Daisy – review

Director: Michael S. Rodriguez

Release date: 2024*

Contains spoilers

*At the time of writing the IMDb page is silent on date, Amazon suggests 2024

This low-to-no budget film disarmed me in the fact that, whilst far from perfect, it looked way better than it should have done. It is based around a bat-like cryptid but, whilst situating the origin of the creature in Afghanistan, does not name the cryptid type. I have looked at man-bat creatures before on the blog and there is evidence enough for it being a vampire type.

burying Buck

It starts in 2005, in black and white, and has a guy who has determined to bury his dog, Buck, despite the fact that it peed on his speakers once. There is flapping in the night, and he seems to be carried off… Cut to the present and Trevor (Israel Ledesma) and Ginger (Sparkle Soojian) are driving on a date. She snorts some coke and puts some on her décolletage, which he refuses. The car breaks down as does, quickly, her opinion of him. There was a garage a-ways back and he determines to walk.

Trevor and Ginger

We next see them both in a garage owned by Afghan-vet Felix (Michael Wainwright), he needs to replace a part and suggests Trevor step in the back with him. He brains Trevor and then sets Daisy (Jamie Krivobok) on Ginger. We see a flash of a bat like face… The next day, after words with his deceased dad’s friend Carl (D.T. Carney), he goes into town and meets influencer D (Marcus Esparza). There is a brief confrontation, as D films him without permission, but then we see that D's car has broken down.

finding Daisy

With D not checking in, his friend Zero aka Z (Wade Pierson) and dad Jerry aka Pop (Manuel Ramirez) go to Cutler to find him and quickly discover he had interaction with Felix. In the meantime Felix is having flashbacks to Afghan (which are the poorest parts of the film) and chatting to Daisy, a vampire bat-creature he found out there. Daisy seems to be getting hungrier and is wanting to hunt through the day as well as night.

Jamie Krivobok as Daisy

Daisy speaks in a whistle and chatter sort of way but Felix can apparently understand her and she, likewise, can understand him. He found her whilst injured (with a leg blown off) awaiting rescue teams – she was in a hole and tiny enough to hide in his ammo belt, though she did bite him when he grabbed her. But beyond a taste for human flesh, and being a bat-creature, it is worth touching on the tropes that lead to classing her as a vampire.

biting Ginger

She does feed on flesh, but we see her bite necks and then suckle as well. Ginger is found alive and this, a flashback shows, is because Daisy tried to drink her blood but disliked it – intimating that the cocaine in Ginger’s system saved her. Despite being found in the desert and wanting to hunt in the day we do see her smoke when in the sun and the ragtag band of hunters desire to stake her through the heart. The film has two in-credit sequences and one suggests that, despite an inference that they are a separate species that reproduce naturally, a human victim can also be turned.

hunting Daisy

The majority of what little budget the film had was used on the Daisy costume, or so it appears. It may not look overly real but it works well enough, offering an old school B vibe. The acting is passable but the flashbacks to Afghanistan, with stock footage merged with some uninspiring original footage of an injured Felix, are poor to the point of I’d want them cut out if it wasn't for their importance in communicating the backstory of Daisy. At 62 minutes the film does not outstay its welcome, though. Better than it possibly deserved to be, 4 out of 10 is fair but does not communicate the fact that it overcomes the odds.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Honourable Mention: Casual Relations

Casual Relations was a 1974, low budget experimental film by auteur Mark Rappaport, which consisted of vignettes of people in their casual relationships – mostly filmed in portrait form with voice over and background sound – so, for instance, we watch one woman sit in a chair, in front of a TV – the screen in her view but not ours. And as she fidgets, uses a phone etc we hear the films she watches, all lifted from actual cinema releases.

dreams

There are two reasons for the mention, both fleeting visitations. Firstly when we meet Elen, who slept through her alarm after a night of broken sleep that ended with nightmares. The nightmares are represented to the viewer in the form of stills from Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens, occasionally merging images of Elen with the still. Rappaport also used some footage from the film later in his film. The idea of using Orlok as a representation of a nightmare worked, the public domain nature of the film probably didn’t hurt either.

bite

The other reason is a sequence highlighting Elizabeth – a woman who makes money doing glamour photography and occasionally filming “stag films”. She tells us that she once filmed a motion picture, “A Vampire’s Love”, but that it was never released. We see moments of her, in the film, with the vampire as she reports on him pursuing her and her repealing him with a couple of apotropaic elements – namely crosses and garlic – of him biting her, her going to stake him but being unable to do so, turning and them terrorising the neighbourhood but also killing the other vampires. There was some nice vampiric imagery in this section and, of course, she was acting as a vampire.

The imdb page is here.

D: Mina Harker's Journal – review

Author: Lawrence Burgess

First Published: 2025

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: Dracula. Bram Stoker's novel.

Ten years later.

Wilhelmina Harker. Headmistress. Wife. Mother. Her calling, to house and educate London's forgotten. Duty-bound to family and friends. A life path.

Until the letter.

The review: A decade after the events in Dracula, this sequel by Lawrence Burgess is one amongst many and it is a testament to Stoker’s work that so many authors feel compelled to continue the story with a direct sequel which, more so than using the character in a wider story or film, underlines the continuing popularity of Stoker’s work.

Burgess’ vision starts with the death of Van Helsing, or more accurately, the murder - though it is wolves that attack. The novel, however, concentrates on the Harkers’ and their son Quincey. The Quincey character needs addressing as it might, within the pages of the novel, seem that he is older than he is. He is drawn as very intelligent, well-spoken and yet precocious, given freedoms a young boy would likely not be given and yet the character is so well written that one can ignore the idiosyncrasies of his character and the Harkers’ parenting – and his youthful vulnerabilities are exploited as the novel moves to conclusion.

Mina and Jonathan seem estranged in their marriage, though the underlining love draws them together as the novel progresses, their close friends become targets for their shadowy enemy and London finds itself infested by the undead. Mina has taken in two wards, Elise and Abby, new characters who become central to the story. It is also interesting that the author used the (only mentioned in the original novel) character Arminius, though painted him as a antisemitic loose cannon, with little to redeem him despite hunting the undead. There is an interesting use of the Ripper (cold) case, with it deployed by the antagonists, within the plot, to distract, obfuscate and throw doubt.

Turning my attention to the prose themselves. The author’s style is poetic and offers with that dense, evocative prose that were a joy and extremely well written. This book is no casual read and you will wade through a molasses of composition that leaves the book all the more satisfying for that. However, this is also a caution, if you do not like your prose to be so poetic then you may disengage – I was engaged throughout. The style could have impacted the pace and yet, towards the end of the book the author manages to maintain the style, whilst turning up the pace up to breakneck. With the caution aside, for me this is worth a strong 8 out of 10.

In Paperback @ Amazon US

In Paperback @ Amazon UK

Mimì - Il principe delle tenebre – review

Director: Brando De Sica

Release date: 2023

Contains spoilers

In English the title is Mimì, the Prince of Darkness and this is a strangely effective Italian movie and one in which you question whether there is a vampire but the megatext is front and centre of the story. It has some strong themes and, whilst admittedly dragging in the middle act just a tad, it has a wonderfully explosive ending.

The film opens with footsteps over the credits and laboured breathing. We get a cityscape and then see a pizza delivery van drive along a winding road. It stops outside a large house and we see that the driver, Mimì (Domenico Cuomo), walks with an awkward gait but scales the gate into the property with ease. We see him drop into a swimming pool in just his tidy whities and notice that his feel are unusually large. A resident gets up and lights come on, Mimì has skedaddled leaving behind large, wet footprints.

Domenico Cuomo as Mimì

Mimì works in the pizzeria owned by Nando (Mimmo Borrelli), later we hear that Mimì was brought up by nuns in an orphanage until Nando took him in as an adolescent, raised him and gave him the job. Nando has gone to deliver a pizza to regular customer Giusi (Abril Zamora), who is a tad resentful that Mimì hasn’t brought it – she talls Nando she had a dream of the young man, scared in a corner and hissing like a cat. Meanwhile Mimì is having a cigarette when he sees some young men approaching.

bullied

He ducks in the pizzeria and pulls the shutter down but they are rattling on it and, despite him saying that they are closed and the oven is off, they open the shutter and demand feeding. The leader of this gang is Bastianello (Giuseppe Brunetti), and though it isn’t said outright, it would appear he is the son of a local crime boss. Bastianello is acting out towards a young Goth girl (Sara Ciocca) and it appears Mimì has had his active bystander training as he tries to distract him. This just makes them turn on him, they pull his shoes off to reveal his deformed feet calling him a freak and a monster.

Mimmo Borrelli as Nando

Later Mimì hears a phone ringing. He climbs the stairs from his basement room and finds a dropped phone. The caller is the girl and it is her phone and he drives to the docks to return it. She actually takes Mimì’s number, gives hers and says that he can call her Carmilla. The following day Nando sees the bruised eye Mimì has been left with, and goes to see Bastianello’s father who seems to be in a medical pod and is clearly extremely unwell. In the night Bastianello sees Mimì in his van, chases him down and pursues him into the cemetery. He beats the crap out of Mimì for talking to his father.

Sara Ciocca as Carmilla

After Bastianello has left, a gang of Goths emerge from the shadows, including Carmilla. They take Mimì to the house they are squatting in. From here Mimì and Carmilla draw closer and become a couple even. The problem is they are not reliable narrators. Carmilla is a fantasist, she suggests that she is the daughter of a Romanian princess, and her surname is Vlad (after Vlad Ţepeş), she also tells Mimì that Dracula is buried there in Naples. Her fantasy life hides the fact that she is an underaged runaway. For his part, Mimì is naïve to the point of credulity. He hires Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens and seems to believe the yarn the video shop guy spins about Schreck actually being a vampire. Getting jealous of her dancing with a guy with fangs, he gets fangs but they actually rip teeth out and replace them with cemented in fangs. We see them kiss and fly, but it is likely the drugs she has provided.

the vampire and Mimì

The film follows their romance, which comes to an abrupt halt when Bastinello and his pal Rocco (Daniele Vicorito) attack him again, whilst Carmilla is performing a rite of devotion over “Dracula’s grave”. Unconscious, Mimì sees the vampire and believes he has been bitten by him. Mimì also goes into a coma for a month and a half. I won’t spoil further forward. The film is well acted with the two leads giving good performances and the film clearly loves the vampire genre. It did, as mentioned, feel to drag a little in the middle section but it didn’t spoil the film and the ending sequences are absolutely worth sticking around for. Despite the pacing moments, 7 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Scooby-Doo: Return to Zombie Island – review

Directors: Cecilia Aranovich & Ethan Spaulding

Release date: 2019

Contains spoilers

Scooby-Doo On Zombie Island was a bit of a gem for being a well animated, acted and scripted piece and also for being one of the Scooby-Doo properties where the monsters are real. The vampires were cat people who drained lifeforce from their victims to maintain the longevity of life and the zombies (and ghosts) were the victims of the cat people (and were trying to warn the gang).

a bat

The first thing to note with this sequel is that the filmmakers tried to retrofit this and betrayed the integrity of the first film. The main ways they did this was firstly by having the gang be high school kids who have been warned off mysteries by the sheriff (David Herman). In the previous film they were portrayed as young adults with Daphne (Grey Griffin) having her own syndicated TV show. This is devolved down to it being a high school project.

cat people

The other retcon aspects include Velma (Kate Micucci) having a blog where she lists the mystery in the unsolved section as she is not happy that the answer was supernatural. Yes, they actually try to take away the supernatural element from the previous film and, despite the gang having their energy drained and seeing cat people disintegrate, the disappointing resolution is that Velma thinks it was swamp gas that made them think it all real… The film does leave a breadcrumb of, perhaps, a real monster.

vampire

Anyway, the opening sees them capturing a werewolf who turns out to be Young Man Withers (the son of the villain character Old Man Withers, from a Cartoon Network version of Scooby Doo and connected in with Wayne’s World and the Powerpuff Girls). They go out and capture a host of classic monsters, including a vampire/Dracula who does turn into a bat. They are all the Withers family members, but it all turns out to be a dream that turns nightmare for Fred (Frank Welker) and connected to him selling the Mystery Machine as they have quit mystery solving.

Cassandra Peterson voices Elvira

Shaggy (Matthew Lillard) and Scooby (also Frank Welker) make the gang swear a solemn oath to resist mysteries and then watch their favourite horror host Elvira (Cassandra Peterson) and she announces a competition win for Shaggy, 3 friends and a pet to go on a tropical vacation. Despite the boat taking them down the Bayou and the palm trees on Moonstar (rather than Moonscar) island – which are soon revealed to be plastic trees – the gang steadfastly ignore what might be a mystery – that is until zombies appear.

Shaggy and Scooby

Unfortunately Fred catches them and reveals them to be hotel staff, who are really actors directed by Alan Smithee (John Michael Higgins, Blade Trinity). He is making a zombie feature, based loosely on Velma’s blog and tricked them there to star in it (found footage style) without telling them. Unfortunately, cat people start appearing, unconnected to Alan’s film and apparently with the ability to control ordinary cats. They aren’t, of course, real and are trying to scare people off whilst they search for the pirate Moonscar’s treasure. There is an unconnected cat person who may or may not be a real monster and is dangled to the viewer at the end with the gang ignoring it.

the gang and stunt double

And it is a no from me. The contrivances to wring out a sequel are awful, the retrofitting worse. Despite the animation being fine and the voice acting as good as one would expect, I just can’t let the film lie. I think 3 out of 10 is maybe harsh, but don’t actively spoil one of the best loved Scooby films. Of course the vampires in this are people acting as such.

The imdb page is here.

On Blu-Ray (with the better film) @ Amazon US

On DVD @ Amazon UK

Short Film: Caesar & Otto in the House of Dracula

Directed by Dave Campfield and under 10 minutes long, this 2009 comedy offering was a short film sequel to Caesar and Otto's Summer Camp Massacre featuring Caesar (Dave Campfield) and his brother Otto (Paul Chomicki).

Caesar and Otto

It begins where the feature ends, with Caesar getting a phone call from someone inviting him to stay at his house. He has spotted the wannabe thespian and invites him to talk about a project. If he wants, he can bring a companion and, obviously, he brings Otto.

The House

We see them approaching the house on bikes (with an obviously green screen backdrop). In the dialogue Caesar says his next film will be entirely green screen and Otto questions how good that could look. The humour is like this through the piece with a very self-aware script. Similarly, when they get to the house Otto comments that it looks like a bad photograph.

Ed Dennehy as Steve Dracula

When they get there, their patron introduces himself as Dracula (Ed Dennehy). When Otto asks if he is THE Dracula, he is told no, that’s his brother. He is Steve Dracula. He flatters Caesar and suggests he is perfect for a role, as he is trying to bring… ahem… new blood to the theatre, He even offers Otto a dance choreography position… which makes Caesar suspicious… Surely Steve Dracula will be on the level?

time for a bite

The short is amusing, shot in black and white the obvious green screen plays into the humour and Steve Dracula is very lovey and over the top. We discover he has only one weakness (not sunlight) and I won’t spoil it. It spawned a second short film and I’ll look at that in the future.

The imdb page is here and you can watch the short on YouTube.

Forty Coffins – One Shot Comic

Writer: Rodolfo Santullo

Artist: Jok

First published: 2025

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: One by one they disappear. The ship Demeter is travelling from Romania to Whitby, England with a mysterious cargo of coffins. As the crew is beset by an horrific killer, the remaining sailors turn on each other in fear and paranoia. Only when it’s too do they realize their cargo carries the vampire Dracula.

Thoughts: When I reviewed Santullo’s The Passenger of the U-977 I mentioned this as a forthcoming comic. U-977 was, at its heart, a submerged retelling of Stoker’s Demeter sequence and it was interesting that Afterlight comics were looking to produce this also.

It is, essentially, a lift and of the sequence and Santullo has not really elaborated on the story as others who have created properties based on that short section of the novel have previously done. There are moments of expansion, of course, the crew is named, for instance, and there is a sequence where the Captain seems to have an encounter with Dracula’s vampire women, but they are more watery and part of a haunting dream sequence, rather than real. Indeed, there is a further sequence where he enters Castle Dracula in a dream and sees crew members impaled. This dream-taunting of the captain came across as a hetero-version of the dreams visited on the captain in the novel The Route of Ice and Salt.

The lower level of embellishment of the original sequence means that this fits neatly into a one-shot format and, after the opening landfall at Whitby, by remaining in the Captain’s point of view (via his logs) we see little of the vampire, he becomes more a threat ever present than a character we particularly see. The artwork is very comic-book orientated, working therefore for the format, though perhaps a little less evocative than that in U-977, but the narrative expression is much stronger than in that graphic novel.

Succubus {2024} – review

Director: R.J. Daniel Hanna

Release date: 2024

Contains spoilers

Seen on the big screen at Grimmfest 2024, this is (by its very title) about a succubus but the succubus is using both flesh and spirit of victims to strengthen herself and become a corporeal reality. In such a way her actions are vampiric. The film also does a neat line in using virtual relationships along with a commentary on our interconnected and camera filled world (the film could have veered down a found footage route but, thankfully, avoided it and instead does have some footage moments but is a narrative film.

Ron Perlman as Zephyr

That said the opening footage is a recording and it features Dr. Orion Zephyr (Ron Perlman) talking to his wife and saying if the footage is found then it means that he is dead. He talks of his controversies, which will have hurt her, but says that she must publish his research – even if it is just given away free on the net. He leaves his car (cutting to a narrative camera), gets an axe and then heads on foot, limping, to a farm house.

Chris and Sharon

Chris (Brendan Bradley, Death Valley) is at home with the baby, but it is not currently an ideal family life. His son has been dropped off, whilst his estranged wife Sharon (Olivia Grace Applegate, Blood Fest) attends a hen night – they have been separated for two weeks. The cracks in their marriage seem mostly down to him. He started an app business but overstretched and is in debt. The stress of the business saw him neglect her.

meeting Adra online

Sharon is out with Charlisse (Emily Kincaid), who is divorced from Chris’ best friend Eddie (Derek Smith). Eddie has persuaded Chris to go on a dating app (even though he actually does still love Sharon) and he matches, at first, with a mutual friend and then gets a match from a mysterious girl called Adra (Rachel Cook). At first he suspects a scam. She initiates a video chat but types as he speaks (she has lost her voice, she says) and has a filter over her face. However, he becomes convinced she is real (and she attempts to have him visit her). Faux pas with Sharon, such as her seeing him masturbating on the nanny cam in the nursery (to a video Adra sends) and reactions when she looks noticeably aged on a video call – manipulated we assume by Adra.

bio-mass

How? Well Adra is the succubus and has selected Chris. She wants his cells (as she puts it) and there is a possession aspect to this, in order to infect and use sperm to help bring her corporeally into reality (or so it is implied). Yet she is corporeal… sort of… we see a video of a goat birthing a deformity (described by Zephyr as her first attempt to enter our world)… we also see her physically as a bio-mass (whether there is more to it, we don’t see) that devours a victim whilst copulating with it. We also see her in devil form.

demon form

However it is clear she can manipulate the virtual – with her female form that flirts with Chris. She can also manipulate when people are in an altered state – be that during sex, through substance, hypnosis or dreams. She is able to do this through a digital interface too and trap a victim in the altered state and unable to return to their conscious body. All this is really clever but there are bits that seem frustratingly unanswered.

Brendan Bradley as Chris

Zephyr is described as having hurt her and one assumes that is tied to the opening, but what he was doing there is never answered beyond what we saw in the prologue. If he did damage her corporeal form then how did she get to the house she is currently based in? How did Zephyr know that Chris was in touch with her and how he might get hold of him? These are frustrations but they are not insurmountable. In truth they were more apparent when I watched for review than they were on first watch in the festival.

coming between them

Well-acted by the leads, a moment of body horror, and a really neat use of the virtual world meeting the supernatural. This is a good film that perhaps needed a little bit more in the aspects mentioned but nevertheless I think is worth a watch. 6 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon US

The Night of the Chihuahua – review

Director: Guillermo Grillo

Release date: 2012

Contains spoilers

I’m never sure when going in to a horror comedy, the comedy genre is so subjective and, to be fair, in my subjective view many are just unfunny. However, this Argentinean release did amuse me. Very much character driven, one might call it a situation comedy that uses horror tropes (gently) to create the situation the characters find themselves in.

Benjamín Rojas)as Juan

It starts with Juan (Benjamín Rojas) looking for an apartment. Later we found that his parents caught him cheating on his (now ex-)girlfriend, Florencia (Inés Palombo), and this move has been instigated because of that. We get a run through the apartments he views until he finds the one he wants. A note on the photography, which is black and white and sharply done throughout.

Josefina Silveyra as Malena

So his friend Pedro (Talo Silveyra) helps Juan move in – his possessions are few and mostly made up of comic books. He suggests beers with Pedro the following night but Pedro refuses, yet is evasive around the reason why. His friend gone, Juan takes a photo and posts it online. He immediately gets a message from Malena (Josefina Silveyra). He checks her profile and decides she is an attractive goth girl (he briefly met her at a comic convention). We note fangs in one picture. They arrange for her to come round the next night.

not quite a wolf

He is waiting for her to arrive when Pedro arrives. He tells Juan how – four weeks ago – he was walking from a party and became aware of a dog (he suggests wolf) and a man with a gun. He hid in a trash bin but, when he got out, the dog bit him. The bite mark has hair growing out of it. The moon comes out and Pedro changes – but he is more dog than wolf. Something smells tasty – it’s Juan. We then move into two dream moments – one of Pedro talking to his mom, who becomes a dog and one of Juan in his flat when Florencia visits and he tries to get back with her (the dialogue is repeated later when she does visit, but the scene becomes negative where his dream was positive). She eventually shows fang... He wakes and the doorbell goes – it is Malena, and he makes Pedro hide but she hears him (he goes to the toilet as he got an urge to mark territory).

Florencia's dream fangs

The film carries on in that vein. Malena is a vampire and had come to feed on Juan. Her comment after meeting Pedro about what would happen if he bit her and then mentioning hybrids like in Underworld clearly declared that to the viewer before the reveal. This is obfuscated slightly with her confession that she is a furry, in a way to explain her sudden interest in Pedro. The characters are drawn through the situation and the comedy works well but gently because of this, but there is no huge plot, just reaction to the situation. I rather liked this. 6 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

#DRCL midnight children, Vol. 4 – review

Art and story: Shin'ichi Sakamoto

First published: 2025 (UK)

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: Dracula meets manga in this surreally beautiful and chilling retelling of Bram Stoker’s quintessential horror classic.

In this beautiful, evocative, and often surreal retelling of Dracula, a fearsome enemy comes from the east, bringing with it horrors the likes of which have never been seen in the British Empire. Standing opposed are Wilhelmina “Mina” Murray and her stalwart companions, united in a cabal that eclipses gender, nationality, and station until the day that they can achieve victory.

The nature of time, reality, and fantasy intertwine as Jonathan Harker’s ill-fated journey to meet with Count Dracula begins. Traveling through strange, foreign lands, a young boy will confront unimaginable terrors that his short time in this world could scarce prepare him for. Yet even after escaping the fearsome beasts and ghosts of the wild, he will find within the stone walls of Dracula’s castle terrible monsters waiting to devour him all the same.

The review: Time bends in this volume, the fourth in the #DRCL series, as the cliff-hanger from Volume 3 is left to hang, with the vampiric and insect bodied Lucy looming over her erstwhile classmates, and the series moves back in time to Jonathan Harker’s travels through Europe to meet the Count. As the series has transformed many of the characters into adolescents, we see Jonathan as a very young boy forced to travel, we discover, by the Headmaster at the Whitby school to secure his place. Interestingly the character is a wheelchair user, having been pushed in front of a racing horse in a cruel prank.

More interesting is what is done with Dracula artistically. We have seen him as a slender, beautiful man (in a typically Shōjo manga style) so far, in this we see two forms – one based on Vlad Ţepeş and the other as a young girl with Nekomimi (cat ears), which is the form Harker first sees him in when he arrives at the castle. This gender queering is also marked by the fact that Dracula is still referred to in the masculine by Harker (though Dracula refers to himself in the plural) and the visitor does actually note the ears, wondering if they are real of affectation. The enter of your own free will moment is made sadistic by having Harker forced to fall from his chair and pull himself in on his smashed legs, couched in wonderful psychodramatic memories and hallucinations, with the Count impassively observing until holding him, almost tenderly, once over the threshold. The bride sequence is notable for the fact that the vampire women have a racial diversity and the fact that , despite Harker being portrayed as a rather young (almost cherubim) boy, there is definitely a more sexual aspect (with Dracula calling them lechers) and this might prove a trigger for some.

Also interesting was the very deliberate use of a Möbius strip within the art, which fit into the idea of a narrative time shift and paired nicely with portraying the castle as an Escher staircase. The whole volume is concentrated upon the visit to the castle, with flashbacks to Harker’s past also. This series continues to enchant. 9 out of 10.

In Hardback @ Amazon US

In Hardback @ Amazon UK

Short Film: Lesbian Vampires from Outer Space

I made a conscious decision to stop reviewing short films and simply post about them, as the short film is a rather different movie form to the feature. When it came to this Sam Rooke directed film, that is around 48-minutes, I was torn as the production company, Psychic Visions, list it as a feature. It is also longer or as long as many a TV episode. But, as it comes in just under what I’d generally class as a feature length, and it is available to watch for free on YouTube, I decided that I’d run it as a short film article.

First, I need to touch on the title – lesbian is apt as the lead characters Don (Rachel Simm) and Maude (Zorsha Taylor Suich) are lesbians and the production company is a queer facing company and collective. The Outer Space bit didn’t overly mean much, they do refer to humans as something other than themselves (but it is common in the megatext for vampires to see themselves as separate from their prey) but they can turn victims, and nothing is made of the allegedly alien aspect. The full title makes the film sound like it might be schlocky (it isn’t and is filmed and played with a serious air) or comedy (it really isn’t).

aftermath

As mentioned, it follows Don and Maude who are celebrating their anniversary and are getting ready to go out. Before they leave Don packs a body part from a victim away. They go to a local pub and, at the bar, they are accosted by Jamie (William Mullett), who thinks Don should fancy him. When she goes to the toilet, he follows her, and things turn violent and rapey. Maude’s sensitive hearing picks up on what is going on but when she gets into the toilet Don is violently feeding on him. His mates hear a scream and enter the toilet and then panic ensues as they kill both them and all others in the pub. In all 21 die.

fangs

The film does cast hetero men as a threat – and not unfairly, in truth. However, it also fails to capitalise on the violence. We get aftermath gore but not the attacks (for the most part) and I understand why from a production standpoint, but it would have added a visceral layer. The vampires get out of there – though Maude vomits some of the blood and later becomes ill and there is mention of what human blood does to them, drawing an addiction aspect to the narrative. The women go on the run, head to the coast, meet an eloping lesbian couple and are hunted by the police.

at a crime scene

There are some bits of this that jar – such as a copper suggesting they are from a PD, which is very American, and two grown women able to hide in the rear footwell of a small car for a couple of hours (even if it’s dark). The primary leads seem very natural in their performances. As mentioned extended violence/gore sequences would have added to it. However, all in all it kept me watching and positives outweigh niggles.

The imdb page is here.