Director: Eric Pascarelli
Release date: 2024
Contains spoilers
An indie low budget flick, it does show as it shies away from gore sequences and even attacks to a degree. The film works towards crime drama but the supernatural element overwhelms the detective story they wanted to tell, I felt.
It starts with Simon (Jamie Nolan) looking to go on a date from a dating app. He arrives at the house where Anna Marie (a false profile) lives. In fact, she is Elizabeth (Leanne Johnson) and way prettier than her profile pic, he says. He isn’t too phased at her red eyes as she mojos him and before you can say “vampire” he is a snack.
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| Simon as the creepy house |
Monika (Daisy Paroczy Hickey) has met up with her friend Devin (Holly Anspaugh) and is explaining that the man she has been in communication with has been using false pictures and is definitely married – she essentially did a deep dive investigation of the guy. She also meets up with her adopted sister (Amanda Winston) who mentions a job going at a detective agency. Monika had been a caregiver to an Aunt for some time.
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| James Tackett as Walter |
Private eye Walter (James Tackett) has been visited by Simon’s overprotective mother (Kim Lea Mays) who believes that something has happened to her son but the police have refused to get involved (due to the short timescales). He takes the case as Monika arrives, armed with her criminology degree but no experience. He takes her on, however, as he has had no other applications for the post. She visits Simon’s home and quickly manages to ping his phone to give the location of his rendezvous. Meanwhile Walter meets his cop contact and there are similar disappearances and at least one body drained of blood.
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| Monika investigates |
Monika and Walter go to the house where Simon had his date, the door is open and so they enter, but the place seems deserted. Monika has a UV light and uses it to find a message in blood on the floor, which says, “Follow your blood Monika”. She wipes her name away before showing Walter. The owner (Dashawn Kelley) who rents the place out approaches with a knife, demanding to know who they are, but the situation is diffused and Monika and Walter wait outside for the cops. It is later that they discover the “owner” made himself scarce as, in reality, he is the daylight servant of Elizabeth. Elizabeth has designs on Monika, with her Romanian heritage, to resurrect her lost brother Vlad.
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| Leanne Johnson as Elizabeth |
So, there were elements of this that were just a little off. The message in blood seemed odd as, when it would have been written (and then wiped away so that it was only visible under UV), Monika will not likely have been working for Walter. It presupposes that she will apply for the job, get it, find the location and bring a UV light (and then manage to wipe her name away where cleaning did not spoil the message). As Elizabeth clearly knew who she was it would have been far easier to just find her and mojo her. Equally, there is a hair at a crime scene and Monika persuades the cops to carbon date it. Firstly I doubt the police would agree, especially as carbon dating something from after 1950 is pointless. When they discover it is 600 years old they just decide it is from a wig anyway.
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| a rare blood moment |
Nevertheless, the Monika character was earnest enough (though her keep leaving her home, which is under protective observation when they decide she has been targeted as a victim, seemed more than a little off). Elizabeth was played well also. However the supernatural side overwhelmed any detective aspect, the police/PI relationship was awfully chummy and kills were mostly non-gore and very often off screen. All-in-all a little lacklustre but anything less than 4 out of 10 seems unfair.
The imdb page is here.
On Demand @ Amazon US
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