Short film: Helsing

At 29-minutes this is a Ryan Henry Johnston short film from 2014 and follows the continuing adventures of Van Helsing (Patrick Morrison) in the modern day (one assumes).

in church

It starts with a priest, Luke (Anthony Napodano), approaching a church and, as a minor moan, the outside shots were too dark. He enters and sees a girl (Liana O'Boyle) leaving and asks whether she has seen a tall man who comes into the church.

holding the cross

Walking past the man drinking straight from a bottle he sits next to a man who is confessing an inappropriate liaison. Luke, thinking he is Van Helsing, tells him the church has sent him to assist him and that he has an address where the creature is thought to be. The man, called Dave (John Viliott), is nonplussed and leaves. The drinker is Van Helsing… Outside, as they head to the location, the camera pans and shows Dave being fed upon.

Desiree Srinivas as Moira

They enter the house. A voice over has told us that Van Helsing is somehow immortal, cursed to hunt his enemy (Dracula, obviously) but not how he became so cursed. In a trap door they find the body of Dave and they are attacked by Jade (credited as Jing Song but listed on IMDB as Aria Song). It becomes apparent, however, that the tip was a lure and Moria (Desiree Srinivas), an ancient vampire and lieutenant of Dracula is also there…

vamp

This was fun, minor gripe about the outdoor night photography aside. There is some world building that certainly could have been expanded on in a longer vehicle. There was perhaps a feel more of Vampire$ with the derelict house, the surly (drunk) vampire hunter and the naïve priest, than a more traditional Dracula vehicle, but that was not necessarily a bad thing.

The imdb page is here.

The Legend of Lake Hollow – review

Director: Chris Hollo

Release date: 2024

Contains spoilers

The wendigo is a strange creature to place under the vampire taxonomy, when it comes to film depictions, as it can sometimes be portrayed as an anthropomorphic monster that doesn’t quite fit in the genre and sometimes a more human like dead (or alive) thing. The eternal hunger it feels for human flesh helps push it that way, especially if it was once human. I have been criticised for featuring a wendigo film here before, and I do tend to look at these things on a case by case basis and, in this case, I felt there was enough to warrant a review.

arrival

The film starts with two friends, Dan (Kyle Rankin) and Carson (Brendan Bald) arriving at a cabin in the woods. As they approach the cabin a trail camera goes off (with a visible flash, which I understand is not how they work, as the flash would scare the animals). Inside, after a comment about finding the cabin in an advert provided by someone from Dan’s work, and whether Dan was using it as a work trip, Carson discovers that despite no Wi-Fi there was Bluetooth and it connects to the trail cam. He grabs the photo it took of them and then something blurry but uncanny from the night before.

Mark and Shay

Consideration of the picture is interrupted by the sound of a vehicle – probably Dan’s brother Mark (James David West). It is Mark but, rather than coming alone for the lad’s week away, he has his girlfriend Shay (Liz Atwater) with him and she has brought her best friend Laurie (Meg Barlowe). We discover that Mark disapproves of geologist Dan’s job – he works for a fracking company. There is a sub-plot that he has come partly to run some exploratory tests but, despite being mentioned by the wendigo (Micah Oser) later, it is so low key dealt with it really doesn’t add much of an environmental thread.

Meg Barlowe as Laurie

Having met the creepy caretaker, Al (Will Waldron), the weirdness in the night is Mark awaking to the sounds of sex and seeing the flash of the trail cam go off. He goes out to check it (of course the Bluetooth signal reaches the cabin) and sees figures in the water who then vanish. The next day he and Laurie go to find Al’s cabin, while the others check trail cams and look around. They don’t find Al but find his injured grandson Grady (Austin Copps) who says that he needs to get away and that *they* normally leave them alone and suggests he was attacked and his grandfather was taken by the lake folk. They get him back to their cabin but their vehicles have been pushed into the lake and the landline malfunctions (Mark can hear 911, they can’t hear him and then it goes dead).

lake folk

Of course, the true enemy is a wendigo. The lake folk seem to be ghosts but do appear to be semi-corporeal. The wendigo can shapeshift into any victim and so most of the kills are offscreen so the viewer is left guessing whether a person is real or the monster, but the film doesn’t capitalise on the sense of paranoia that should create. The cabin (which is very modern, given it is a lure for food) has wendigo carved above the door, which is a bit of a giveaway. The film uses a plot device lifted from Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island with regards the lake people.

true form on camera

The cameras were placed there by wendigo hunters and were blessed, so it can’t remove them, and the camera captures its true form. Whilst it appears to be the deer skulled version at first, that is just a mask and it is a cadaveric human, who has been there centuries and who, in the form of a beautiful woman, married the cabin builder in 1880 and then ate him over the winter and now rents it out when hungry (and had it fitted with electricity etc). So it is an eternal, shapeshifting (but dead looking) cannibal and I think that is enough to class it as a vampire.

wendigo unmasked

The acting is ok, and rather it is the script that fails to generate the tension and also assigns strange character reactions – especially from Laurie who falls for Grady instantly and mostly overlooks any weirdness around him. The fact they can’t get help leads to consideration of hiking out of there. But the 25 miles will take 2 days and so it’s dismissed… except it is 25 miles following the road they drove in on and they could surely cover that off in a day, if they wanted (and would soon be well away from the lake). As I mentioned, the environmental thread is underexplored. I’m going for 3.5 out of 10. It feels a tad churlish but 4 just seemed too generous and the biggest issue is that it fails to be a horror (the ghosts don’t particularly spook and the kills are off screen) but doesn’t hold enough tension as a thriller.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Chillers 3 – review

Director: Tyler Benjamin

Release date: unknown

Contains spoilers

An anthology movie, and third in the series, at the time of writing IMDb still shows this as an upcoming movie with no date but it is available on DVD (on Amazon from 2022) and on Tubi. The first two anthologies were in 2015.

There are three segments in this, of unequal lengths. The last is the shortest but the vampire segment, Hunted, is the first segment and, I’d say, the most together of all three.

bite

It starts, through the credits, of the meeting (in period dress and shot in black and white) of William (Nick Dent) and Lillian (Pamela Voorhees). In what amounts to snippets we see him woo her and then bite her. Later, in the modern day, they give her age as decades and his as centuries.

Pamela Voorhees as Lillian

In the modern day we see him bring a junky into their home and them feed on him. Lillian is getting sick of the taste of junkies – the drugs spoil the flavour of the blood. It becomes apparent that, whilst they still have passion, he rarely lets her out for “her protection”. He hunts and brings money and victims who won’t be missed. It is the restlessness she feels that will form the centre of the plot. I did wonder as to the very modern outfits she has (does he bring them back, or does he let her go shopping) and the tattoos she has that would seem to be something of the modern day. These things are not addressed.

trial by vampire

We also see Chris (Tim W. Sullivan) meet Maxim (Pavel Antonenko). Chris thinks Maxim is some sort of freelance bounty hunter and has been sent as partner/assistant. Maxim takes him out on a job and pushes him towards their quarry (Andishay Wolvpact Taj) who quickly reveals himself to be a vampire. Only when held helplessly by the throat does Maxim intervene and throw Chris a metal spike, which he stakes the vampire with. Chris has just been initiated as a vampire hunter.

Josh and Lillian

Lillian follows Maxim and sees him pick up a woman and take her off somewhere. Lillian retreats. We see them kiss and then William attack and bite the woman. His feed is interrupted (he says by police, but we don’t see them). Lillian, in the meantime, meets a guy named Josh (Cody Williams) who she seems to like but she does feed on someone in the street. Her attack brings the hunters’ attention to bear…

staked

One piece of lore to mention is the idea that killing your maker will return the vampire to humanity. All-in-all, this was a good little segment, though it could have withstood more length to flesh it out. This was certainly helped by Pamela Voorhees (awful stage name, to be fair, and rubbish for googling), whose performance was natural and her on-screen presence welcome, and undoubtedly my favourite of the three segments, the score for this segment is 5.5 out of 10 – which might be a tad generous but, certainly, properly fleshed into a feature it’d be fair.

The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon US

On DVD @ Amazon UK

Nosferatu The Untold Origin – review

Author: Louis J Pecsi

Artwork: Louis J Pecsi

First published: 2009

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: In the year 1922, Nosferatu graced the silver screen with his shadowy specter. He was a creature of total mystery and no known origin until now. "Nosferatu the Untold Origin" begins with the 15th century crusader, Count Orlok, who must burn at the stake the powerful witch, Elsa, for her refusal to worship the God of Rome. As Elsa's flesh is consumed by the flames, she finalizes her curse by uttering the word "Nosferatu". Count Orlok is transformed into Nosferatu the Vampyre, a terrifying creature that bares little semblance to anything human. An epic adventure that spans over 400 years awaits Orlok, as he is plunged into the nocturnal world. Illustrated with over 300 full color paintings, this visually exciting graphic novel will change the reader's perception of vampyres.

The review: I have mixed feelings about this graphic novel but, before I explain, I want to address the Blurb’s assertion that “He was a creature of total mystery and no known origin”. Those who know the film know this is not entirely true. Just as we get a hint in Dracula that the Count’s vampiric origin ties back to the Scolomance, so Murnau’s film suggests that Orlock is “Belial’s seed”. Whilst this statement doesn’t give anything more than a hint, it does suggest that he is of demonic origin.

detail

That is not covered in this, instead he is made a Count who is then cursed for burning a witch at the stake and the curse transforms him into the vampire. Vlad Ţepeş does appear in the book, a fellow vampire (though the vampirism is different, he maintains his human form and has transformative powers etc). Though out with the film, I rather liked the curse…. Conversely, I thought adding Ţepeş in was unnecessary. The plot goes on beyond the origin story and into the path trod by Murnau, but is liberal with the changes: the story shifts to the 1900s, the action shifts to London, Hutter (sporting a very German name, given the location change) is killed in the castle, Ellen’s sacrifice is prompted by the spirit of the so-called Lady in White – who she looks like (but is not a reincarnation of, given the spirit is still extant) but was a good seer in the mortal Orlok’s castle. As it has the changes it also includes Van Helsing incarcerated in Seward’s asylum for murdering Count Dracula (more revisionism). I have to say Hutter seems a little too money orientated – though the 2024 Nosferatu contain some degree of money motivation for Hutter, the underlying motivation is love, but money becomes a principle point in Fisher’s Nosferatu (as well as Hutter being a rake) and also to a lesser degree in the Re-Animated version. I assume the author here is American (he changes the British currency of sterling to dollars) and so I can’t help but wonder if the financial motivations being highlighted in the story, from multiple sources, is culturally driven.

The artwork can be a little simplistic in the foreground detail, but I loved many of the backgrounds and colour usage. The story, as well as revisionist, suffers from poor prose – I believe that Pecsi would have benefitted from collaborating with someone who could write prose that were as evocative as his backgrounds can be. The book suffers due to this and my enthusiasm for the backgrounds and artistic atmosphere, as well as the more interesting story ideas, are hamstrung by the clumsy prose and unnecessary revisionism. 4 out of 10.

In Paperback @ Amazon US

In Paperback @ Amazon UK

Short film: Bellatrix

A 35-minute film directed by Eric Chisholm and Kathleen Carrier'e Pefferkorn, this short film was released in 2010 and was somewhat ambitious for a clearly budget film – with both some (very primitive) cgi and practical effects.

It starts with a narration by Catherine (Kathleen Carrier'e Pefferkorn) whose mother has recently died and, as the new family matriarch, she needs to think on recent events. We see her driving into the cemetery and visiting the grave. As she goes back towards her car, she plays with a shoe heel and suddenly 3 girls (credited as cemetery ghost girls) appear and say that *she* knows she is there. They vanish just as suddenly.

confronted by ghost girls

At her mother’s house she remembers being a young girl and drawing a picture (notably with a winged demonic woman in the sky) and her mum keeping the picture and giving her a heirloom ring as a keepsake. She checks the draw and finds the picture and a half of a document in a foreign language. The estate lawyer (Rose Marie Rupley) comes in and Catherine mentions the document. The lawyer suggests that an antiquarian called Simon (Ralph Goin) might be able to translate.

Jeannie Stroumpos as Mastema

Going to his store, he does indeed recognise the document and, indeed, has the other half of the demonic contract (for that is what it is). He also recognises the ring and says that there was a woman, Mastema (Jeannie Stroumpos), who was cheated on and made a deal with the devil to get her revenge. The devil made her a vampire and she seduces men and sends their souls to Hell. She can only be killed by a woman from her bloodline and such a woman who possesses the contract (it repairs itself into one document) and the ring is the Bellatrix – the vampire hunter.

demon form

Of course Catherine is sceptical and leaves but Simon follows her and persuades her to listen to him, but Mastema is already after her. So Mastema is human looking, can produce fangs and become a bat-winged demon. The demon effect uses both a practical version and a cgi version matted to the video. Neither have aged well but, given the low to no budget nature of the film they were brave decisions. The whole thing feels amateurish but done with heart. It used to ghost around online, so you may be able to track down a stream if you fancy a watch.

The imdb page is here.

Monster Mash – review

Director: Jose Prendes

Release date: 2024

Contains spoilers

The Asylum is not known for quality productions but they have hit the formula of pumping the films out with a name attached – in the case Michael Madsen, who is playing Dr Frankenstein, who happens to be the bad guy in this film that literally is a monster mash. The Asylum’s effort is perhaps better than I hoped for, but my bar was pretty darn low. It has practical effects (mostly in makeup) that work better than I could have hoped for – though when they move to cgi it is dire.

Elisabeta enthroned

After a view of a castle, we see a woman with bite marks on her neck, sat against the leg of Elisabeta (Emma Reinagel) – Dracula’s Daughter. After playing with a music box, she tells the woman she can leave, who in turn wishes her mistress goodnight. Someone enters the room; Frankenstein’s Monster (Erik Celso Mann) who we later discover is called Boris. Elisabeta does not know who he is and says that he doesn’t belong there. They fight and he overpowers her and takes her to Frankenstein. In a cell, she warns that her father will come for her and Frankenstein is delighted, she is, after all, bait.

Ethan Daniel Corbett as Dracula

Dracula (Ethan Daniel Corbett) gets back to his castle and discovers the aftermath of the fight, including a bead from a bracelet that was broken, and is right royally pissed as we go into credits that, with the female crooned vocals, sound more like a Bond credit sequence than anything else. After the credits, Boris brings bread for Elisabeta, which she cannot eat of course, but she decides to try and befriend him. He is then sent on his next job, where he needs the repaired bracelet. The bracelet is an imitation of one that the Mummy, Ramsis (Adam Slemon, Bloodsucking Bastards), gave to his beloved and it lures him into the open in the catacombs he lives in. Boris fights with him and takes his heart, rendering the Mummy to dust.

the mummy and invisible man

Dracula questions the servant/meal, who suggests that his daughter had been consulting Mila Severine (Bix Krieger) a local witch. He goes to her and she recognises the bracelet stone and sends him to Ramsis, who he resurrects (using a mouse heart, some potion or other and his own blood, as Dracula’s blood is stronger than a curse). Frankenstein, we soon discover, is after monster parts – as well as the heart he wants Dracula’s blood, the skin of the invisible man (Gabriel Pranter) and the limbs of the wolfman (Ian Hummel) – and with them he will build an unstoppable monster and transfer his consciousness into it.

Ian Hummel is the Wolfman

So, we have a monster team up with all bar Frankenstein drawn as anti-heroes. The film hasn’t got the greatest narrative in moviedom, by a long shot, but it is surprisingly watchable for an Asylum production. The monsters are played straight but scratch the surface and the story has issues. For instance, why is it that Dracula knew the whereabouts of all the monsters but has never heard of Frankenstein and his monster? Also, we get the new idea that a werewolf, in human form, who has his limps chopped off immediately grows them back! This doesn’t rock the world but overcomes its pedigree to be at least watchable. 4 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Blu-Ray @ Amazon UK

Bloodline – review

Director: Rami Yasin

Release date: 2020

Contains spoilers

This Egyptian vampire film contains some conceits within it that do not bear too heavy a scrutiny, but it is a well shot exploration of how the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. It questions the lengths a parent will go to for their child and sits firmly in the child vampire sub-genre. The poster and in-film credits name the film Bloodline rather than separating the words out as per IMDb and Netflix.

Nilli Karim as Lamia

It starts with the film concentrating on needle point as a woman’s voice, identified as belonging to Lamia (Nilli Karim), repeats eighteen months, three weeks, two days…. This is how long her son Malik (Pieter Ramy) has been in a coma. She pricks her finger, causing it to bleed a drop of blood, but continues with her needlepoint. A car pulls up to their home in the night and her husband Nader (Dhafer L'Abidine) arrives home.

the package

On arrival he suggests he has *it* with him and, after looking in on Malik, who is hooked to medical apparatus with a tube down his throat, goes for a shower and we see him crying. Out of the shower Lamia asks to see *it* and he opens a refrigerated case that holds a vial of blood. He offers her the chance to change her mind and then says he will administer it in the morning – which is, he suggests, how it must be.

eating the cat

He awakens as the day begins to break and goes to Malik. He removes the tube and presses a button to cause metal shutters to close. Lamia awakens and goes to ask Nader what he did and he admits he has given Malik the blood – she is not happy he did it without her. Her other son, Adam (John Ramy), gets up and goes to school – it is suggested that he and Malik are twins. Soon she can hear a heartbeat in Malik’s chest and then he sits up and, whilst shaky, is soon walking. Nader makes her go find something for him to eat – she ends up with the neighbour’s cat.

fangs on show

From here we get a film where they are trying to cope and avoid suspicion from the neighbours (they are ignoring friends, preventing visits to read to Malik etc). Malik is not the son Lamia knew and he very soon turns Adam. It is also apparent to the viewer that Nader is a vampire also and that is quickly confirmed. The blood he brought in the case from Romania was fake – he had been turned and he fed Malik his own blood, hence not waking Lamia.

trying meat

The lore we get is that vampires can move super quick, are immensely strong, and must share their blood to turn someone. They burn in sunlight (so turning a child in order to save him, in Egypt seems to have been given minimal thought) and long exposure will kill them. They crave living blood (or warm blood). When Malik is given rabbit blood in a bowl, he dislikes it and then grabs a living rabbit and drains it. When Nader tries raw meat he can’t stomach it. That said we see a dinner with two eating from bowls and one drinking from the animal – presumably the blood in the bowls was just spilt. Nader tries to teach them to drink without killing, telling them to stop when the heartbeat speeds up.

Malik comatose

The issue I had was within some of the conceits. They knew they were trying to buy a vampire’s blood (no indication was made as to how they found this) but they did not prepare in advance, either through livestock to feed to him or in ensuring their social side had been taken care of. Burying the cat (and rabbits they buy) rather than just putting them in the trash (they do eat one rabbit) just screamed discovery. A neighbourhood dog barking at the house – they must have a cat, is mentioned – had little sense as the cat was dead and buried and used to hang around the neighbourhood anyway. There are many more little story foibles that do not add up.

twins

That said it was well shot and enjoyable enough, so long as you didn’t think too deeply on the foibles. Nilli Karim was engaging as mother and wife and though the kids seemed a little stiff in role, actually that worked with the sociopathic creatures they become. It is always good to see vampire films coming out of other countries and whilst they might have tied some more Arabic folklore in rather than taking the Western model, this was worth taking time out of the day for. Not the greatest vampire film but worth a quick watch. 5.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Honourable Mention: Monster Carnival: A Comics Anthology

An anthology graphic novel, with a wraparound of the contents being stories told by the monster carnival, this was first published in 2019. It contains several strips by different writers and the one in it that interests us is Noch Zverya both drawn and written by Maegan Cook.

It takes place at the Blood Moon Ball, thrown by Count Vassilkovich and he presents his new bride Anisya with a young man named Thomas, with whom she is to dance – and more than that, as at midnight she will feed from him, her first vampiric meal. Unfortunately, Thomas recognises her as they had been orphans together – though she was not blind then. She wants to warn Thomas, but midnight strikes and her compliance is expected, plus her feed will restore her sight.

It's a very short tale, no more than a fleeting visitation in the volume hence the honourable mention, and, if I’m honest, I didn’t care for the artwork – it just wasn’t a style I responded to. The story comes across as more a character backstory for a wider piece, as this is told from her point of view centuries later, and in that sense it works. It is, however, the sole vampire story in the set. I do have to say my favourite story in the collection was Brandon Whipple’s A Midsummer Tale, which was a refreshingly new take on werewolves with marvellous art.

In Paperback @ Amazon US

In Paperback @ Amazon UK

Short Film: Aurora

Contains spoilers

This 2024 short film comes in at 13-minutes and was directed by Rita Osei.

It starts with a back view of Aurora (Djinda Kane), stood on a bridge. The scene cuts to a woman (Melanie Gray) having an emotional response outdoors, sat on the floor. A couple of men watch her, but don’t help. Aurora is passing by and sees it. She goes to help but becomes distressed herself, she starts saying, not in English, that the woman needs help and then that she is just like Aurora.

She switches from helping to having what looks like an anxiety attack when her daughter, Sofia (Ella-Rae Smith), comes along. Aurora ends up biting her own wrist and drinking the blood. This seems to calm her. We see her awaken next to a man, possibly dead, with a bite on his neck and blood at her mouth. She goes to the toilet and vomits. But this is the start of a journey, one that Sofia is struggling to understand…

The film sees Aurora in various states, upset, confused and even elated. We see an attack on another man during the running time to highlight the vampirism but, clearly, the film is trying to capture the impact of perimenopause – on her and on Sofia, as a caring observer trying to understand. This isn’t interpretive on the viewers part, Sofia googles perimenopause at one point. The use of vampirism I guess likens the beginning of this hormonal change to Othering the woman from a societal point of view.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Vampire's House of Cain – review

Director: Greg Galloway

Release date: 2024

Contains spoilers

I don’t actually know if it was budget or script that defeated this film, but defeated it was. The story was fairly simple but managed to muddle itself and that seemed to be through narrative leaps that sort of didn’t make sense.

The film starts at a party in a club – we later discover it is a place called Bliss. In the club women watch men dance and strip. Those men happen to have fangs… Early morning and two women are jogging. One drops back but when she reaches her friend again, the friend is in shock. Looking to where her friend stares she sees a body that appears to be self-immolating.

at the crime scene

Obviously the police arrive, including Detective Mani Reed (Erica Hubbard), and we discover that this is one of several murders where the bodies have been drained and burned (of course we realise that they are victims who turn and die in the sun). Reed questions one of the joggers who, it turns out, vaguely knew the latest victim – she can’t tell her much, only that she liked late night spots.

in the club

Talking with her Captain (Terrence 'T.C.' Carson) she suggests that she has made a connection between victims – all of them had attended a club called the Mist Lounge. The Captain seems concerned around her wellbeing and she does fall asleep outside the club in her car. However, woken, she heads in, flashing her badge and speaks to the barman and is directed to co-owner Hanson (Karon Riley). He speaks to her but is pretty evasive. After she leaves, he calls a meeting.

Diana Lovell as the Matriarch

The meeting is with the matriarch (Diana Lovell) of their vampire clan and she is shocked that there have been obvious vampire attacks. Their way is not to kill and they use a synthetic blood mostly. It doesn’t take too long to hear about the new vampire clan – the House of Cain – operating out of Bliss and soon the two clans are at loggerheads. As for Reed we get a clumsy exposition about her having relationship issues but then she is bitten by one of the House of Cain and saved by Hanson (we discover that vampire bites are pleasurable). He wipes her mind, but it doesn’t work too well (putting her on a hit list but also having her dropped off the case, and forced onto administrative leave as she keeps going vague) and they fall for each other. Eventually the tension between the Houses will lead to a showdown.

fight

So I mentioned narrative leaps and this took the form of things that made little sense, for instance she has her mind wiped and yet sees a conflict between Hanson and one of the House of Cain in a dream, that she wasn’t privy too and the viewer didn’t see outside of the dream-sequence. There might have been an attempt to suggest she and Hanson were psychically linked but, if that was the case, it failed to communicate it well and the filmmakers did practically nothing with it. Worse, it more felt that a chunk of narrative was missing and I got that feeling a couple of times.

dying

As well as being able to wipe minds the vampires become more powerful as they age (the House of Cain kills Hanson’s ‘brother’ by ganging up on him and wearing him down). If you kill a vampire, then all those it created die also. Death sees them breaking down to nothing (unless they are burning to a crisp, of course, as they need to be found by random joggers as a plot point). Some of the performances do feel phoned in but other actors do what they can with a very thin plot. The film is quite short and could have done with the missing narrative and more character building. One wonders whether an apparently low budget caused the narrative woes. Within this there was a decent, if simple, tale waiting to get out and so I think 4 out of 10 is fair.

The imdb page is here.

The Hungry Snake Woman – review

Director: Sisworo Gautama Putra

Release date: 1986

Contains spoilers

An Indonesian moment of madness from the mid-eighties, my thanks to Leila who sent me the disc of this. It stars Suzzanna (Sundelbolong) as the titular Snake Woman (referred to as a Snake Goddess) as well as a second role in the film. The Snake Woman was a reprised role from two previous films. The print on the disc was a VHS rip with English dub, I understand a Blu-Ray is available.

The film starts with women running through the jungle and a man, Joe (George Rudy), chasing them, telling them to come to him and firing a gun. He meets a uniformed woman and tells her to help Donny (Dorman Borisman) as he goes after them. They run through a river into a rocky area and into a cave, He follows and the women, once he is inside, vanish into thin air. An earth tremor opens a passageway and light shines in it. The Snake Goddess floats on a throne to him, asks why he follows her escort, whilst he asks why she looks like Suzy (also Suzzanna). She melts, becoming a snake as the credit roles.

domestic violence

So these three would seem to be characters from later (Suzy, Joe and Donny) but the context is all wrong – but hey, that’s madcap Indonesian cinema for you. So, anyway, after the credits we meet Brian (Advent Bangun) and his (very soon to be ex-)girlfriend Carlita (Nina Anwar). He is misogynistic and violent, physically abusing her, stabbing her through the hand with a screwdriver when she fights back and attempting to rape her (by the dialogue, their relationship had not been physical). She gets away and cries for help, drawing the police who chase Brian off.

Brian and the Snake Goddess

Brian walks into the jungle and comes across a half snake/half woman and her cave dwelling husband, who tell him that he can find riches and status through the Snake Goddess and she belts him with her tail, through the air and into a river. The escorts find him, taking him to the Goddess’ cave. He tries taking pieces of gold trees but, when separated, the bits become scorpions and spiders. The Snake Goddess appears and says she can give him the riches he desires for a price – over a week he must find three women, drink their blood and eat their breasts as a sacrifice to her.

dracula on the loose

We see him attack the first – a woman whose lover has nipped off for a pee. Brian has fangs (and a cape) and drinks her blood and eats her breasts as required. The next day the newspapers have an article about a dracula murdering women (an example of using dracula as a common noun). Brian’s second attack is on Suzy, and she luckily escapes. We then see a businessman who has failed to sacrifice his daughter as required by the Snake Goddess – who states that she needs the sacrifices to provide her souls as sustenance, keeping her young and immortal. So, she is also a type of vampire.

Brian with fangs

Anyway, Brian betrays her, becomes rich and the film sees him obsessing over Carlita (whose family denies him despite his new riches), she happens to know Suzy, Joe and Donny and they are drawn in – especially as Joe accidentally rescues the betrayed Goddess, who wants Brian to pay. It is all a big mismatch of ideas with the clip-clop (literally) of flying horses drawing her chariot, magically induced erotic dance, as well as other black magic moments, and an attempted burning of Carlita just because.

a victim

Now, it isn’t brilliant but it is so mad it will keep your attention. The dub is as you’d expect but the natural charm and madcap nature may well be enhanced with a better print and original language. Don’t get me wrong, it is unlikely to ever be viewed as a masterpiece but the sheer weight of ideas makes it worth your time. 3.5 out of 10 is fair but the madness is greater than the sum of its parts.

The imdb page is here.