Honourable Mention: Holiday Hell

Holiday Hell is a portmanteau movie released in 2019 and containing, as far as I can tell, bespoke segments. In this honourable mention, however, it is the Jeff Ferrell wraparound that I am looking at, and so apologies for spoiling that.

The wraparound sees Amelia (Meagan Karimi-Naser) enter a store, the Nevertold Casket Co. – a creepy looking establishment, from the window display. At first there doesn’t seem to be anyone around but eventually the proprietor (Jeffrey Combs, Frightmare, Necronomicon: Book of Dead & Dark House) makes himself known, but he was about to shut up shop for the night.

Meagan Karimi-Naser as Amelia

Amelia is in a bit of a pickle, however. It is Christmas Eve’s Eve and she hasn’t got her sister a present – her sibling favouring the dark and macabre. The shopkeeper is reluctant, there are too many time wasters but a flash of cash convinces him to stay open. The items in the shop all have stories (our segments) and it is what the shopkeeper relishes, collecting stories to preserve them with the items, as they go through the tales Amelia seems to not be sure about buying the items – they just don’t seem right.

Jeffrey Combs as the shopkeeper

So, it is the final part of the wraparound that interests us. The last story was told by Amelia about a ring she wears – a ring the shopkeeper must have. He retrieves a knife but Amelia is no longer alone, rather she has been joined by her pagan coven (for pagan read Goth). Amelia came to the shop purposefully and has been stalling. One of the skulls the shopkeeper has is her twin sister Ophelia (also Meagan Karimi-Naser); he killed her to get her identical ring.

back from the dead

They grab the shopkeeper and cut his arm to get blood, which they use to draw a circle around the skull. They chant and the sister is reborn… But Amelia’s mother had warned she would not be the same. The blonde sister is reconstituted naked, but her skin shimmers, her eyes are unnaturally coloured, her nails are talons and her teeth sharp. As the film ends she crawls towards the shopkeeper who screams…

sharp teeth

So, it was the restoration with blood, the sharp teeth and the implication that she was about to chow down on the shopkeeper that gave this an honourable mention. She could, of course, be something other than a vampire but the baseline tropes are there and the visitation is so fleeting it is as well to give the benefit of the doubt. The film itself was fun, with a nice range of stories. Sometimes they seemed to stretch credulity – but these are not designed to ring true – as the shopkeeper says it only matters if the teller of the tale believes it true. Speaking of whom, Combs is as dependable as always.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Stan Against Evil: Vampire Creek – review

Directed by: Robert Cohen

First aired: 2018

Contains spoilers


Stan Against Evil is a fun, short episode series starring John C. McGinley, Scrubs), as the former sheriff of Willard’s Mill, New Hampshire. After his wife died, he beat up an old lady at the funeral (who seemed to morph into a hag) and retired. With the new sheriff, Evie (Janet Varney), he discovers that there is a curse on all sheriffs of Willard’s Mill after a mass witch burning back in the day.

John C. McGinley as Stan

The reason he never died a premature death was due to his wife, who was secretly a demon hunter. Stan (who feels modelled on Ash) reluctantly has to work with Evie to overcome the demons. We looked at a succubus episode here but in Season 3 they finally did a full-on vampire episode but it seems to have little to do with the main arc.

Denise and Evie

The episode starts with an off-duty Evie round at Stan’s watching Vampire Creek with Stan’s adult daughter Denise (Deborah Baker Jr.). Vampire Creek is a teen vampire at high school show and both women are somewhat into it. Stan wanders in and makes a comment about real sexy vampires being Hammer ones and waxing lyrical about Ingrid Pitt. He answers the door and it is a package for Denise – as the delivery guy leaves we see it is Zach (Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Fright Night), the vampire from the show.

into the mirror

Denise has won a prop from the show, a mirror, for her slash fiction about the show. However, she hears the mirror speaking to her, touches the glass and is pulled into the show. Zach wants her to go to vampire prom with him, as a vampire, but it is her own choice – he can’t force her. However Evie, Stan and Denise’s almost boyfriend Kevin (Dana Gould) are also pulled into the show and all are quickly turned against their will, Evie first.

vampire Evie

Evie ends up as a vampish vampire, who gets very drunk on blood at the prom. There is a sparkle comment but it is about what happens when staked. The comment comes from Stan who actually really seems to take to being a vampire. However being staked in show is the only way out for the three new vampires and Denise needs to work out whether she wants to stay, and if not how to escape…

Stan attacked

I really like Stan Against Evil and found this episode to be respectful to the vampire genre whilst generating its comedy. Ok it aimed squarely at the teen vampire scene but seemed to do so with deference to it as much as it took the mickey. The elements of grown women loving teen vampire romance and the vampires’ hairless chests (of course they are hairless, they want to get teen girls and so shave), were amusing but it was Evie as a vampire that made the episode for me. 7 out of 10.

The episode’s imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Detective K: Secret of the Living Dead – review

Director: Suk-Yoon Kim

Release date: 2018

Contains spoilers


I have to thank Leila for putting me onto this – the third Detective K film. This is a Korean series about an eighteenth-century Korean detective and so, like Rampant, this is a period set film. Also, like the zompire film this has a comedy element but, in terms of tone, this weaves it more delicately into the general film. You’ll also see that this has another textual element in common.

awkened

The film is set in 1789 and talks of blood-suckers appearing in the kingdom. As we are given a little background, we see a man digging up a grave and are told that vampires are strong, heal rapidly, can fly and the way to kill them is fire. The coffin contains a charred corpse and he drops blood on it but runs into the woods as soldiers start coming through the trees. He is mortally wounded as a thrown knife sinks into his throat. A woman (Kim Ji-won), the corpse revived, comes to him and he gives her a pouch before dying. She is caught at a cliff edge, shot, goes off the edge but then flies into the distance.

undercover

Detective Kim Min (Kim Myung-min) – K – and his “Watson”, Seo-pil (Oh Dal-su), are undercover at a travelling show, where they are posing as magician and assistant. K actually manages to wound Seo-pil during the swords through the box trick but their primary reason for being there is due to vampires – as suspicious deaths have followed the show. A child is kidnapped from the crowd and K intercepts but discovers that it is the show’s owner and son killing people but not because they are vampires. One of them suffers from porphyria and they are taking blood to treat that (it is, again, a mistaken view of porphyria and how it would have caused people to act).

combustion

Elsewhere a man staggers through the streets with a bite on his neck, he falls and turns, at which point a flaming arrow strikes him (from out of the night). The fire consumes him from inside out. K is approached by a woman to come and investigate the mysteriously burnt man (the second such death) – they are to host a royal lunar festival, the first in 30 years, and the King is to attend. K agrees but finds his lodgings are not as promised. He soon meets the revived woman – who has amnesia and whom he names Wol-Young. At first he doesn’t realise what she is (despite showing prodigious strength) as she can walk in the sun and the two work together to try and both solve the case and discover her story.

vampire

So, the reason she can walk in the sun is down to the fact that she hasn’t drunk any blood – if she does she will gain standard sunlight issues (though dying in sunlight leads to a tad of sparkling) but also regain her memories. The intertextual connection with Rampant that I mentioned is down to the source of the vampirism, which is a European ship that wrecked on shore with a vampire aboard. Likewise, Rampant’s zompires came from a European ship and this speaks of the monster coming from Europe – be that as a general commentary on Western colonialism, the pervasiveness of European culture generally, or a media commentary regarding the traditional folklore creatures being replaced by the Western hordes. This is not a new Asian trope – the Japanese film the Bloodthirsty Roses had the source of vampirism be a shipwrecked European, pushing the trope further by having him literally steal a succession of Japanese faces.

Wol-Young and K

That aside, this is a sumptuous film with some great comedy moments, including much in the way of slapstick – but that slapstick works really well. The three primary characters all work brilliantly. There are moments early on with a UFO abduction and zombies, told as events supposedly happening, that make a nice break from the less supernatural earlier instalments. The zombies make a more substantial appearance at the end – indicating the direction the series is likely to go in. The central narrative itself is, of course, a mystery, and I won’t spoil that. However, I will say it centres around murder, revenge and dynastic politics. 7.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Short Film: Zompire! Dr. Lester's Monster

Weighing in at 14 minutes this is a creature feature that was a 2010 film school project for director Lucien Knotter, filmed in Black and White and featuring the increasingly popular zompire… though not as one might at first think.

It starts off in the lab, where wannabe mad scientist Dr. Lester (Ed Lloyd Moore) is at work, sat behind him is his zombie henchman, Lurch (Jef Johnson). A bat flies in (and a really crap one it is with, on the furthest left periphery of the shot, a blurry hand of the person manipulating the bat), drops off a letter and then transforms into vampire servant Vlad (Andreas Chalikias).

an evil scheme

It is from the Mad Scientist Guild – and it is a rejection of his application to join. There is a glimmer of hope, he can present a finding at the guild and gain entry if it is found to be acceptable. Fail and not only will he be rejected but he will be barred from ever applying again. He has to think about what he wishes to create but all the monsters from his youth are no longer scary. People want pretty vampires and fast zombies.

dance, zompires, dance

Vlad says that monsters can still be scary, put him and Lurch together and… The Dr. has a plan – a bit of Frankenstein type action and he creates a zompire who sits up and is all kinds of fabulous sassy (and called Tim (Blake Heiss)). Tim doesn’t like the term zompire – he prefers vambi – and is not interested in being scary, just performing. However the presentation at the guild is sort of performing… on a stage… what could go wrong?

sparkles

Just to note, a zompire (or vambi) newly turned does sparkle and this does aim jokes at Twilight, which of course is shooting fish in a barrel – however the conflating of the move from the horror staple by using both pretty vampires and fast zombies was interesting. It is probably the first time I’ve seen the latter listed as not scary, they’re just a different kind of scary to the standard Romero zombie and an altogether different metaphor. You can see what happens at the guild below.

The imdb page is here.

Zompire! Dr. Lester's Monster from Lucien Knotter on Vimeo.

Zombillénium – review

Directors: Arthur de Pins & Alexis Ducord

Release date: 2017

Contains spoilers

Based on a graphic novel series by Arthur de Pins, this French animation tore me slightly – I recognised the fact that it was limited in character development and didn’t seem to know whether it wanted to be aimed at families or adults (some of the industrial aspects probably would go over a child’s head for instance) but at the same time I rather enjoyed it for what it was.

It certainly made me want to read the graphics – but I also get the feeling that they will make the film somewhat disappointing, just from the blurbs they seem more involved. However, having not read them as I write this, I am looking at the film without the distraction of prior knowledge.

Lucy with Hector

The film starts with Hector driving a car with his daughter Lucy. Hector’s wife had died and he is taking Lucy to her boarding school – where she stays over the week whilst he works. She sees a billboard for theme park Zombillénium and asks whether she can go to it – when Hector gets a work call. It is from a colleague saying that the workers at a factory they are going to demolish are protesting. Hector is a safety inspector and says the factory isn’t up to spec and it has to go – he drops Lucy off mid-call, agreeing the trip to Zombillénium.

arrive at the park

As he drives off, a skateboard blur that seems to fly swoops past the car and he crashes (later we discover that this is Gretchen, a witch and intern at Zombillénium, who has a skateboard attached to her broomstick). A shaken Hector goes to a café and is told that she’ll be from Zombillénium and decides to launch a surprise safety inspection and heads to the park where he is met by park manager Francis Von Bloodt. Hector manages to sneak off, takes an employee elevator and finds a hidden floor button – the elevator takes him to Hell.

Francis

So, the background was actually given during this sequence and over the credits. The site was a mine years before and the miners actually broke through to Hell and were killed and zombified for their trouble. The park was later built over the site and is staffed by monsters. We later discover that Francis convinced Satan to back his plan for an Earth based business where monsters could live – but promised a financial investment return and the park is struggling. However, in the here and now he has to take care of the human who has stumbled onto the secret.

a low-rent Hellboy?

We see Lucy at a cemetery – her father is dead and she has to remain (as an orphan) at the school. Hector, meanwhile, awakens. As well as being bitten by Francis – a vampire – he has been bitten by a werewolf and they wait to see what he’ll become. Unfortunately he seems to be an ordinary zombie and is put to work on the cotton candy stall. As the film moves on, he morphs more and more into a demon – there is no explanation of how this occurs but let’s just go with it (and enjoy the Hellboy comment).

Steven sparkles

He quickly discovers there is a hierarchy at the park – with zombies at the bottom end and the vampires lording it over them – Victor alone is open to monster equality, the other vampires, including main vampire Steven, are not. Steven is drawn with a “Cullen” look and actually sparkles at times, whilst all the other vampires (bar Francis) are goths and emos. We also discover that vampires invented the garlic myth and can turn into bats. Steven entertains people on the Ferris wheel as a heartthrob but the scary side of the park is struggling. Hector, of course, turns that around as well as befriending skeleton union leader Sirius. However when humans come to invest in the park, Steven hatches a plot to take over, make it a romantic vampire theme for the whole park and get rid of the lower class workers.

Cerberus

It is that industrial aspect that kids just aren’t going to get – worker exploitation, in line with the Marxist depiction of “Capital is dead labour, that, vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks”. Venture capitalists undermining the things they touch, spoiling the artistic concept, and rejecting the workers (sending them into Hell to push *the* wheel in endless exploitative torment). At this point, as an aside, can I mention Cerberus guarding the damned souls on the wheel depicted as having one of the three dogs heads as a yappy dog was genius. Beyond the aside, there was an interesting political/economic allegory going on that just didn’t feel comfortable with its place in a family animation.

explaining the garlic myth 

The same allegory saw the clash between scary monsters and romantic monsters and the conclusion (spoiler, but obvious) that the punters actually want scary monsters even though they seem to have fallen for a romantic vampire narrative. The film didn’t build the primary characters enough, however, whether this was family entertainment or more adult. I liked the animation style but, in keeping with the family side, it was fairly bloodless (making the scary monster vs sanitised/romantic side ironic in many respects). The theme of child abuse (the teacher is outright abusive to Lucy and locks kids in cupboards generally) is never satisfactorily resolved. On that adult/family dichotomy, having Satan actively involved (we don’t see him, but see his shadow, hear him and see fire belch out of monitors/phones when he calls) was a brave move but one that further obscured who the vehicle’s target audience was.

Gretchen using her powers

All that said, I did enjoy this for what it was; I do want to try out the graphic novels at some point and suspect that they will gear more towards adult audiences and build characters (and play with the political economic themes) that much more. My enjoyment of the film makes me want to give it 6 out of 10 but suspect its generous.

The imdb page is here.

On Blu-Ray @ Amazon US

Gender in the Vampire Narrative – review

Editors: Amanda Hobson & U. Melissa Anyiwo


Release date: 2016


Contains spoilers


The Blurb: Gender in the Vampire Narrative addresses issues of masculinity and femininity, unpacking cultural norms of gender. This collection demonstrates the way that representations of gender in the vampire narrative traverse a large scope of expectations and tropes. The text offers classroom ready original essays that outline contemporary debates about sexual objectification and gender norms using the lens of the vampire in order to examine the ways those roles are undone and reinforced through popular culture through a specific emphasis on cultural fears and anxieties about gender roles. The essays explore the presentations of gendered identities in a wide variety of sources including novels, films, graphic novels and more, focusing on wildly popular examples, such as The Vampire Diaries, True Blood, and Twilight, and also lesser known works, for instance, Byzantium and The Blood of the Vampire. The authors work to unravel the ties that bind gender to the body and the sociocultural institutions that shape our views of gendered norms and invite students of all levels to engage in interdisciplinary conversations about both theoretical and embodied constructions of gender. This text makes a fascinating accompanying text for many courses, such as first-year studies, literature, film, women’s and gender studies, sociology, popular culture or media studies, cultural studies, American studies or history. Ultimately this is a text for all fans of popular culture


The review: It wasn’t a shock, despite the title of the book being “gender”, that this volume was concentrated upon one of the genders (and, in the one ostensibly male orientated chapter, the focus was the female gender) and, in so doing, had a very feminist perspective. Whilst it wasn’t a shock it seemed like a waste. Not that there isn’t a place for feminist studies (indeed I’d have bought the book had it been accurately titled The Female in the Vampire Narrative) but the genre has so many other perspectives to explore.


In a book on gender I would have liked some of the contributions to examine gender identity and genderqueering within the genre. Certainly, there is opportunity to do so and that would have added an extra dimension to what is, generally, an excellent collection of articles.


It was great to see Florence Marryat’s work getting some attention as well as da Sweet Blood of Jesus, however there were some minor missed opportunities (beyond the massive one mentioned).


When discussing Byzantium, Hobson footnotes to point out the connection to  the Vampyre: A Tale but misses that Darvell is a reach over to Byron’s fragment that the Vampyre was based on. Kristina DuRocher suggests that vampires came to life, via the medium of film, rather than resting in the reader’s imagination – looking squarely at the Twentieth Century. However, this ignores the phenomenal popularity of the vampire on the stage at certain parts of the Nineteenth Century. There is also a serious under-estimation of how many films featured Dracula as a character. And, as a pet peeve, there is a chapter looking at La Belle Dame Sand Merci and Christabel. Although author Ana G Gal recognises that the neither poem's antagonist is “a vampire in the strictest sense”, I do not subscribe to Christabel being a vampire poem at all.


Minor points however (even the Christabel point as there are counter arguments) and the point about exploring gender identity and non-binary gender is a wish and certainly not an indication of quality/worth. This is, overall, a great volume. 8 out of 10.

Anno Dracula 1895 – Seven Days in Mayhem – review

Author: Kim Newman

Artist: Paul McCaffrey

First published: 2017 (tpb)

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: It is 1895, Count Dracula is Prince Regent and undisputed ruler of the British Empire, his power is supreme and unchecked. The curse of vampirism has spread far and wide through all levels of society and through all ranks of the British government. Now, on the verge of Dracula's 10th Anniversary of rule, anti-Dracula forces in the guise of the Council of the Seven Days are gathering. The Council - a secret cabal of free radicals, made up of vampires and humans alike have sworn to overthrow the Crown Prince of Darkness at any cost. They plan to sabotage the Jubilee with a devastating bomb attack. Now vampire journalist Kate Reed must uncover the truth and unmask the true conspirators behind the sinister plot or risk plunging both human and vampire kind into ruin and disaster from which no side will recover...

The review: I mentioned when reviewing Anno Dracula: One Thousand Monsters that it was good to get back to a nineteenth century timeframe. In this graphic novel we not only do that but also return to Victorian London and spend the story with vampire Kate Reed – a character cut from Stoker’s Dracula, she appears in the author's notes as a friend of Mina, but is made a wholly rounded journalist character through Newman’s series.

We also see Princess Christina Light – a light based vampire – in her revolutionary role that is alluded to in One Thousand Monsters – the hypocrisy of this is touched upon in both this and the prose volume. This, therefore, gives an in-depth backstory for one of the primary One Thousand Monsters characters.

If I struggled at all, it was with the artwork. Not that it is terrible, in fact it is rather good. However it felt a little well-lit, colourful even. In my mind’s eye the Anno Dracula universe was dark, gloomy, oppressive. This never felt so. Clearly Titan (who produced the book) and Newman as author were happy with the direction and it is a very personal gripe but it just took a little away from the whole thing for me. That said, in our brief meeting with Dracula, I was impressed with the look he was given. 6.5 out of 10.

My thanks to Sarah, who bought me this for Christmas.

Anno Dracula: One Thousand Monsters – review

Author: Kim Newman

First published: 2017

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: “There are no vampires in Japan. That is the position of the Emperor. The Emperor is wrong...”

In 1899 Geneviève Dieudonné travels to Japan with a group of vampires exiled from Great Britain by Prince Dracula. They are allowed to settle in Yōkai Town, the district of Tokyo set aside for Japan’s own vampires, an altogether strange and less human breed than the nosferatu of Europe. Yet it is not the sanctuary they had hoped for, as a vicious murderer sets vampire against vampire, and Yōkai Town is revealed to be more a prison than a refuge. Geneviève and her undead comrades will be forced to face new enemies and the horrors hidden within the Temple of One Thousand Monsters…

The review: Kim Newman hit on a fantastic concept in 1992 when he published Anno Dracula, a revisionism of Stoker’s novel in which the vampire won and subsequently married Queen Victoria and vampirism mainstreamed. The first novel took place in 1888 but subsequent novels decamped from the nineteenth century and were based through the twentieth (there were short stories set in the nineteenth).

This novel returns to the nineteenth century (or the very last gasp thereof) and the opening was published as a teaser in Anno Dracula 1899 and Other Stories. It sees a group of vampires, exiled by Dracula, appear as refugees in Tokyo. Offered sanctuary of a sort (the Emperor refused to accept that there are vampires in japan thus there are not) the vampires are taken to Yokai Town, a walled off ghetto where yokai are placed. In this Newman reimagines the various yokai as vampire types (not all blood drinkers, one subsists on tea that he has stolen – and it has to be stolen).

As in his other books in the universe Newman mashes up (alternative) history, mythology, literature and movies – drawing from all areas. Therefore one of the primary vampires in this is Drusilla from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the book contains the origin story of Popeye (not named that) and a kyonsi. The vampire Christina Light is a Princess (originally an American who married into nobility) and a revolutionary. Interestingly her vampire character is light based, being almost luminescent she is described at one point as sparkling. From a Japanese point of view there are appearances of characters/creatures as diffuse as Goke from Goke: Body Snatcher from Hell to various traditional yokai such as kappa, Kasa-obake and Rokurokubi. The primary yokai (though hidden for much of the book) is the Yukki-Onna – the legendary Snow Woman literally consumes heat (sometimes blood, but preferred cold) and the backstory we are given is the folkloric one, which was filmed in Kwaidan. This level of mash-up is a strength but, in this volume, it teeters on being a weakness.

The writing is as crisp as one would expect from Newman but the primary narrative is perhaps less convoluted than in other volumes and this gives more room for mash-up and one felt, just on the odd occasion, that perhaps a level of geek fan-service was being applied too thickly. That is a matter of taste and opinion, of course, and was only a minor grumble. Newman is a fantastic storyteller and strong composer of prose and so for the most part this is all you would wish for in an Anno Dracula book – especially as it moved back into the origin century (even if the setting was somewhat more exotic) 8 out of 10.

I Had a Bloody Good Time at House Harker – review

Director: Clayton Cogswell

Release date: 2016

Contains spoilers


What happened to the Harkers after the events in Dracula? It is a question that has inspired many stories and forms the nub of the lengthily titled I Had a Bloody Good Time at House Harker. Indeed we see a moment from the family’s life in the prologue but the main of the film jumps a few generations down the line.

The film is a comedy and has a nicely dark humour and takes a side swipe at Twilight that wasn’t cliched and maintained humour. Plus it has blood… lots and lots of blood.

hunting the Harkers

An intertitle tells us that, following the events in Dracula, Jonathan and Mina take Quincey (Dylan Fox Williams) to America. There a vampire tracks them down, approaching father and son whilst holding the head and spinal column of Van Helsing. The vampire reveals that he took the skull of Dracula and ate it (I’ll get back to this) and took his power. He will create an army of the undead starting with the Harkers. “Don’t mouth my lines…”

Ned, Charlie & Gerry

That is the complaint of Ned (Derek Haugen) who is playing the role of the vampire in a staged re-enactment that Gerry Harker (Jacob Givens) is putting on in the Harker house. Gerry is back from Hollywood having starred in Twirl (the Billy Elliott of baton twirling movies… not). The Harker siblings were given a grant to renovate the house and he has blown most of it on the play – which he hopes will make the house a tourist attraction. Also in the play is his neurodivergent brother Charlie (Noel Carroll). However the housing inspector is not impressed – the house is still a death trap and they need to repay the money or renovate the house, fast.

How Ned sees Paige

Also living at the house is their sister Paige (Whitney Moore), engaged to town sheriff Wayne (Nathan Lorch), she is Ned’s unrequited love. The film does spend a bit of time building these idiosyncratic characters but the crux of the film is a merging of events. Firstly their accidental killing, and posthumous exsanguination, of the Necrophiliac Killer (Peter Story). Following this (and a further death) they ratchet up the play concept to one of “proving” vampires are real. This merges with blood getting on the vampire skull that Quincey kept and sending a psychic call to a vampire (Nate Lane) in Romania, drawing the creature over to claim Dracula’s power.

the vampire

Which is about as much as I want to spoil of the core story. Let us just say that the pretend vampire hunters, along with ex-priest Walter (Arlan Godthaab), have their work cut out. I do need to spoil around the skull, however. The vampire gets it and it levitates, turns to dust and he breathes it in (rather than munching on bone). The film works on a bite and very quickly turn basis. The vampires fear holy symbols, stakes kill and cause them to “pop” – with a small gush of blood, but not entirely liquify. A master vampire can turn to mist during a fight.

interviewing Stacey

I mentioned Twilight and there is a book series invented for the film called Succulent by Stacey Mendler (Talya Carroll). She has sparkly vampires in her books, because vampires are beautiful and misunderstood and anyone that says otherwise is being racist. Because of the vampire panic in town she brings her book tour along to set the record straight. This just kind of worked in that meeting/clashing between the monster and the romantic, and the concept maintained amusement levels without falling into the very tired comedy clichés that normally come with shooting the Twilight-fish in the barrel.

attacked

And these vampires are the monstrous type and the blood flows aplenty, indeed our actors end up drenched in the red stuff. The jokes work well, mostly, though some could have been worked harder (an internet troll (Cody Ward) is cast into the film but so very little is done with him and it seems a bit of a waste, for instance). Bloody, with monstrous vampires and genuinely amusing. What’s not to love. 7.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

The Very Beast of Transylvania Television – review

Directed by: Michael J. Heagle & Troy Antoine LaFaye (series)

First aired: 2007-2012 (series)

Contains spoilers


I stumbled over Transylvania Television on Tubi TV where they had 5 episodes from the four series and the Halloween Special (The Transylvania Television Real Meanin' of Halloween Special Show). From what I can gather that amounts to the contents of the Very Beast of Transylvania Television available from the show’s homepage.

Batfink and Furry

So what is it? A parody of all things B, would be the easiest description, I guess. The muppets for adults, perhaps. If I was wondering whether this was aimed at adults or kids things were soon settled in the opening scene of the first episode where regular characters Batfink (Laszlo Nemesi) and Furry J. Ackermonster (Gordon Smuder) are discussing alternatives to the word boobs and it’s all for a letter to Furry’s mom!

Micro-nuclear sparkles

Batfink is a rather rat looking bat and Furry is an orange yeti (he’s orange because he’s an albino) and they both work for Transylvania Television. There are several other recurring characters but, from our point of view, the important one is network owner Count Volodymir LeShoc (Charles Hubbell). Keen eyed viewers will spot that the fleece the puppet is made of does sparkle a tad. However full on sparkles were added for a segment and he explains that they are actually “millions of micro-nuclear explosions all over my body, its incredibly painful”. He hisses when he hears the name Bram Stoker.

Remarkably, and consistently, amusing, I can’t really go through the plot as there is pretty much not one. You can watch the "Beast of" on Tubi for free. 7 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Liar, Liar, Vampire – review

Director: Vince Marcello

Release date: 2015

Contains spoilers

This was a 1 hour kid’s release by Nickelodeon and I guess that kids' fare has degenerated over the years because although there was a subversiveness desperately trying to get out, ultimately it became lost within a Hallmark schmaltz at one point and then emerged to give its “be yourself” sermon.

I’ll touch on that subversive aspect as we go through the review but for those who are desperately anti-Twilight, well I’m afraid this did use that as part of its premise and lore.

fighting ninja

We can see we have that influence straight off the bat because the film is set in the town of Forksley, small town USA. Our main character is Davis Pell (Rahart Adams), an Australian kid whose mom’s (Pauline Egan, Sanctuary) job keeps moving them from town to town (and country to country by the sounds of things). His loneliness has led to an over active imagination and we see him in life and death combat against imaginary ninjas.

Brec Bassinger as Vi

Unfortunately his new next door neighbour, Vi (Brec Bassinger), witnesses this and whilst she doesn’t seem too negative about him she does tell him that she doesn’t date boys who make believe, when he tries to ask her out. When he gets to school (and has to wear his grandma’s horrendous jumper) he sees popular girl Caitlyn Crisp (Tiera Skovbye, Forever Sixteen) on her vlog and falls for her. As she is in the chemistry class he has to go in, he pulls off the jumper – with much effort – and that leaves his hair stood up (apparently vampire like).

jumper hair

There is a storm and the lights go out as he makes his entrance. His accent makes him stand out and then, after class, ducking to tie his shoelaces makes him appear to have vanished in Caitlyn’s locker mirror, whilst stepping on a banana skin and skidding along the corridor makes him look like he has traversed the corridor at inhuman speed. Caitlyn becomes suspicious, assuming he is a vampire, and when she sees him trying to choke down his health food lunch she offers him garlic pizza. The reason he eats health food is due to allergies and he falls from the bench avoiding the offered snack. Unfortunately Caitlyn’s boyfriend, and quarterback, Bon (Ty Wood) sees this and isn’t impressed

sparkles

Bon and his buddies catch Davis and tie him up in a large poster/banner. By the time he breaks out of it he has lost his shirt and is covered in glitter… just in time for the school to come out of the dining hall and see him. Firstly, yes sparkling is now vampire lore apparently, for whilst this film owes a lot to Twilight it isn’t a direct parody thereof and, as we can see, it is amalgamated with more traditional lore. Secondly, this is the subversiveness I was talking about. The film has the school (in the main) believing Davis to be a vampire, and loving him for it. If this is a parody it is of fandom (especially the teen-swooning-over-vampires fandom). It was gently (oh so very gently) attacking its own target audience.

be careful what you wish for

After a scene lifted from Twilight (“tell me what you are”), the whole school believes that Davis is a vampire, baring one person with motives that are never actually properly revealed and Vi. Vi decides to help Davis as, if he is going to make a fool of the school, she wants in. This was quite subversive in itself; given that he is the hero of the piece (he makes out he is a vampire, everyone loves him, the truth outs and he has to win back acceptance) making a mistake and then being himself works to the moral. That she is the heroine (she is the girl he should be with but neither see it at first) her attitude to her fellow students is not as positive, given that she is being true to herself from the start.

dressing old school

Be that as it may, she dresses him and schools him in vampire lore and he needs her help as he actually dresses up in a faux-Lugosi way at one point. She gets him fangs (see what I mean about the Twilight lore and traditional lore crossing over), coloured contacts to change his eye colour and suggests he has to talk in the way of the modern vampire – this is described as a cross between a constipated model and a freshman poetry major, and comes out essentially emo. As an aside she suggests that vampires are scared of rabbits, never sing happy birthday and lose their power if they lose a staring contest (that last piece is believed by a further character in the film).

making him float

She even drags him on a trailer behind a scooter to make it seem like he’s floating. Meanwhile Bon drafts in a friend’s uncle, Baron Von Awesome (Alex Zahara, also Sanctuary), to dispose of the vampire – the Uncle believing in vampires. This is all so surreal and I was actually enjoying things due to the strangeness and the poking (albeit gently) fun at fandom. Then there is a scene with his mother that is so Hallmark it was vomit inducing and the film rushed headlong into its moral and lost me. The acting wasn’t bad for a kid’s programme but the entire thing fell apart at the point mentioned. There was belief in vampires and acting as a vampire, but no actual vampire in sight. Altogether 4 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.