Strangers Invitation – review

Director: Teddy Joseph

Release date: 2025

Contains spoilers

This film is one that might cause debate because of its obvious use of AI – though, as I’ll explain, it does seem to use it well. The AI is used to change appearances in a sfx kind of way. However, there are non-AI issues I’ll discuss with the film, mostly in story and pacing, which again I’ll get to.

It starts off at a point during the French Revolution, where the slave master (Alex Davalos) has summoned his favourite, Damien (Joseph Augustin), to give him not only his freedom but freedom from death – he is going to turn him. Now, beyond him being the favourite, we get little sense of why. What there were not, however, were slaves (or anyone else) inked with modern-technique tattoos. Clearly the actor’s ink, filmmakers need to concentrate on that little idiosyncrasy (it crops up from time to time) – if your vampires can be tattooed (iro healing) in the modern day, fine. However, having modern tattoos in the past is a filmic error – especially in a film where AI has been used to manipulate appearance, they could have been removed for that scene.

Amber and pals

Anyway, we get scenes of Damien moving through the ages until we get to modern day Miami. We then meet three women planning a night out, though Amber (Amber Robinson), a workaholic, is unsure. She is eventually persuaded – though one of the three drops out during the conversation – and arranges to meet Bri (Brianna Bethea). That night, and on the way to meet Amber, Bri is followed by Damien, attacked and left for dead. Damien then sees Amber, chats her up (despite her worry over Bri's whereabouts) and then attacks her but feeds her his blood.

newly turned Sasha

We then meet Vanessa (Kathy Morales) who has just gone through a breakup but confides she has had repeated dreams about the same sexy guy – Damien, who she has not met yet. Damien, however, has brought Sasha back to his. Gives her a choice, sort of, and turns her and then sends her to a nearby pool party to murder everyone – a test, he says, which she passes. Of course, the cops are getting worried about people disappearing, slaughters and bodies drained of blood. Finally, he gets Vanessa and turns her – giving her no choice. She is his equal, he says, and yet he then treats her just like the other two. He has essentially made a harem of three brides.

Joseph Augustin as Damien

Later in the story we get an ancient (or 600-years-old) vampire called Yasira (Yasmin Mucury) telling Damien that he and his newborn vampires are gaining too much attention (the police even have his name) and the vampire community need it sorting out – but not a lot comes of that and she even sides with him. Also, a cop, Williams (Joshua Willy Germain), starts to believe there are vampires. In an untidy bit of scripting Damien informs his gals that sunlight and stakes will kill, silver slows, garlic does nothing and holy water will burn if you believe. Almost immediately after this a psychic tells Williams and partner the same (except suggests holy items are sure-fire and garlic works). Given the pacing the only reason for doing this was to suggest she deliberately misled them, as she wants to be turned, and that could have been handled without the list being done twice so close together.

AI enhancements

The other main lore is that the older the vampire gets the more powerful they become – Damien can turn into a flock of bats. So, pacing… the film is a good two hours long and probably needs more than 30 minutes shaving off. There isn’t much more to the story than outlined and it could have been done in a much slicker way. The actual photography is strong but some of the sfx are clearly AI – most tellingly in making the fangs and vamp face appear in an attack. That’s not to say it doesn’t look good, it does, but it is obviously AI driven – the debate on the use of AI within films is not something I want to get into but the filmmakers clearly wanted it to enhance their work rather than to drive it, in this case.

sunlight burns

The characterisation also kind of lacks. I don’t know what Damien’s motivations are – the turning the women feels like harem building, so why not earlier? The indiscriminate slaughter feels just evil without motive, but we are meant to (in some regards) side with him, and the vampire society mentioned is so unbuilt it is wafer thin. That said, had the film been slicker it might have needed such character/world building less. This looks better than a lot of budget vampire flicks, and the film could have been more than it is (especially with less film there). Certainly, there is something to build upon. 4 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Short Film: The Wrath on Evil

This 12-minutes film was directed by Roman Rivera and released in 2022 and is, I suspect, as much a proof of concept as it is a short in its own right.

It follows Father Rafael (Nicholas Nadashvili), a priest and vampire hunter, who is talking to camera at the head of the film. One of the primary parts of his dialogue is speaking about the use of holy water and the efficiency of the blessed liquid against vampires. There are a couple of moments within that standout as interesting but never elaborated on. One is him casually mentioning hunting for 300 plus years – so what is he? The other is the idea of bringing them all back to Hell – a strange phrasing, when more typically the phrasing would be sending, rather than bringing.

Olegs Vlaskenko as Dracula

The film then has him walking into a church and being attacked by a vampire whilst another watches from the altar dais on which he is enthroned. The watcher is, from the credits, Dracula (Olegs Vlaskenko). He despatches the vampire and turns to Dracula and the film then goes back in time a year, to a vampire hunting monk (Marvic Pascual), which hasn’t much context. Then to an exorcism, which Raphael enters addressing the demon by name and forcing out with some punches to the possessed girl’s face and pressing a rosary to her head. He then goes to where the monk had been…

vampire

So, not a lot of narrative, rather hints of story and depiction of fighting, and I have to mention the sound. Some of the dialogue (with vocal effects) sounded dubbed and said dialogue, plus some of the sounds, where too loud in the mix. As a proof of concept, however, this likely works as a way to draw in budget to make a better version. However, as stands, it is on Fawesome TV currently.

The imdb page is here.

Use of Tropes: Savage Love

Savage Love is an Olaf Ittenbach film from 2012, and I went in expecting the usual Ittenbach gore but it felt a tad gore-lite. I was watching the German Blu-Ray and, it turns out, 5 minutes of gore has been removed from the film’s domestic release (I’ll link the, apparently, uncut version below). International releases are therefore going to be more splatter than what I saw. Whilst technically not a vampire film it certainly did play around with tropes, not least because it seems directly inspired by From Dusk Till Dawn.

held by the mob

The film starts, however, in the middle ages and a witch, Linda (Sarita Bradley), is pulled through the forest by a knight (Andreas Pape) leading a mob. He demands something off her and she refuses, so he kills her but not before she’s spoken with an effect on her voice and cast a curse. Creatures (likely demons) appear and kill the knights and mob – she reappears glowing. Just a note about her name, she is listed as Lady Nadja on IMDb – this may be her modern-day persona and I missed the name change but she is definitely referred to as Linda in the subtitles for the opening section.

Marc and Lukas

The film proper follows two guys – hitmen, apparently – called Lukas (Philippe Jacq) and Marc (Dustin Semmelrogge, Montrak). They have scored tickets to a swinger event in, what appears to be, a brothel. The film grounds itself in pretty low-brow humour with plenty of drug references and misogynistic humour until Hell breaks loose.

Sarita Bradley as Linda

This is started by Linda preparing drinks for the ladies present by dripping her blood into champagne. This subsequently turns them into demons – though to be fair the monster type might be interchangeable between demons, vampires and zombies. However, it is important to note that they are specifically turned due to ingesting blood and this feels like a vampire trope, of course. It turns out that Linda is no ordinary witch – rather she is the actual daughter of the devil.

demons

So the plot is that she is seeking the blood of 666 victims (with Judeo-Christian names) to summon her father to earth. This might sound like satanic sacrifice except for the throwaway line that she needs to drink the blood – and brings us back to vampire genre tropes. The men fight back due to a priest there (who had spent his time looking like Andrew Eldritch up to the demons appearing) who is carrying oodles of weapons. He has also trapped many of the demons outside by sealing a perimeter with holy water (they were out attacking a teen party in the woods).

ready to rumble

This siege feels like the aforementioned From Dusk Till Dawn – though in this Lukas and Marc are able to go outside and stand calmly before the horde, with the holy water barrier between them, and start shooting them. Bullets do seem an effective countermeasure. There isn’t much more to say about the plot – it is simplistic and, in many respects, derivative – and I’ve covered off the tropes used (back from the dead, turning through blood, holy water apotropaic, aiming to drink victim’s blood and a general lift and shift of plot points out of From Dusk Till Dawn). It is, with these, of genre interest.

The imdb page is here.

Cut version on Blu-Ray @ Amazon US

Uncut on Blu-Ray @ Amazon UK

Sangre Joven – review

Director: Rodolfo Palacios

Release day:2024

Contains spoilers

A Mexican film, the title of this translates into Young Blood and it is set in a world where vampires are a known entity and are becoming part of society. This has been helped by a synthetic blood replacement being produced and there are a couple of moments in the film where we hear this being referenced. It seems, however, that not all is good as the film opens with a woman wearing headphones who stops shocked as she finds a body – or at least a person, all we see is a lower leg, with the rest of the person off camera.

the criminals

This is one of the areas where the film does struggle – in its cinematography and directorial choices. For instance, the scene after the credits; in this we see Patricio (Aldo Lira) putting out tea and biscuits, he gets a call and we hear him asking about the package and the caller saying they can’t continue to cover for him. So far, so good but there is a knock at the door and he lets three people – Bardo (Peter Lezama García), Martha (Laura Aldrete) and Ursula (Viridiana Bernal) – in. The director decided an overhead shot should show them enter, which offered no real detail and at best was a strange and for me, sorry, artless choice.

Abril Ortiz as Karla

The three are local professional criminals and Patricio has a job for them. They are going to a vampire’s house (given to the vampire by the Government as part of the social integration, and hardly a secret as someone painted a big “V” on the wall). Two live there, Juan (Carlos Hinojosa), an elder vampire and Patricio is aware that he goes out to hunt each night leaving a Young Blood – Karla (Abril Ortiz) – alone. A Doctor (Alejandro Caballero) is using vampire blood to make a serum that de-ages users (and vampire blood cures illness, Patricio has a terminal disease), however he specifically wants untainted (no drugs, alcohol or smoking) Young Blood – presumably it is better for his serum.

pick up

It has taken Patricio two years to track down the Young Blood – it becomes apparent that it is the fact she hasn’t hunted yet that makes her a Young Blood. They will be taking silver chains as they won’t kill the vampire (from whom they cannot extract viable blood) but will immobilise them. When asked why they don’t go in the day, when the vampires are asleep, Patricio explains that blood can’t be extracted when they sleep. It seems a strange lore piece that is added to enable the plot rather than be thought through but also, apparently none of the criminal geniuses considered they could bind the vampires in silver whilst asleep and wait for them to awaken. The film shows Juan going to a bar and picking up a feeder for money and the criminals falling, one by one, to Karla.

reaction to bad blood

There was much that seemed senseless. One criminal’s silver chain doesn’t work as it isn’t pure silver, but if this was a deliberate betrayal it wasn’t explained and made little sense. At one point Martha needs the loo, can’t find it and so pees on the floor and immediately facetimes her lover to have a sexy moment… in the middle of a home invasion! Hardly a professional. Karla bites Bardo but is then violently ill as he has bad blood (presumably drugs but it isn’t clear) but there is no real use of this in the narrative. The whole pick-up part with Juan is a damp squib but we do discover that people who have been fed on cannot remember the act (though Bardo can later) and humans can’t see the fang marks (though the one bitten can).

bite

It’s a bit of a muddle to be honest, with some poor shot decisions and it is overly dark in places. The performances aren’t anything special, unfortunately, and though it is nice to see a 'hunters are the hunted' storyline, with the vampires being preyed upon, it needed a tighter, better thought through narrative and better filmmaking choices. Nevertheless, they had a go, and it is another vampire film to watch. 3 out of 10.

The IMDb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Vampire Clown – review

Director: Paul Andrich

Release date: 20225

Contains spoilers

This is a Canadian production and merges the vampire and clown genres, not unheard of but not overdone. It is, however, on a budget and that is telling in some of the filming. Though, I have to say, the photography had a nice solid feel to it, though the lighting did little , unfortunately.

It starts with a car and a woman parking and going to her home. We see the legs of an observer… we see clown pants. She gets in her house, using a keypad, but, after she enters, we see someone following and replicating the code. In the house she hears a toilet flush but it turns out to be her husband, Tom (Todd Picklyk), home early. She leaves him to watch the game but is attacked, he hears her scream and is attacked next.

in Tom's car

Matt (Tyhr Trubiak) is taking the trash out and heading out on his bicycle. He hears a car horn and spots Tom’s car but is shocked to see it being driven by a clown (note sunlight is not an issue in this). He is startled by another neighbour, Pete (Warren Bard), and asks him if he saw Tom just then and wonders why he might be in a clown outfit. It doesn’t seem normal for accountant Tom. Unable to solve the mystery Matt cycles to see his therapist.

Tyhr Trubiak as Matt

Matt seems ok with his life but is worried that he has underachieved and whether this could be an issue for his girlfriend Sarah (Amy Couldwell). However, there is a vampire clown in town and the next to be got by it are Pete and his wife Karen (Debra Ross) and it is Matt who finds them (when he goes to drop a parcel off). He is somewhat disturbed by the cockamamie theory the cops (Allan Turner & Paul O'Donnell) come up with and perturbed that they don’t take their face masks off – Matt wonders if there is a new pandemic he’s not heard of. Of course, they wear masks as they’ve been turned and they’re hiding the perma-fangs.

feeding proboscis

Matt begins to believe there is a conspiracy but can’t work out exactly what – and to make matters worse Sarah’s ex-boyfriend Kevin (Joshua Sarna) has just got out of jail and is back in town. However, as the film goes on it is only really Kevin who believes him. Indeed, Matt is concentrating on the clown, but it is Kevin who works out vampires are involved. So, vampire victims are either dead, turned or turned into a more unaware zombie-like variant. The clown vampire has some form of tube or proboscis it feeds through but we only see a small detail of it and not where it emerges from (due, I assume, to budget). Other standard lore either doesn’t work or the jury is out.

fangs

And budget is the issue overall… also there wasn’t the lighting to offer as much atmosphere that would have worked in the films favour – it all seems the lighting on offer at the location. The fangs are all a tad fake looking, the blood is sparse and attacks are off screen or detail lite. That said the primaries are good, especially Trubiak, who projects likable well. The reason for the clown outfit is never offered (there are a couple of bandied around theories) and essentially this is a “take over the town” scenario. This was, however, watchable 4 out of 10 seems fair.

The imdb page is here.

First Impression: Various Vampires at Grimmfest 2025

I have just got back from Grimmfest 2025 and have set to writing up my first impressions of the vampire and vampire adjacent films I saw over a great festival weekend. However, firstly, a shout out to the festival organisers and volunteers who make it such a great event year after year. A shout out to Hellbound Media, particularly Mark Adams for the chat, and also to Catherine Green who was at the festival on the Saturday. I will, of course, offer full thoughts when the films become available for home viewing.

The first film I want to offer an impression of was Landlord, which was the most traditionally vampire-genre film of those I intend to cover.

Directed and written by Remington Smith, the film follows an unnamed bounty hunter (Adama Abramson) and one of the strengths of the film was in the great characterisation with this unnamed protagonist. She arrives at an apartment complex on foot and rents a room for a week, no questions asked. She is there tracking down someone, or more accurately a briefcase he carries, but soon notices strange things.

Investigating, what sounds like, a domestic disturbance she is blocked by manager Christopher (Lance Gerard), who seems in cahoots with the local sheriff (J. Barrett Cooper), and the next day follows the manager as he removes the apartment contents and takes them to a farmstead owned by the Lawrence family. She discovers that the residents of the apartment have been dismembered and are being fed to the pigs.

Alex and the Bounty Hunter

Back at the apartment complex she discovers that the apartment with young resident Alex (Cohen Cooper) has been targeted. She enters, too late to save Alex’s mother but intervening in an attack on Alex himself. It is, of course, a vampire attack. The conceit of this being, as listed by Grimmfest, “If vampires can’t come into your home without being invited in, what would happen if they owned your housing?” The vampire, John Lawrence (William McKinney), owns the apartment complex and many residents are transient in the slum housing, easy to disappear. There is a commentary here about the landlord class as vampiric.

bitten

The bounty hunter and Alex become loose ends to tie up, of course. A nice touch came about in her not even recognising what the vampire is - despite getting up from a head shot and biting her neck, Alex is the observant one, though their knowledge of lore is limited. I liked the grittiness of this and, as mentioned, the characterisation that was built around the bounty hunter. If I had a criticism, it would be in the lighting, as I felt that the night scenes were overly dark – though that might be a screening issue rather than a production issue. The imdb page is here.

The next film to mention is Spanish offering Lily’s Ritual, directed by Manu Herrera. Possibly best described as “vampire adjacent” it starts off as a witchcraft film with three witches, Lola (Patricia Peñalver), Leo (Elena Gallardo) and Laura (Eve Ryan) taking Lily (Maggie García) out into the countryside for initiation into witchcraft as their fourth – which, of course, has overtones of the Craft. Unlike that, however, which had a power corrupts theme, these witches already had a darker purpose in mind.

Lilith

Rather than initiation, Lily was to be used as a centrepiece for a dedication to Lilith – this could be a spoiler except it is listed in the film’s blurb. As to whether they will succeed and whether Lily can survive – well that is a spoiler too far. However, I will say that this was probably my favourite film of the festival and, of course, the use of Lilith makes it of genre interest. The imdb page is here.

The third film to mention is Jake Myers’s Kombucha. I did not go into this expecting a vampire element, although the film does aim at the vampiric nature of corporations. It follows Luke (Terrence Carey) a struggling musician who is tempted – due to pressure from girlfriend Elyse (Paige Bourne) and a recommendation from ex-bandmate Andy (Jesse Kendall) – into signing up to a corporate job. The corporation, Symbio, is more than a little cult-like and forces everyone to drink a specific kombucha.

As Luke starts to change, Elyse meets the mother (Charin Alvarez) of a previous employee (Magdalena Conway) who believes that the corporation is made up of vampires – and it is that belief in vampires that puts this firmly on the radar, as well as the use of a tropes such as blood in the kombucha and the efficacy of garlic as a weapon to combat the sentient scoby at the heart of the film. A genuinely funny side-swipe at corporate mentality. The imdb page is here.

The final film to mention is Sergio Pinheiro’s Wormtown. This very much uses tropes and the Grimmfest synopsis suggested it had “just a pinch of classic vampire lore and a sly tip of the hat to Richard Matheson’s I AM LEGEND.” Set in a town where the vast majority of inhabitants are infected by worms, which have infiltrated their entire system, with a large “heart worm” that feeds on their blood and “brain worms” that alter their minds, the worms that burrow and infect are reminiscent of the blood worms in the Strain.

caught in the sun

The worms are impacted by loud sounds, modern signals (such as Bluetooth) and bright light. This is one of our tropes as being caught in the sun is deadly, with the worms quickly turning on their host. The similes with I am Legend mentioned are there and, more so, I felt a homage to the Omega Man in the scarring of infected flesh, the retreat from technology (although not as radical), and the cult-like behaviours. I also felt it tonally had a bit of a feel of Stake Land and I did really enjoy this one. The imdb page is here.

Miles Morales: Spider-Man By Cody Ziglar Vol. 5: Blood Hunt – review

Writer: Cody Ziglar and Danny Lore (Night Shift section)

Artist: Various

First published: 2025 (tpb)

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: Collects Miles Morales: Spider-Man (2022) #21-24 and #26 and material from #25 and Annual (2024) #1.

BLOOD HUNT transforms Miles Morales' world! Endless hordes of bloodsucking vampires ravage Earth beneath the pitch-black skies of the planet's last night! Vampire-slayer Blade has a plan, and his only hope for victory rests with Miles Morales! But Blade's mission comes with a cost - one Spider-Man may be unwilling to pay. And Miles' biggest ally is about to become his worst nightmare! With uncanny new abilities, Miles faces a desperate battle to find an answer to his latest problem - with his family at greater risk than ever before! But when the Vulture swoops in just as Miles is at his most desperate, the one to suffer may just be the person they both love! Plus: A family vacation to Puerto Rico introduces Miles to relatives with huge secrets!

The review: A graphic from the Blood Hunt event this was a strange one, in that the opening story – with the team up against energy vampire R'ym'r and flashbacks to Spider-Man being turned by Blade have already been added into the Amazing Spider-Man graphic novel and therefore are superfluous and a double up. Then there is a short from the Annual (2024), Night Shift, that adds very little. The final line of the blurb about a family vacation is not accurate to this graphic either and seems to have been accidentally tagged onto the blurb.

All that is disappointing, however the lion share of this is following vampire Spider-Man trying to come to terms with the vampirism, being held in check (sort of) by Morales’ venom power, and despite himself becoming more violent. He visits girlfriend Tiana Toomes, aka Sparrow, at exactly the wrong time as she is visited by her estranged Grandfather, Vulture, who blames Spider-Man for their rift. This leads to a battle, with Spider-Man barely able to maintain control, and then a visit from T'Challa (Black Panther) – who managed to purge himself of vampirism – and a whole new suit (with vibranium weave and vibranium laced webbing). Of course Vulture was down but not out.

This second part was cracking, exploring power and responsibility in a different way but, of course, that is a main plank of the Spider-Man premise. It was also great as it is firmly post-event but showing an ongoing impact (on Morales). The story doesn’t end here as Morales and T’Challa must travel to Wakanda to try and cure the vampirism. However, as much as I enjoyed the latter part of the graphic, and it buoys the score, the lazy repeat at the beginning doesn’t go unnoticed. 6 out of 10.

In Paperback @ Amazon US

In Paperback @ Amazon UK