Director: James Balsamo
Release date: 2022
Contains spoilers
This one left me rather confused with regards release dates. It follows on from 2015’s Bite School and was released before (and seems to come before chronologically) Bite School 2. In fact Bite School 2 is mentioned as a movie, in a meta piece of Coda, and lead character Tony (James Balsamo) mentions going on to fight Robo-Dracula – which is the basic premise of Bite School 2. It was released three years before Bite School 2 but, I suspect, shot after it. It is disc 3 of the Blu-Ray set “James Balsamo’s Thrilling Three Pack”.
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| using a prayer scroll |
So, after moments of Tony riding a bat (we’ll get to that) and a brief cameo by Eric Roberts, it starts with vampire hunter Screaming Jay Pigeons (Charles Wright) taking on a vampire. He splashes him but the holy water doesn’t seem to work (its daylight, outdoors in the dessert by the way) until Jay declares that it is holy gasoline and sets the vampire alight. As the vampire runs around in flame we see a kyonsi/jiangshi, Broccoli Bob (Bill Victor Arucan, Bite School 2 & the Last Slay Ride), hopping towards him. Also appearing is Jay’s very naked dead wife Lanorea (J.E. Scripps) saying, “Save me, Jay”. She has vanished by the time Broccoli Bob arrives and Jay has time to go through a set of prayer scrolls and affix one to his head.
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| Spat and Tony |
Tony and Spat (a talking side-kick bat) are driving through the Nevada desert – and there is something very Hunter S Thompson/Fear & Loathing about Spat. This offers exposition (and that it is exposition is mentioned). Vicky, who turned millionaire playboy Tony into a vampire, was killed by vampire hunters – later confirmed to be Jay and his partner Father Gill O'Teen (G. Larry Butler, also Bite School 2), Her death made him become human again (he is still getting used to the idea of eating food again) and the subsequent mansion fire burnt all his money (he didn’t trust banks) and so he’s broke. At the start of the film the hunters are still after him and by the end they are allies. Tony stumbles into a vampire outbreak and Jay is collecting vampire eyes so he can “pass through the spiritual event horizon” and rescue Lanorea – who, we discover, was turned and subsequently killed by Jay.
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| flying by bat |
There isn’t too much more to say. Tony is further aided by billionaire Bill Diamond (Robert Felsted Jr.), we get a staking by screwdriver flicked in a condom, some gratuitous nakedness, fighting vampires, and lots of crap bats including the bat I mentioned that we see Tony riding. The bat is actually Mayan bat God Camazotz, summoned in an identical way to that in Bite School 2 in a sequence that involves Lamb of God’s Randy Blythe having his flesh stripped by drawn bats. The model for Camazotz is different, however. When we see Tony riding it is when he declares he has to kill Robo-Dracula. The film itself meanders, jumps back in time and Broccoli Bob seems to reappear even having been seen to be killed (though that could just be a non-linear appearance). It is more stream of consciousness than story. Like the others in the series James Balsamo fans will know what they’re getting and enjoy it. The narrative wasn’t there for me but really that’s the point of his filmmaking – caveated that many do get it, 3 out of 10.
The imdb page is here.
On Blu-Ray @ Amazon US
On Demand @ Amazon UK
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