Resurrection Road – review

Director: Ashley Cahill

Release date: 2025

Contains spoilers

Combining vampires and the American Civil War has been done before but it is a great setting and this could have been a good budget film bar a glaring CGI issue (though, to be fair, it looked like a lot of practical effects around blood and gunfire). In this we take our point of view from Union soldiers, and the vampires are Confederates. What makes this more interesting was that it focused on African American Union soldiers.

Malcolm Goodwin as Barabas

It starts, however, in a dream – or nightmare – as main character Barabas (Malcolm Goodwin, True Blood) relives a moment with his pregnant wife, when they were both slaves, being intercepted by slave owner Quantrill (Michael Madsen) who punishes them both by whipping her, though Barabas begs to be the one punished. He is later told that she and the unborn baby died. He wakes in a cell. Now, a point around this. Barabas is by far the most rounded character, with much back story, but, for some reason, why the (now) Union soldier ended up in the stockade is so glossed over as to be missing, which was frustrating.

the squad

Nevertheless, he is taken from the cell to see the commanding officers and there General Craven (Jeff Daniel Phillips, Son of Darkness: To Die For II, Freaks of Nature & The Munsters) gives him two options; on the one hand he could take a squad to a heavily fortified Confederate fort with giant cannons and destroy it – a suicide mission but he’d get a pardon and forty acres and a mule if they succeed and survive – and on the other, be executed. The General, incidentally, came over just as racist as the Confederates we meet later.

Triana Browne as Tsula

Given the Hobson’s Choice, and with the warning that if he or any of his men ran they’d be hunted down, he takes his squad out. The squad consists of Abe (Bryan Taronn Jones), Washington (Okea Eme-Akwari), Cuffy (Furly Mac), Stevens (Randall J. Bacon, Don’t Suck) and Blunt (Davonte Burse). None of the squad are particularly built up as characters, though Eme-Akwari admirably builds up Washington through sheer charisma, indeed some of the characters are simply disposable. They reach a homestead, first of all, that seems to be the subject of a massacre, with only a Native American, Tsula (Triana Browne), who had come to trade, and a Black woman (presumably a slave) surviving. The only help Barabas gives is to point them to their lines and give them a pistol. The Black woman warns them of the woods, says to stay indoors at night (an odd suggestion in the wilderness) and watch the trees. Tsula will end up with the squad later.

enemy captured

They next come across a Confederate patrol. They capture one, are captured in turn and Barabas is able to save Cuffy from a lynching – during which they manage to kill the confederates. Or do they? Sharp-eyed viewers will have noted that one of them, when we first met him, with having a pee and his urine was red. The characters believe them dead, at least, but the altercation has seen Stevens killed and Blunt blinded – and so Barabas shoots him (presumably as a mercy as they would have to leave him, but more so underlining the grim determination he has to get the job done and get his reward). Eventually they reach the fort but they are seriously low on numbers having lost another man to “something” in the trees. It is here that the film lost me.

the fort.... or castle

We see the fort, and it looks like a stone, European style castle (and clearly just an image). The practical set looks like a wooden fort recreation they shot in. There are wooden fences to scale, rather than stone walls, There is a lot of over-lit/exposed photography to try to hide the joins shots to disguise that they weren’t filming in a castle and then we are in a wood-built area and the transition jolts. The guns are huge, but clearly mock ups and they had no real texture to them. It is bad CGI (with some physical modelling it appears, for up close moments as dynamite is laid). The fort also has a rock crypt with coffins…

stake

Because, yes, vampires and you can bet your bottom dollar than slave owner Quantrill is involved because firstly that gives Barabas more motivation but mostly because if you’ve paid for Michael Madsen (this was one of his last films before he sadly passed) you may as well get your money's worth. Tsula suggests that they are nostradu, evil spirits that came on the boats with the white man and whose totem is the bat. They must hunt by night and drink blood. They prefer the name Nosferatu, they are weakened by the sun, must be killed by a stake to the heart (wooden it seems, as a blade fails), do not reflect and can become bats and mist (it seems). Tsula has found a flower, she described as an Eastern Rosebud – which wouldn't be the native name – and Abe said came from a Judas Tree, its vernacular name. Tsula recognises it as a plant that can ward off evil and later uses it to stop someone who is bitten from turning (as it is a one bite turns film).

Michael Madsen as Quantrill

Despite the best efforts of Malcolm Goodwin and Okea Eme-Akwari, despite decent wilderness locations and despite some decent practical effects, I couldn’t get past the cgi and locational mishmash. I was jarred from the film. It wasn’t perfect in other respects – paper thin characters (bar Barabas), a missed opportunity with the "at night in the woods" section, as it could have been used to really build a tension but just didn’t, but these things I could have forgiven as the good outweighed the bad – until they got to the fort. 4 out of 10 actually feels generous given how much the main issue smashed suspension of belief. A shame.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Blood Vengeance – review

Author: EH Drake

First Published: 2025

Contains spoilers

The blurb: The Blood Herring Chronicles end here.

Gabe and Lily are trapped, held captive by the very justice they once served. But with the vampire lord, Elias, unleashing his army on Portland, a city collapsing into ruin, they can't afford to wait. The only way to save humanity is to break free. The only way to fight is to risk everything.

Two renegades. One impossible war. Can they stand against a rising tide of blood and ruin?

The review: The third in the series (my reviews are here for Book 1 and Book 2) and the city of Portland has gone to Hell, with the terrorist vampire Elias periodically releasing his child vampire warriors and hordes of the starved – people turned and then starved until they loose all sense and becoming zompire like ravening hordes.

The protagonists, Lily and Gabe are both under arrest – him by human authorities and under house arrest as he is tried, his case reliant on convincing a judge and jury that he was turned against his will and that, as such, he should not warrant extermination. She with the vampire’s Royal Court, suspected of being in league with Elias – not helped by the fact that he was her husband and his right hand henchman is none other than her brother.

This gears itself nicely as an action facing volume, safe in the knowledge that the protagonist characters have been neatly rounded in the preceding volumes. Both characters end up in and out of custody – Gabe is a bit of a boy scout and Elias relies on him handing himself back in as there is an expectation that he’ll lose his case to aid his cause. Lily becomes convinced there is a traitor in the court. The book roles along at a pace – switching between Lily and Gabe’s POV as per the other volumes – climaxing in a vampiric assault on a prison. A fast, punchy end to the series. 7.5 out of 10.

In Paperback @ Amazon US

In Paperback @ Amazon UK

Vamp or Not? The Home

I was contacted by Simon Bacon regarding James DeMonaco’s 2025 feature, saying that it was “defo vampy” though warning it was medical rather than supernatural. Well then, let’s see.

The film starts with Max (played older by Pete Davidson, and young in flashbacks by Jagger Nelson) led coughing on a couch, in a run down apartment, the TV talking about climate change – there is an aspect of eco-horror to this but it is generally under-explored. A flashback shows a celebration in his foster home as his foster-brother Luke (Matthew Miniero) prepares to leave for college.

Max's Mural

There is a theme of “thicker than blood” to describe their foster relationship and Max has that tattooed on his chest. Adult Max is artistically talented and breaks into a derelict building to paint an eco-awareness mural. He is arrested and, in the cell, remembers the time when he was told by his foster parents (Jessica Hecht & Victor Williams) that Luke had committed suicide at college. His foster father comes to him and says that he had a word with a judge and cut a deal to have Max avoid jail time (a little harsh for painting a mural, one feels) for community service. He is to work four months at a retirement home.

Pete Davidson as Max

He gets there and is told what his job involves and to not go to the fourth floor as special care patients are up there. Yet, from the beginning, things seem off. He stumbles onto geriatric, masked sex, discovers he can’t really sleep and hears screaming through the vents. He quickly investigates the fourth floor and is attacked by a screaming man (Stuart Rudin, Stake Land), leading to him being caught and reprimanded. But things keep getting odder and he begins to unearth a government conspiracy…

Luke aged

And here we have the spoiler alert as I need to drill into the aspects of “Vamp or Not?” There is a conspiracy, but not the fabricated one the residents draw to entertain themselves at Max’s expense. The residents are worshippers of Dea – called in film the God of Youth but Dea was simply Goddess in Latin. His foster parents are in on it and send foster children to the home to be used as a source of vitality for the residents and certain staff. The screaming man is Luke, aged beyond recognition and he was trying to save Max, not attack him.

procedure

The idea is that the home’s doctor, Sabian (Bruce Altman), discovered a gland behind the right eye, which is the source of a person’s youth and vitality and dries up with age. He is draining the gland of its “nectar” by piercing the eye, pushing through to the gland, and the residents subsequently drink it. Max has been drained nightly – hence believing he isn’t sleeping but at a ceremony they intend to take much more. They say he will end up feeling 100-years-old and, as we have seen with the other fourth floor residents, draining the sack prematurely ages them. For the recipients it staves off aging further and increases their libidos.

Max and Lou

I guess we could liken the victims, in this case, to the undead. Aged beyond recognition, sat in a half-life that is no life at all, perhaps embodiments (Luke is at least) of undead memory. The vampirism is very similar to that displayed in Brand Upon the Brain! (which called the extracted fluid nectar, also) and The Leech Woman - though this is the product of a gland, like the Leech Woman, rather than the brain itself, which was the case in Brand. Very much Vamp, this did carry me along for the journey.

The imdb page is here.

On Blu-Ray @ Amazon US

On Blu-Ray @ Amazon UK

Love Wants Us Dead – Review

Director: Israel Perez

Release date: 2025

Contains spoilers

Love Wants Us Dead is most definitely both an arthouse film and a slow burn and, as such, it may put many a viewer off. However, it is skilfully photographed and director Israel Perez manages to keep the viewer engaged, though little happens. Also, with a 65 minute running time it really doesn’t outstay its welcome.

We start in a car with Anais (Wendy Zhuo) – note I have got the character names from IMDb, the characters are not named in film. She eventually stops to retrieve a bag and then walk to a derelict building and film on a hand-cam. We see that, at one point, she films a chicken dead and strung from above. Eventually she goes back towards the car. There is someone by it (though who that is does not get answered but feels important as the photography is very purposefully chosen, or so it feels like).

in the store

Elsewhere Rose (Lindy Jones) is getting ready to work in the plumbing supply store. Her boss, Pablo (Pablo Santiago) – by process of elimination from the cast list and apologies if I got that wrong – reads a news story about a dismembered body being found out in the desert. As we get to know her, we realise that she cares for an older man, her father we assume, and has a love of film – we see her reading Maya Deren’s Film & Philosophy, which offers a view, I think, into what Israel Perez is looking to do with the film

Wendy Zhuo as Anais

We also see Anais showering, with blood swirling round the plug hole, and searching through a wallet. Rose becomes aware of her when she sees her with Pablo – Anais has rented some back rooms off him. Rose snoops into the rooms, not finding the small fridge that we have seen Anais put some jars of, what looks like, blood into. They eventually meet when Rose spots Anais broken down on the highway and offers her a lift home. Anais invites her in to watch her films, which Rose enjoys and Anais says are about capturing time.

a threshold

Pablo has given Steve (Kent Hatch) a tin box (we never see what’s in it) and a gun. Steve is expressly told to leave them alone after commenting that *she* “is cute” and “has not changed a bit”, indicating that Anais is out of time. Rose clearly works out what she is, and we also get the concept of the threshold – a place where reality thins and that Anais calls home. It brought to mind Jean Rollin, and especially the threshold within the Nude Vampire, represented by a stage, which led to the “vampires’” dimension. Thresholds are, of course, an important trope in the genre.

bloodied

But what to say – expect no easy answers, or answers at all. This is a meditation on film, time and its mutability. It is a film, I believe, which will become used within some academic writing, especially where film study, form and thresholds are explored. It is a film that works outside traditional narrative and is carried by skilful photography and nuance. 7 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Bleeding – review

Director: Andrew Bell

Release date: 2024

Contains spoilers

I saw this at Grimmfest 2024 and offered a First Impression last year. Now it’s made its way to streaming I felt it was time to turn a reviewing eye to it.

Bleeding is, without doubt, a film about drugs and the opioid crisis in the States. The opening intertitle states, “BLOOD is a deadly and addictive opioid, harvested from the fluids of infected persons. Since its introduction, drug related deaths have increased over 400% in 15-19 year old demographics. DUST, a euphoria-producing stimulant, is believed to be a derivative.

“If you witness an overdose, do not engage. Infection and reanimation are imminent.”

cooking the  blood

This, of course, sets the basic premise well and we are in a world where there is a cross between science (it is stated that countries such as Canada are treating the phenomena as a disease and searching for a cure) and the supernatural (infection reanimates the dead). It is also not the first vehicle to introduce vampires as the drug – be it the blood itself or their ashes.

John R. Howley as Eric

The opening sees a drug producer who has kept a vampire locked down and is harvesting their blood. A user (we assume) has broken in but is overpowered and left for dead – the spilt blood retrieved as much as possible. Cooking it on a stove is not, we discover later, the way that dust is commonly made. Elsewhere Eric (John R. Howley) climbs out of a house window. He is chased by the owner. Eric has a habit of breaking and entering, but he doesn’t take anything.

    Jasper Jones as Sean

Getting home he smokes some drugs and then finds his mother zonked out – she heavily uses a prescription drug later described as suicide pills and the inference is it is due to the fact that Eric’s older brother, Markus (Josh Krol), overdosed on blood and turned and was then terminated. Eric helps himself to some of her prescription pills (he later trades them for marijuana). He then leaves and goes to visit his cousin Sean (Jasper Jones).

reaction to sunlight

Before he sees Sean, he has to get past his Uncle Hank (Jay Dunn). Hank is a cop and his drug of choice is alcohol; he is already drinking despite the early hour. He shows Eric bodycam footage of a raid on a vampire, and we see the reaction to sunlight. It is inferred that Hank’s drinking is due to the pressures of the job – not least as it is inferred later that Hank was the cop who terminated the turning Markus.

scattering the dust

Upstairs Sean has snorted dust and we see his reaction. Eric wants to buy pot but is told not to smoke it in the room – he ignores this and Hank smells it and heads upstairs. Sean tries to hide the big pack of dust he has but Hank finds it and scatters the drug to the wind, causing an angry reaction, a smashed window and the lads running off. Sean got the drug from Dustin (Andrew Bell) and owes him a couple of grand for it and so they head for a holiday lake house to lay low but discover it has a vampire held in there. Sean stabs her neck and drinks from the source, almost overdosing, and Eric recognises her as Sara (Tori Wong) and, saying her name, reaches her and discovers the turned are not the senseless monsters supposed.

Sara in vamp mode

It is worth noting that Sara prevents Sean from turning as his body needs vitamin D to fight the infection and this ties, of course, with the reaction to sunlight once turned. We discover that she was a runaway, made vulnerable by using drugs and deliberately injected to cause an overdose and make her a source of blood. We also discover that, when a vampire is dry (all their blood has been harvested and not replenished) they will set them alight and that is how dust is made.

feeding

All the characters in this are (at the very least) flawed in one way or another, many are addicted (though some are addicted to legal substances). The vampire is both addicted to human blood and is the font of the drugs the human addicts are using. The drug messaging is pretty on the nose but works for that. The primary performances are excellent, special mention to John R. Howley who holds the film together. The photography is pretty dark and bleak but that fits a story that is dark and bleak. There isn’t a feel-good aspect to this film, it treads through the dark underbelly of society with deliberate purpose. Not a good time, but a good film. 7 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Short Film: Midnight

A UK Short film, directed by A.R. Ugas, this was released in 2020 and is around 11 minutes long. The film starts with Roxanne (Adaya Monique Henry) and John (Ben Thorne) sat in their living room opposite a man (André Mathias). The man speaks in French, Roxanne understands John does not.

André Mathias as the man

The man says that she, referring to Daughter Sally, will not be the same afterwards and Roxanne admits that John does not know what is proposed. Eventually John looses his temper and demands to know if the man will help their daughter. The man explains to Roxanne that he will go in her room, they will hear screams and cries but they must not enter…

harvest

Six months later and John has been filling a jar with his blood, using a hypodermic. Roxanne suggests that it isn’t nearly enough, but he has a 12-hour shift and needs to be with it. He has mentioned that the guys at work are beginning to think he is a junky. Eventually Roxanne says to take Sally the blood, and she’ll top up later. On the way to work he gets a call, laying him off and, whilst we only hear his side of the conversation, it is clear that he is accused of drug use as he says he is prepared to take a test. However, back at home, could Roxanne be doing something he is unaware of to get more blood…

Roxanne and John

This is a neat short, there is a moment of social commentary that I won’t spoil but in the main it explores relationships and the lengths we might go to for the ones we love. I saw the film on YouTube but it has been since set to private.

The imdb page is here. 

Miles Morales: Spider-Man By Cody Ziglar Vol. 6 - Webs Of Wakanda

Author: Cody Ziglar

Art: Daniele Di Nicuolo

First published: 2025 (TPB)

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: Collects Miles Morales: Spider-Man (2022) #27-29 and material from Miles Morales: Spider-Man Annual (2024) #1 and Miles Morales: Spider-Man (2022) #25.

Miles Morales is a vampire, and the Black Panther may be his only hope! Spider-Man has a new vibranium suit, but does Miles have what it takes to pass T'Challa's gruelling tests in faraway Wakanda?! Deep in the wilds of Africa, a ritual to save Miles' life begins, and the panther god Bast can no longer help him! Two more deities invade Miles' desperate trial, hungering for Spider-Man's corrupted soul - but only one of their chosen champions will be saved. Can Spider-Man hope to defeat the Black Panther at the height of his powers in the heart of his homeland?! And who is web-slinging around New York City masquerading as Spidey in Miles' absence?! Plus: A Morales family vacation to Puerto Rico uncovers secrets that could turn Miles' life upside down!

The review: The Spider-Man aftermath of the Blood Hunt event concludes in this graphic that follows directly on from Volume 5 (obviously) with Black Panther taking Morales to Wakanda to try and plead Bast’s help to cure the hero of vampirism. Interspersed are moments from back home as Shift takes Morales form to cover for him at school and on the streets.

That there was more aftermath from the event within this story arc was welcome and the spiritual battle was interesting – with Anansi impinging on Bast’s territory to claim Spider-Man as his herald. Nevertheless, the outcome never felt in doubt and it was interesting without suspense. The end of the volume contains the Puerto Rico story mentioned in the blurb (and incorrectly mentioned in the blurb of the previous volume). It may have meant much to fans of the series, but I wasn’t overly interested in that story – to be honest. Good to have an extension to the event but ultimately the event has trailed off. 6 out of 10.

In Paperback @ Amazon US

In Paperback @ Amazon UK