and then we are with Will (Phillip Andre Botello), a bus driver who is not happy in his life. We see him notice a woman, Ashe (Jacqueline Jandrell), in his mirror as she sits on the bus. We can hear a passenger moaning publicly, passengers get on and off and she is gone. We see his life, repeating with enduring monotony. At one point we see him stood on his roof, he drops a watch and seems to be contemplating jumping but steps away and back into the grind.

Jacqueline Jandrell as Ashe

Ashe gets on his bus and uses change, rather than a pass card as most use, he comments on it being unusual and when she questions him, he says he was referring to her bracelet. They chat. However there is a passenger causing a scene. He mentions to her he’d like to punch him before going to confront the passenger and tell him to leave the bus. The passenger becomes mouthier and pushes him and so he punches the man and bundles him off the bus. As he reaches the next stop Ashe departs but he summons the courage to ask her on a date and she agrees.

the driver's mirror

So we see their blossoming romance through his eyes. Ashe reacts badly on a date to an aquarium – though he does not know why – but they meet again. Her outlook could often be said to be nihilistic, however Will’s demeanour and outlook is actually buoyed by her. In bed she opens a bedside cabinet and sees his prescription pills and quickly shuts it but then shows him the cutting scars under a bracelet. She asks him whether he would want to {kill himself} with her. He reacts by running to the bathroom and being sick.

blood fountain

He rings her eventually and agrees... she knows just the place. She gives him directions to a house; a party seems to be in full swing and some of the attendees wear strange masks. He finds her in there – he feels this was all a bit public for a suicide pact. There is a fountain that seems to cycle blood and a charismatic young man, Wreck (Cory Vaughn), addresses everyone. Ashe takes Will to meet Wreck but Will then asks to speak to her. She is, he realises, with Wreck but he confesses his love anyway. For her part she suggests she doesn’t feel the same about Will, that he is a friend and eventually tells him not to spoil the night for her. Will, for his part, goes to the fountain, drinks from it without invitation, in flashes we see him swaying, knocking the fountain over, being grabbed and thrown from the house into the river below…

Wreck and Ashe

Then we seem to be back at the beginning of the film and following it through Ashe’s eyes and, through that, see how she met Wreck and eventually we get back to the same point and from there watch how the story will be resolved. However Wreck is a vampire and his plan was to turn several people (the party guests) before moving on to another city. The turning process involves being bitten and drinking vampire blood (the blood in the fountain had some of his blood but also donor blood). Because Will drank blood but has not been bitten he is unstuck in time and will eventually die, and the third act of the film – as it were – sees him bouncing between scenarios and moments.

fangs

It is in that unstuck moment were the editing was vitally important and it is masterfully done, slowly revealing to Will what is happening as he moves through time and space and done in such a way that at first it is (deliberately) confusing for the viewer, as much as it is for Will, but the explanation builds over the scenes as they move up to the point where we get it and Will can use the time phenomena to his advantage. The three primary performances also help this work – with Will and Ashe, in particular, working really well as characters and the underpinning performances feeling natural and drawing us into their worlds even though their worlds are not the happiest.

Cory Vaughn as Wreck

The film is not going to be for everyone. For some reason the character Wreck felt like he had emerged from Twixt even though the films do not share atmosphere, Twixt being a grand gothic dream where this is much more gritty, nihilistic and grounded (despite the time fluctuations). If you are in the mood for a dark, character driven art film this might be for you,  6 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.