Brief Hiatus

It is Rebellion Festival starting tomorrow, but the fun and frolics start today; getting my wristband, catching up with friends and some pre-festival fringe music and general shenanigans.

I’ve taken the decision to put the blog on a very brief hiatus, rather than continuing to post over the weekend.

Normal service resumes 11th August.

Use of Tropes: Sleep Stalker

This is a 2025 feature from directors Justin Shilton and Rob Zazzali, and I previously looked at their feature Shark Girl. Rob Zazzali contacted me to see if I would look at this new film and maybe feature it here on TMtV.

Now, had I watched this cold I would probably not have done a “Use of Tropes”, the tropes are, to be fair, sparse indeed – though I was reminded to a degree of one of the 19th Century great vampire stories, Guy de Maupassant’s The Horla (1887) but Rob had already suggested that “I realize this may be even further outside your Vampire sphere…but perhaps fits well in your “Use of Tropes” bucket.” Though the tropes might be sparse, that sort of message suggests the filmmakers knew what they were doing with them.

video channel

The film was, Rob confessed, filmed on a budget and so the filmmakers used the found footage genre to allow the film room to breathe within the financial constraints and the primary two characters are content creators/influencers. They are Abby (Gabrielle Montes de Oca, Shark Girl) and Shane (Josh Gilmer), and the opening shots of the film are the titles to their video channel. An intertitle tells us that what we are about to see was made up of socials and personal videos made before their channel went dark, We meet them proper going into a property at night that they have bought sight unseen.

sonambulist

In the morning, they start to assess the house, the work that needs doing to it, the furniture left in the house and the potential decorating. The idea is that they will chart their progress as content for the channel. The house isn’t too bad for being bought sight unseen. However, it isn't long before Abby catches Shane sleepwalking. Though not a staple of the genre, sleepwalking is a major plot point in Dracula and suggests a psychic disturbance at the very least. One thing the audience sees, which Abby misses, is when Shane tried to open the front door and she leads him back to bed, the chain being opened by a presence unseen.

happier moment

The film relies on both Josh Gilmer’s performance and small-scale strange phenomena (such as doors opening) to build an unheimlich feeling. It also concentrates on the impact on the couple, him becoming more and more exhausted and obsessed with the idea that there is something occult happening, her dismissive of that theory, wanting to get their content down and becoming scared of him and what he might do in his sleep. Her fears escalate to the point where it is inferred she has deleted footage, probably because there was unexplainable elements to it. They go to a sleep institute who give them cameras to monitor his sleepwalking, but he refuses to be medicated. Eventually Shane puts a call out for a psychic.

Yvans Jourdain as Gabriel

The psychic is Gabriel (Yvans Jourdain), who arrives when Shane is out and feels nothing but warmth and good energy in the house. However, his demeanour changes when Shane returns to the house and he suggests that the young man’s aura is off and that something non-human has attached itself to him. This then is where the film reminded me of the Horla. Rather than a demonic or spirit possession, the 19th century story has a separate, invisible species attach to ordinary folk and they are energy vampires.

Gabrielle Montes de Oca as Abby

In truth, in this, we never get to know what this actually is; spirit, demon or unknown species – there is some suggestion that it might be the previous owner, John. It could also be that John himself was targeted by the presence and the sleepwalking/possession is either John reliving his events or trying to communicate and, with this reading, the “attached thing” may not directly causing the sleepwalking. The film keeps this as broad as it can so the viewer can interpret but there is nothing to indicate that Shane is being fed upon.

feeding blood

The only other thing to mention is Abby finding him chopping (something not particularly seen but may be some lamb, or meat of some describe), pouring blood into a glass and forcing her to drink “the blood of the lamb”. Although not vampiric it was a moment of blood drinking. All in all, whilst some might want a more definitive answer as to what was occurring, the filmmakers make an off-kilter little mystery, overcoming budget by keeping things simple, relying on actors and focusing on the realm of influencers to allow a found footage aesthetic where the rolling cameras make sense.

The imdb page is here.

DC vs. Vampires: World War V Vol. 1 - review

Author: Matthew Rosenberg

Illustrator: Otto Schmidt

First Published: 2025 (THB)

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: The smash-hit Elseworlds series returns, as the fight between heroes-turned-vampires and what’s left of humanity goes global!

DC vs. Vampires was just the beginning! The sequel has arrived, and the team of writer Matthew Rosenberg and artist Otto Schmidt return as a new Ice Age dawns.

It’s the dead of winter, and any hope for a fragile truce between the Green Arrow-led human heroes and vampire queen Barbara Gordon’s army has been dashed by Damian Wayne and his guerrilla fighters. He’s the only one fighting back against the bloodthirsty hordes, leaving Green Arrow with a choice: Does he stand and fight, or sacrifice the boy in the name of peace?

This volume collects DC vs. Vampires: World War V #1-6, the first half of the bloody battle.

The review: Time to take a quick break from Marvel’s Blood Hunt event, with the next volume in DC’s vampire event (which started with DC Vs Vampires). There is often a lot of fan rivalry between the two comic book giants, rivalry that seems less apparent in the properties themselves and which, for me, is unnecessary as they both have their positive points and if I have a preference for one of them it does not mean that I can't enjoy the other. When it comes to the two events, however, one thing I prefer about the DC series is the long-term impact of the uprising. Where Blood War came and went in one volume and the other volumes showed events tied to a variety of heroes (and villains) during that point, the DC property, being an Elseworlds and therefore out of main continuity, has long lasting and far-reaching impacts.

By this volume humanity is scattered and endangered, the vampires are looking to create quantities of synthetic blood (though not used exclusively, it seems and so humans may still be farmed) and a fragile truce has been entered into, However the vampiric Damian Wayne refuses to bow the knee to the Vampire Queen – Barbara Gordon – and is attacking with impunity and has the audacity to try and assassinate the Queen. Elsewhere a baby is born of two vampires and the volume follows the father, Mr Miracle, trying to keep her alive, whilst a prophecy seems to surround her. Batman (killed early on in the vampire uprising) seems to return, though it is not who you might think in the cowl. Alfred has become a Green Lantern, but he is in desperate need of training and confidence and Darkseid makes his appearance.

It was the utter despair, the inherent attempt to make this a dark, gritty story that is unlikely to have any bright conclusion, which makes this for me. By the end of the first volume of Blood War, the danger had passed and whilst there were continuity ramifications, for the main things returned to normal. We got the destination in a volume, the other volumes represent the journey. With DC the destination is far off and unknown. 8 out of 10.

In Hardback @ Amazon US

In Hardback @ Amazon UK

Sinners – review

Director: Ryan Coogler

Release date: 2025

Contains spoilers

Regular readers will hopefully recall that I offered my first impression of this film following a cinema viewing. Now that it has moved onto physical media I wanted to offer my more considered thoughts. However, on going in, I have to say that this was a film that absolutely captured my attention in the cinema and was a film whose soundtrack I bought as I travelled home that evening. The soundtrack in the film is a key element of not only the setting, and the film’s structure but also the cornerstone of the film’s plot.

opening sequence

That is explained in the opening where we are given information about musicians “born with the gift of making music so true, it can pierce the veil between life and death. Conjuring spirits from the past... and the future. In Ancient Ireland, they were called Fili. In Choctaw land, they call them Firekeepers. And in West Africa, they're called griots. This gift can bring healing to their communities but it also attracts evil.” The listing of the three cultures is important as the film is set amongst people of the African diaspora on the Mississippi Delta, has an Irish antagonist and we get a brief appearance of the Choctow.

Sammie, worst for wear

The film’s structure does remind me, to a degree, of From Dusk Till Dawn, in that it structures as perhaps two halves, with us immersed in a crime facing drama for the first half, which then explodes into a vampire action film in the second half. However, unlike the former this does offer vampire related moments in the first half. The film starts proper with Sammie Moore (Miles Caton) pulling a car up in front of his father’s church. His clothes are ripped and bloodied, he has raw, fresh claw marks across his cheek and he clings to the neck of a broken guitar. In the church his father (Saul Williams) wants him to turn from sin before allowing him the comfort he seeks, he wants him to drop the guitar. In his mind’s eye he sees flashes of the things he has just faced…

Smoke and Stack

The film cuts back 1 day. Sammie is working the cotton fields alone, trying to achieve his quota before the day has started properly. He is leaving as other workers start to appear. One asks where he’ll be playing – he doesn’t answer (he doesn’t yet know). Elsewhere Sammie’s cousins the SmokeStack Twins (both played by Michael B. Jordan) are waiting to do business with Hogwood (David Maldonado, From Dusk Till Dawn the series). Just returned to the Delta, they were soldiers through the First World War and have been running with gangsters in Chicago. They are looking to buy an old sawmill but there is no love lost – the deal concluded, they warn Hogwood that if the see him or his Klan brothers on their property they’ll shoot them. For his part Hogwood claims the Klan is gone.

travelin'

Sammie has to go to the church to retrieve his guitar (taken there by his father) and it is clear that his father doesn’t approve of his musical choices (style or those he plays for). The twins pick him up, however. They have a truck stowed that is stuffed with Italian wine and Irish beer (it is mentioned later that they have clearly played the Irish gangs and mafia against each other and stolen from both) and plan to turn the sawmill into a juke joint. When they get to the truck there is a moment with a rattlesnake that illustrates how the twins work best as one, but they split up to speed the preparations. Smoke heads with the truck to arrange food and a sign for the joint (and meets his estranged wife and hoodoo practitioner Annie ((Wunmi Mosaku, Citadel, Lovecraft Country & Deadpool & Wolverine)) and Sammie and Stack go to recruit bluesman Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo) and doorman Cornbread (Omar Benson Miller). This leads to a chance meeting with Mary (Hailee Steinfeld) who was in love with Stack. It is suggested that Stack found her white husband for her as she passes white.

Choctaw hunter

“Vampires?” you may ask, The first look proper is through this sequence when we see Remmick (Jack O'Connell) running under the sun, his flesh charring as he flees Choctaw who are hunting him. He gets to the farmstead and meets a gun aimed at his face and so says that 'Indians' are after him (he also notices the Klan gear neatly folded on a stool inside the homestead). They relent and let him in just before the Choctaw arrive – and invitations are important in this, having to be renewed every visit. The Choctaw arrive and, whether these are vampire hunters in an official sense is unknown, but they certainly know what he is. They beat a retreat as the sun is setting – and this is all we see of them. Rightly so, more would have overburdened the plot but there is a prequel begging to be made of the Choctaw and Remmick. It is interesting that Remmick, who is Irish, and the Choctaw have this antagonism, given the history of the Choctaw people helping the Irish (donating, despite having little themselves, aid during the Irish Potato Famine). When Joan (Lola Kirke), the wife, finds her husband, Bert (Peter Dreimanis), Remmick is covered in blood and he is dead on the floor. Very soon Bert stands up and he is hungry…

Lola Kirke as Joan

The Juke is popping, and Sammie is introduced to play. As the song develops on screen we see a flashback of Delta Slim explaining to Sammie that the blues was not forced on the African Americans, like (Christian) religion was, but that they brought it from home. We also hear a repeat of the opening narration about griots. Figures appear from past and future, playing with Sammie. A DJ is scratching, electric guitars wail as traditional drums pound, all building into his song. Ancestors and those to come, for anyone there (and thus we see some Chinese spirits for instance). It is a stunning and evocative scene, honestly worth the entrance fee to the film in its own right. Unfortunately, Remmick hears the song too and is drawn to the Juke along with Joan and Bert.

bloodied

They aren’t granted entry – due to them being white. Despite presenting as musicians and claiming to believe in equality, the fear of what would happen if a drink was spilled or someone looked too long at Joan causes caution. They do play, to try and gain entry – we discover that the vampires are all connected in a hive mind and so can assume that Remmick has the musical talent and shares it. When their nature is uncovered, Annie compares haints and vampires. A haint is a spirit that possesses a dead body, but vampires have their souls trapped inside and cannot move on. Remmick wants Sammie as he can allow him to see those lost over the years of being a vampire. They turn one core person and use them to try and gain entrance and soon there is a handful of survivors and a whole lot of vampires.

vampire in the dawn

The hive mind leads to another aspect of the film that is very interesting. The vampires singing and dancing in a choreographed way, all stemming from Remmick, which almost gives parts of the film the feel of a musical. The vampires, as mentioned, must be invited in, are very fast and drool when in vamp mode and when hungry. Garlic burns – leading to a scene where the protagonists try and find if one of their number is a vampire, which was an oral variant of the famous scene from The Thing – and sunlight or a stake through the heart kills. Christian iconography does little (we hear Remmick say and take comfort in the Lord’s Prayer) but a mojo bag does hold a vampire off.

Michael B. Jordan as the twins

This is a cracking film, it is incredibly well shot, has a dynamite (and plot central) soundtrack and fantastic acting throughout. Shout out to Michael B. Jordan who, through a brilliant powerhouse performance, imbues the twins with enough personality that we can easily tell them apart. I do have a friend that felt a coda section where the Klan are dealt with was unnecessary to the wider film – but for me, who wouldn’t applaud murderous racists being decisively dealt with. Given the social regression being experienced in the US, the very blunt messaging about the Jim Crow era and the treatment of African Americans was timeous, to say the least. However the film may be set within that era and among that community but it was a nuanced story that will stand the test of time. 9 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Blu-Ray @ Amazon US

On Blu-Ray @ Amazon UK

Around Midnight – review

Directors: Laura Giglio, Christopher Kahler & Andrew N. Shearer

Release date: 2004

Contains spoilers

A shot on and straight to video effort, If you are able to track down this anthology film it is going to look just that – with the fuzz one expects from such a film.

The wraparound is hosted by Suzi Lorraine (The Last Revenants & Drakul), speaking directly to camera and identifying as a vampire (though she does nothing vampiric). There are three announced segments (the feature runs for an hour) but only one is vampire related. That said there is an additional segment tagged onto the end of the third that is vampire (and I’ll cover that, of course).

attack

The first segment is entitled Vampire’s Kiss and, in the introduction, Suzi Lorraine suggests it is about a woman who wants to be a vampire (presumably that is the first of the two women we meet). The two women are played by Debbie D (Vampyre Tales, Deep Undead & Requiem for a Vampire) and Barbara Joyce, the end credits does not suggest which roles they play. The first we meet is in the bathroom brushing her hair, not seeing the man (Dean Paul) who enters her room until she turns round as, being a vampire, he doesn’t reflect. He mesmerises her with hand movements, has her strip and bites her but something startles him and he skedaddles.

bound

We move to the second woman, see her get ready for bed, the vampire enter her room, wake her and mojo her also. He takes her to his lair and chains her up, rips her nightie (because, boobs) and feeds from her. Eventually the first woman enters the lair whilst he is absent, with a stake through her belt. She goes to rescue the victim but, once free, she reveals fangs, and the new slayer kills her and awaits the male vampire. Not a lot else to report from this one.

fangs

The other two primary segments feature an encounter with death and, in the second, a woman having a psychotic break (which is by far the longest segment and is paced really poorly) – in fact the vampire segment mentioned is probably the best, though it has little story and is very short. After the third one, as mentioned, we get a mini-segment which has a guy (Christopher Kahler, Dracula’s Orgy of the Damned, From Dusk Till Dawn – the series & Preacher) on a couch watching TV. We het a news report about the Anubis Syndrome – a phenomena causing the dead to rise. He goes for a shower (and it was a nice reverse for a video of this pedigree to have the man do a shower scene) and a woman appears in his home. He goes to his bedroom and she follows, his reaction on seeing her is appropriately sleazy for this kind of straight to video fare and she bears fangs and attacks – that’s it.

staking

So it looks terrible – we expect that (though the staking of the victim turned vampire looked ok – probably because the poor print papered over the cracks) but the issue is that the segments aren’t great. Nevertheless, it does technically have three vampire spots. I think 2.5 out of 10 is overly generous but that’s what it can have.

The imdb page is here.

Doctor Strange Vol. 3: Blood Hunt – review

Writer: Jed MacKay

Artists: Danilo S. Beyruth & Pasqual Ferry

First published: 2024 (tpb)

contains spoilers  

The Blurb: Jed MacKay continues his spellbinding saga of the Sorcerer Supreme! In the aftermath of Doctor Strange's war with his own grizzled counterpart, General Strange, Stephen and Clea face a new ordeal: an adventure in babysitting Clea's new little sister! Meanwhile, there's something strange haunting the Sanctum Sanctorum, and Bats the Ghost Dog is on the case - but is this good boy in way over his head? And when a sentient role-playing game transforms New York City into a fantasy world, Doctor Strange must gather a new team of Secret Defenders! But even Stephen is caught unawares when a shocking enemy plunges the world into darkness, unleashing the vampiric frenzy of BLOOD HUNT! Will the Sorcerer Supreme join Earth's greatest heroes on the front lines to save the world - or is everything about to change horrifically for him and those closest to him?

The review: More so a Doctor Strange volume than a Blood Hunt volume, it involves events before the Blood Hunt event and then concentrates on mystical things occurring whilst the Blood Hunt happens. Assuming you have read the primary Blood Hunt story, you will know that Blade betrayed Stephen Strange and both stabbed him in the back and bit him. This shows how Strange’s spirit was rescued from the body and what happened to his physical side thereafter – which was primarily it being taken over by the spirit of Strange’s brother Victor, fighting Wong and then being tackled by the God of Dogs invoked by Bats the Ghost Dog.

I enjoyed the Blood Hunt side of this and found the rest intriguing – such as the sentient role-playing game. However, as I don’t follow the larger story I cannot say that it was all perfectly clear (I got the broad strokes but perhaps not all the nuances). 6.5 out of 10.

In Paperback @ Amazon US

In Paperback @ Amazon UK

Short Film: Ode to the Night

Directed by John H. Shelton, this short film comes in around the 4.5-minute mark and was released in 2017. The filming is more a mood piece to go with the poem written and narrated by Andrea Dean Van Scoyoc.

As well as showing footage of a wolf, it follows David (Dylan Knight) as he visits a grave and two vampires (Patsy Buck & Marie Wagstaffe) stalk and eventually prey upon him.

The filming style, on first view, suffers from the day-for-night filtered technique as it is obviously day. However, as you realise that this may be a dream (or reality, or a fantasy that explains a vampiric attack) the day-for-night becomes unimportant as in dreams all things are possible, of course. The mood, despite the transparency of the technique, works well with the poem.

The imdb page is here.