Handbook of the Vampire: Between the Traditional and the Metaphorical: Bleeding Out the Foreigners in Chelsea Quinn Yarbro’s Saint Germain Novels

Written for Handbook of the Vampire by Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns the Chapter Page can be found here.

Yarbro’s Saint Germain novels are much loved, I know, but embarrassingly I have only read the first one - Hotel Transylvania. This lack of knowledge did not stop me for enjoying this exploration into the world of Saint Germain especially with the lens that was used. Berns sees Saint Germain not only as an ethical vampire but as a vampire who is an emigrant, moving through countries, through the various timelines that the full series explores. It was interesting, therefore, that the compelling conclusion was that “the hosts countries are those functioning as vampiric beings” (9) and I really liked that view and lens.

There was one aspect of the paper that, throwaway as it is, I have to comment on however. This is the view that the use of native or grave earth, for a vampire, originates in Stoker. It is true that this earth aspect is part of the vampire megatext and there is a connection to Stoker but his version was slightly different. In Dracula Stoker, through Van Helsing, tells us “For it is not the least of its terrors that this evil thing is rooted deep in all good, in soil barren of holy memories it cannot rest.” The soil he took to England was from his disused chapel, it contained holy memories (there is a leap in concept, therefore, when the Crew of Light use holy objects to purify and make useless that soil). He also rested in a suicide’s grave as it made that earth unhallowed (with memories of being hallowed). The concept is rather arcane and it is little wonder that the it was simplified in the megatext as native or grave earth. However, that detail aside, the earth with Saint Germain allows him to move with much more ease (the soil kept in his shoes), whilst a stranger in a strange and vampiric land.

Mandrake – review

Director: Tripp Reed

Release date: 2023

Contains spoilers

First things first, this is a Syfy film and so you can gauge the quality on that fact. I watched it primarily because I thought it might fall into the realm of vampiric plants and it does, kind of, it is arguably a vampiric landscape but… And there is a but… we might see some death by plant but there is little indication of blood drinking. The dialogue does steer us that way though.

It starts with a woman running through the jungle. After a while she backtracks carefully, to hide her retreat by stepping backwards onto her footprints and then peels off to the side. She is being hunted by two somethings and they appear to be monstrous – later they are revealed to be Yambarri (the indigenous tribe) warriors in elaborate helmets etc. Despite her ruse she is caught.

the team

A group of travellers arrive at a small Latin American airport, they have been paid to help locate treasure in the jungle and so one, Lin (Wayne Pére), is an archaeologist and another, Carla (Jon Mack, Drakul), an anthropologist (and linguist). The third is a soldier for hire, McCall (Max Martini), and it is he that the border guard are not happy about until their contact, Santiago (Nick Gomez, Vampire Riderz & Vampires Suck), greases the wheels. The area they are heading in to is contested ground between government and rebels but the rebel leader has given an undertaking to be out of the area for a couple of days.

the dagger

They don’t head to basecamp, rather they are sent orders to go straight to the area where the artifact they are looking for is meant to be. That artifact is a conquistador’s dagger that the businessman who has bankrolled the expedition, Harry Vargas (Benito Martinez), covets as it belonged to an ancestor. They reach the area and find an indigenous graveyard and find the one tomb mispositioned (laying North/South rather than East/West. It has glyphs on the stonework but Lin doesn’t wait for Carla to translate and opens the tomb. Inside is the remains of the conquistador and the dagger buried in the position of the heart.

stabbed by vine

Removing the dagger causes something like a seismic shock to hit the area, Lin ends up strung up in a trap and Yambarri warriors attack them. The group gets split up and McCall is dismissive of reports of the jungle attacking the others – until he sees it himself. So, what’s happened? The story as it comes out is the Yambarri were invaded by the conquistadors and so their shamans summoned something to save them. This appears to be the jungle brought to life in the form of a kind of plant/animal hybrid. Having said that it also appears that the jungle itself attacks the invaders. However the creature was a killing machine attacking invaders and Yambarri alike and so they created a totem using the hilt of the conquistador’s knife attached to a Yambarri blade and, by stabbing the invader in the heart, they made the beast dormant. Removing the blade awakens it… so kind of a stake equivalent but using sympathetic magic (stabbing a sacrifice rather than the creature itself).

sacrifice

This doesn’t quite add up as the woman from the beginning was part of a team sent in first (that our guys didn’t know about). The team are dead and she was held – and then sacrificed to the creature (though, again it might be more to the jungle itself) once it was awakened but the inference was they sacrificed outsiders anyway. The sacrifice sees them tied to a sacrificial stone, the shaman (J. LaRose) summoning the creature and vines cocooning the victim who is subsequently ripped in half by the vines.

J. LaRose as the shaman

What we do not see is blood drinking, however we get reference to it. The shaman, when telling the backstory, translated by Carla, suggested the creature was summoned to drink the blood of the invaders. The warning glyphs mention this too but say that the jungle feeds on the blood of invaders. The team, at one point, use fire, which it doesn’t like but it doesn’t kill it (and as an avatar of the jungle, if that’s what it is, then it wouldn’t) – ultimately, they must find a way to make it dormant again. A couple of points, reminiscent of vampiric plant film Ruins had the area devoid of animal and bird noise and a person stabbed by a vine subsequently having vines moving below the skin.

the creature

It isn’t a great film, the creature cgi looks poor for a start, and it has some awful moments – such as Carla attending to a leg wound (where the vine has stabbed into a character) whilst saying she knows about field dressings and then applying a tourniquet below the wound rather than above. We also get a moment where a camp worker hears something in the undergrowth (that sounded like Keyop from Battle of the Planets) and is grabbed and dragged off. Was it the Yambarri or the jungle itself? The film doesn’t say. Incidentally the film didn’t seem to mention the (not indigenous) mandrake of the title, so I’m not sure why the film has the title it does. However, as a Syfy flick it is about right. 3 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Star Trek the Animated Series: The Lorelei Signal (s1e4) – review

Director: Hal Sutherland

First Aired: 1973

Contains spoilers

Star Trek the Animated Series was an Emmy award winning animation series that aired between 1973 and 1974 and was based on the original Star Trek series. More than that it featured the voice talents of many of the original actors. It seems a shame, therefore, that it was removed from Star Trek cannon but it is still fun to watch despite the fact that the animation is severely dated and the voice acting seems a tad stilted at times. It is actually the stories that make this worthwhile, of course.

This episode was the fourth of the first season and riffs upon the Siren myth (or, more accurately, the Rhine Maidens as Loreley was one of their number). It starts with the Enterprise in a mysterious sector of space where, according to talks between the Federation, the Romulans and the Klingons, several spaceships have mysteriously vanished. Indeed a ship disappears once every 27 years and the anniversary is upon them.

Nichelle Nichols as Lt. Uhura

They receive a signal and, on playing it, Kirk (William Shatner, Incubus) and the other male members of the crew seem somewhat entranced, describing it as calling to them, though the unaffected Lt. Uhura (Nichelle Nichols, Spider-Man (1997)) detects no such messaging within it. She eventually asks Nurse Chapel (Majel Barrett) to observe the male crew.

'Bones' aging

When they get to the source of the signal, however, Kirk arranges an all-male away party – including himself, Spock (Leonard Nimoy, Night Gallery: Death on a Barge), Bones (DeForest Kelley) and Lt. Carver (James Doohan). They are entranced by the all-female aliens they meet (who lie and tell them the males are in another compound) but feel weak and soon we see them begin to age rapidly.

all female security detail

What I found great about this episode was Lt. Uhura taking command of the Enterprise, putting female security details on the transporters (to prevent any other male crew member beaming to the planet) and leading a female security detail down to rescue the men. It spoke of a capability in the character and of her place within the rank structure, both of which should have been more widely addressed in the physical series. Of course, this episode was written and filmed at a point where gender was invariably portrayed as binary – a view that the Star Trek universe has rightly corrected in its latest TV/Stream incarnation.

one of the aliens

What they discover is that the female aliens, long before, had come to the planet as part of a colonising effort when their own world started to die. What they hadn’t realised was that the planet drained life from humanoid creatures (making the land itself vampiric). The men it drained but the women developed a glandular secretion that allowed them to both manipulate men and drain them of their energy (Bones reckons that they are aging 10 years per day). It has made them immortal, but also infertile, and they have to lure more men every 27 years.

So, alien energy vampires (and a vampiric planet) and a welcome spotlight on Lt. Uhura. I enjoyed this episode. 6.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon US

On DVD @ Amazon UK

Vamp or Not? La Meute

In English, the Pack, this was a French horror vehicle from 2010 that was directed by Franck Richard and whilst I had watched it some time ago, I had intended for some time to look at this under the lens of ‘Vamp or Not?’ A creature feature it is these very creatures that rang a vampire bell for me and made me want to examine the film. The film certainly plays with some tropes and yet it also has aspects of the zombie genre to it as well as other horror styles.

It begins with Charlotte Massot (Émilie Dequenne) driving across country at night, through to dawn’s early light. She stops for food at a roadside takeaway and is verbally accosted by a group of bikers. She avoids them and drives off but later sees them coming up the road towards her. Spotting a hitcher, Max (Benjamin Biolay), she picks him up as a deterrent to the bikers. They talk and then we see him driving as she sleeps – he checks her purse as she sleeps.

Max and Charlotte

He pulls into an area called La Spack, which contains a bar/café. In a moment of surrealness a person runs into a wall wearing bubble wrap as they go in. They chat, when the bikers come in and their leader threatens to rape her. Max intervenes and he is physically accosted for his trouble and becomes the focus of the suggested rape when the owner, credited as La Spack (Yolande Moreau), intervenes – aiming a gun at the bikers who leave.

Philippe Nahon as Chinaski

Max goes to the toilet. He seems to have been a while and Charlotte asks a guy who comes out whether he has seen Max – the answer is negative. She goes in to try and find him but he’s not there. She does notice a false wall but can’t get through it. She leaves and speaks to retired cop Chinaski (Philippe Nahon), who happens to be there. He tells her that picking up hitchhikers isn’t safe but takes her contact number and name.

Benjamin Biolay as Max

Charlotte hangs around until La Spack leaves and breaks in. She gets the false wall open with a crowbar and finds Max’s bandana, when La Spack returns and knocks her out. She awakens in a cage, next to a terrified young man in cowboy gear who repeatedly says “John Wayne”. Max appears and it becomes clear that he is La Spack’s son. Slop is spooned into the cage – not tasty but rich in iron, she is told.

the chair

At this point the film flips to a woman in peril type film, with Charlotte branded and eventually taken to the chair – a device where she and her fellow captive are strapped in, force fed the slop and have their blood extracted. We see La Spack cutting up body parts and throwing them in acid. This section of the film then moves to a point where Charlotte and the other captive are taken to a mining shack by Max and La Spack. Both are hung by the arm and her foot is cut so she will bleed onto the earth.

shower in blood

Out of the ground come the creatures. Called golems in the credits, we never establish exactly what they are. They emerge from the earth and shuffle like zombies but also use tools. They are blind and come out at night and their power waxes and wanes with the moon. They are described as coming deep from the earth and we hear that La Spack lost her other sons in the (now closed) mine. They wear human clothes but do not seems to be the sons returned, though one allows her to pet it. They are clearly drawn to blood, snuffling at blood in the soil and drinking the blood La Spack extracted from her victims from a container. One pulls the arm off the male captive and stands, being showered under the wound. Though we get one moment of flesh eating later the whole focus seems to be blood.

out of the earth

Indeed, we later see one rip out a heart and then drink from it, rather than eat it. We hear that they are born of mud (much like a golem) and the blood of the dead but also hear that the earth wants blood – so they might be a manifestation of a vampiric landscape. They do not attack Charlotte on the first night (despite her blood being the lure that dripped into the soil) and she is later told that there is no rhyme or reason to who they chose to attack. Later we see that there are many of these things and I have to admit that they reminded me of the vampires in Priest , which came out a year later.

the pack

So, ‘Vamp?’ Well they have the blood drinking, that’s for sure and they are hardy. They are also super strong (ripping an arm clean off is no mean feat). They are shambling, offering a zombie aspect, but they are also tied into a lunar cycle, reminiscent of early vampire tropes. I’m tempted to see them as avatars of a vampiric landscape and I do think we can go Vamp on this one – recognising the use of vampire tropes.

The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon US

On DVD @ Amazon UK

Apostle – review

Director: Gareth Evans

Release date: 2018

Contains spoilers

This was a Netflix film that I had added to my viewing list, understanding it to be a folk horror film. I had in the back of my mind that it might be a little bit like the Wicker Man (1973). Little did I know that it is, at heart, a vampire film and the trope is so strong that no examination is needed to decide on that – Apostle is, in my opinion, a vampire film.

In being so it plays with the idea of native soil in a way that is really interesting and we shall be looking to that. It also plays around with the idea of a vampiric landscape – to some degree – and I will touch upon that too.

Dan Stevens as Thomas

The film is set in 1905 and a letter has been sent by Jennifer (Elen Rhys) to her father begging that he send a ransom to enable her freedom from a religious cult (it reads as though she was a cultist, but later we discover that she has actually been kidnapped from the mainline by the cult with the sole view to ransom). Her father is a broken man and so her estranged (from her father) vagrant looking brother Thomas (Dan Stevens, Vamps) is sent to rescue her. He is not to make himself known to the cult, or pass them the ransom, until he has seen her. As he travels by train to the port, from where he will embark to the cult’s island, we see that he is addicted to some form of drug that he administers by dropper.

ticket

As the viewer sees the quayside my first thought was of Lovecraft and Innsmouth – that is the sort of atmosphere that the set offered and probably a good analogy as the film does play with mounting dread that Lovecraft excelled in. The passengers are all told that no books may be taken to the island. As one passenger (John Weldon), empties books from his case, Thomas offers to help and uses the opportunity to swap his ticket (provided by the cult) for the man’s. Frank (Paul Higgins), the boat’s captain, takes the tickets as they board and seeing something on Thomas’ ticket marks the case of the passenger now in possession of it. Something noted by Thomas.

finding her

The cult itself was founded after convicts Malcolm (Michael Sheen, The Twilight Saga: New Moon, the Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1, the Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2, Underworld & Underworld: Rise of the Lycan), Frank and Quinn (Mark Lewis Jones) had shipwrecked on the island. They had discovered a woman (Sharon Morgan) there who is referred to as a Goddess – I’ll come back to her. Malcolm has styled himself as a prophet, Frank runs the connection with the mainland (as we have seen) and Quinn seems to be more an enforcer. There is a full community now living with them.

branded

Thomas immediately notices many strange things, such as the expectation of ritual bloodletting and a secret tunnel running from Malcolm’s home to somewhere on the island. We see that Thomas has burns on his back and later discover that he was a priest who was tortured and branded with a cross as he tried to bring Christianity to China during the Boxer rebellion – the incident killing his faith and the reason for the character name (he is Doubting Thomas). The island is becoming infertile – the crops dying, animals birthing stillborn or malformed offspring that soon die. This is why they have turned to kidnap, to get the funds to buy food, but they are also being infiltrated by establishment spies from the mainline with a view to ending the cult.

under the floor

I want to concentrate on the Goddess. On his second night Thomas breaks curfew and, when he returns to the lodgings that he and the other newcomers are in, he sees all the other doors have jars of blood outside ready for collection. He fills his jar by stealing blood from another jar (meanwhile we see a female figure behind him, who vanishes). He cuts his finger on a barb on his key and we see, after he retires, the spilt blood moving of its own volition across the floorboard and running down a crack where a face laps hungrily at the blood. The cultist bleed themselves nightly, it seems, and the blood is gathered is an offering to the Goddess.

in the channel of blood

The next night Thomas breaks into the secret passage but becomes trapped down there between Malcolm and Frank. His only way to avoid capture is to climb into a channel that seems to be filled with blood and offal. He is moving through the channel when a rodent is pulled below the surface and then she appears, moving rapidly towards him. He manages to escape, reaching a cave where cave paintings seem to explain the woman (the word Exodus is also chalked on the walls). Meanwhile Malcolm goes to the woman and we see that she is captured within vines and foliage, that have become part of her. A question around the channel of blood came to my mind. As we have seen her hungrily lap at a small amount of freshly spilt blood, why is it that there is a channel of blood apparently untouched? Does the blood need to be fresh, perhaps?

Malcolm feeds her

Malcolm admonishes her for appearing to Thomas, indicating perhaps that he has some sort of telepathic connection with her – as her ‘prophet’ – but also letting us know that, despite being trapped, she can appear on the island. This bilocation might have been illusionary if it weren’t for the feeding under the floorboards. Malcolm feeds her some of his blood and for a moment blossoms appear on the foliage though they quickly die. A humanoid creature, with a vine wrapping around his head, works in the barn, dealing with the meat and acting as her caretaker it seems – he is billed as the Grinder (Sebastian McCheyne).

capturing her

The health of the island is intimately tied into that of the Goddess. Quinn later reveals how they found her and he (having found the cave paintings) uses rabbit’s blood as he captures and ensnares her. Animal blood eventually failed to sustain her (and thus the island) and he plans to produce babies to sacrifice annually to her, convinced such blood will work. Yet she is also able to manipulate the land (we see guards impaled on high branches at one point) and this link between her and the land reminded me of the lore we often get of a vampire and the need for native earth – note I’m specifically thinking of that and not the variant of grave earth. In this the conflation is bought full circle – if the vampire is dependent on its native earth then the film imagines that as an interdependency where the earth is just as reliant on the vampire. It’s a symbiosis between the two.

blood and fire

What we don’t see, but do hear, is that the Goddess can manipulate the surrounding seas as well, protecting her ‘chosen’ but by chosen, are they meant to be a larder for consumption? There is always the possibility that the Goddess is a physical manifestation of the land itself. When she is freed (destroyed?) by immolation the fire spreads rapidly through the land and the community – it blows a chunk of cliff out in an explosion of fire and blood, which is suggestive of the channel of blood but also makes it look as though the entire cliff bleeds. As an aside I was reminded here of the turning process in Byzantium - the Celtic God (who took the form of the prospective vampire, so we never saw their true form) and the bleeding waterfall, to be honest there feels like there is a definite (if not intentional) crossover that could be exploited in a fanfic. Also remember that immolation does not necessarily destroy in nature, rather it clears deadwood and allows renewal.

the Goddess in the land

If the Goddess is a manifestation of the land itself then we have a vampiric landscape, a land that needs blood to blossom. We have seen examples of this before and my mind goes to All Girls Weekend but more so Jug Face, which had the vampiric landscape, the sacrifice and the religious cult element. If she is a manifestation of the land then maybe the channel of blood is more the land’s artery than a feeding sluice? The film certainly poses more questions than it answers but I really enjoyed the sense of dread and the atmosphere – even if things with the Grinder moved off folk horror and more into something around Silent Hill (thanks to Simon Bacon for that analogy).

meat for the grinder

Because of this move it seems to have put some viewers off, I’ve also seen some complaints because of its deliberately unanswered points. Yet I felt it a well-acted psychodrama and its long 130-minute running time flew by. This is one that will gain more fans as the years pass by, I suspect, but I am one already. For me this gets a strong 8 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Vamp or Not? Burnt Offerings

I was contacted by Adrien who wanted to mention the 1976 Dan Curtis film Burnt Offerings to me. Based on a novel by Robert Marasco it was a film that Adrien felt should be on TMtV.

I’m always happy to get suggestions and this is one that deserved, at the very least, to have the ‘Vamp or Not?’ treatment and also contained tropes within it that would emerge perhaps more famously in other (horror) films in years to come. It also boasted a small but astounding core cast. So, why the ‘Vamp or Not?’ – well, if we have a vampire here it is a vampiric house.

David and Ben

The film starts with a car and in it are Ben (Oliver Reed), his wife Marian (Karen Black, Children of the Night (1991) & Night Angel) and their son David (Lee Montgomery, Dead of Night & Mutant). They are going to see a country house that is up for rent (at a reasonable price). When they arrive it is a mansion rather than a house and Ben assumes there must be a cottage/gatehouse for rent. They knock at the door and it is eventually answered by the handyman, Walker (Dub Taylor).

Bette Davis as Aunt Elizabeth

He confirms it is the main house that is for rent and goes to get the lady of the house, Roz Allardyce (Eileen Heckart). Whilst they are waiting David goes to play outside and Marian discovers the conservatory, but all the flowers are dead. Roz makes her appearance. They are renting the house out through summer and it is reasonable, she confirms, but wants to check their suitability first. She asks a few questions and we discover that Ben’s Aunt Elizabeth (Bette Davis) will be coming with them. They are soon joined by Roz’s wheelchair using brother, Arnold (Burgess Meredith).

Karen Black as Marian

The rent is just $900 dollars for the summer but there are catches – they must see to the house upkeep through the summer (Walker, it becomes apparent, will not be there). Also, their mother will remain in the house, she is elderly and they will need to bring her a tray of food three times a day. Ben is suspicious and asks for time to think about it. Back home, in bed (as sirens wail outside) it is clear that Marian has set her heart on spending summer there and Ben confirms they’ll take the house. When they arrive to take tenancy, however, the siblings have gone, leaving them a note and keys. Marian tries to check on Mrs Allardyce but she does not open her bedroom door and, indeed, doesn’t touch the trays left for her for at least the first week.

death

The film slow burns, with a layer of uncanny enough to keep the viewer on edge but without doing too much. The personalities of Ben and Marian change. His a little, a game of rough-housing with David, in the pool, turns violent and he later admits that he wanted to hurt his son – though that seems to shock him back to normal but he becomes suspicious of the house and Marian’s behaviour. He also starts dreaming of his mother’s funeral, from when he was a child, and hallucinating the hearse and driver – who has become the personification of death in his eyes. Marian becomes obsessed with the house and Mrs Allardyce’s rooms. In the room are photographic portraits and the siblings mentioned her collection (and suggested they numbered into thousands).

the flowers in bloom

The most marked change is with Aunt Elizabeth who turns from an elderly but still sprightly woman to a weakened old lady who becomes more and more confused. This culminates with her becoming frail and, suddenly, whilst in bed we hear a crack. This is her arm snapping, her bones have become so frail, and as they wait for a doctor both her and Ben see the hearse driver come into the room and she dies. After her death the flowers in the conservatory are suddenly in full bloom and Marian does not attend her funeral (refusing, off screen, to leave the house and Mrs Allardyce).

terror in the face of death

The idea of someone becoming obsessed with the building would be explored after this by Stephen King in the Shining (and later still by Kubrick in the classic film of King’s book). However this does seem very much to be the house devouring the energy of the occupants (we’ll come back to Marian) rather than assimilating (Jack, in the shining) someone into its ghostly menagerie. This is underlined later when, during a storm, Ben hears a cacophony, which is shingles being knocked off a low roof as wood slats peel from the house revealing new slats beneath – the house devours the occupants and renews itself.

obsession leads to possession 

This scene leads to Ben trying to escape with David, through the storm. However a tree falls on the driveway, blocking their escape. Ben tries to move it but tendrils of vegetation wrap themselves around his leg, pulling him over – this concept would be taken to a further extreme later in the Evil Dead. As for Marian, we see her start wearing clothes she has found in the house, eating Mrs Allardyce’s meal tray and slowly becoming the house’s matriarch. As we never see Mrs Allardyce we might assume that she was never there – perhaps she is a personification of the house itself, which could then be indicative of a vampiric possession of Marian.

renewed

So… the house devours life energy. It takes this slowly, it would appear, or quickly (through accidental death, as nearly happens with David when he is almost suffocated as gas leaks into his room). It can alter the perceptions of the residents (causing hallucinations and altering moods). This life energy allows it to renew itself (becoming younger, as it were). It is apparent it has killed a large number of residents (as the portraits are said to go into the thousands). All in all, I think Adrien was right and this is Vamp.

The imdb page is here.

Vamp or Not? All Girls Weekend

The 2016 Lou Simon directed All Girls Weekend is part slasher with aspects reminiscent of the Blair Witch Project (a landscape that won’t allow you to escape) and a touch of the Evil Dead (specifically the vegetation interacting in a sinister way). None of that, of course, would explain why I am looking at it as a ‘Vamp or Not?’

You’ll recall that I recently looked at Jug Face and whether the land itself could be deemed as vampiric. When I looked at that film, this one was actually brought to mind also, and so we are looking at a potentially vampiric landscape.

Annie and Nancy

After an intertitle that states “With every birth, there is blood…”, we see a murder out in the woods. However, the film proper starts with three young women who went to high school together. There is Gem (Gema Calero), Stephanie (Karishma Lakhani) and Daniela (Katie Carpenter). Daniela is getting somewhat agitated as their fourth companion for the all girls’ weekend, Nancy (Jamie Bernadette), has not arrived and it is getting too late to set off. Nancy arrives and has a further person in tow, Annie (Sharron Calvin). None of the others know Annie, she works with Nancy and has recently suffered a breakup and Nancy has brought her along.

Katie Carpenter as Daniella

The girls decide to leave the next day and Daniela comes across as rather bitchy towards Nancy. It becomes apparent that the girls had drifted since school, that Daniela was overweight at school and was bullied due to it and that she primarily blames Nancy for that (although towards the end Nancy suggests she actually defended Daniela much of the time). This, of course, means the group begins with some tensions already manifested.

Gem and Stephanie

They go out to their vacation and it is an outdoorsy sort of event in a winter landscape. They do a death slide and are driving to their next destination when Daniella pulls the car over and suggests an impromptu hike through the woods (she has visited the area before). This hike proves longer than suggested and ends up with an accident in which Annie falls onto a branch that punctures her leg. Unable to find the way out of the woods they end up at an abandoned cabin…

hiking

So they are ill equipped (as the hike was impromptu), lost and all their mobiles seem to have lost charge. The area has a reputation of being cursed and, as the film progresses, they are beset with accidents (and a bear at one point), poison ivy faux pas, frost bite and it becomes apparent that one of them is somewhat homicidal. So, why is the landscape potentially vampiric? Well the wood becomes a character in itself, and refuses to let the girls leave. This Blair Witch lifted theme is better done because at least the girls are sensible enough to try and follow a stream (the failure of the characters to understand the mechanics of streams and human settlement in Blair Witch is one of its biggest issues).

when vines attack

The woods also seem to be able to make sinister noises and communicate on a psychic level with humans. There are quite a few bodies out there in the woods and it can actively manipulate its vegetation to, for instance, hold on to a person (à la Evil Dead) and can summon up winds. One of the girls acts like a Renfield or familiar to the woods, but what does it want? It is clearly killing those within its boundary but we get the words “This place needs blood to replenish itself” – so we have a definitive need for blood mentioned. As well as this one girl is told to “bring more blood”.

a previous victim

That then is the crux of the matter. The land is intelligent, damaged (through manmade pollution) and seeks to replenish itself with blood… and we can extrapolate that this is human blood as the wildlife in the woods (the bear being the primary animal we see) do not seem to be attacked for their blood and the land is as able to kill as the “helper” it chooses. The filming seems a little washed out, though the winter landscape will impact that, and the acting is functional rather than outstanding, but the landscape is indeed vampiric.

The imdb page is here.

Vamp or Not? Jug Face

Also known as The Pit, Jug Face was directed by Chad Crawford Kinkle and released in 2013. The film was mentioned by Simon bacon in Becoming Vampire who said “a patch of land seems to draw the life-force out of all who come near it and as such acts as a vampiric object” (pg 88).

It is the pit itself that is the focal point for this, hence the alternative name, but is it actually vampiric? Well, let us see.

The opening credits pictorially give us the history of this backwoods area and the community that lives there. We see the people diseased, a blood sacrifice into the pit and then the diseased bathing in the pit – so there is an inference of bathing in blood. What we find is a community that worships the pit (or more accurately something, a spirit perhaps, that lives within the local environs, perhaps even within the pit.)

Sean Bridgers as Dawai

The entity (it is referred to as a thing that awakens and so I will continue to refer to it as such) has a chosen person it communicates with. Dawai (Sean Bridgers) is this potter – an individual who is placed into a trance by the entity, during which his eyes are milky and unseeing, and who then creates a pot jug, with the face of the one the pit has chosen. Dawaii is therefore much like a familiar who is directly communicated with but on a psychic level.

Lauren Ashley Carter as Ada

The main character is Ada (Lauren Ashley Carter) a teenage girl who, when we first meet her, is with a young man called Jessaby (Daniel Manche, I Sell the Dead). She ignores his pleading for sex by the pit but takes him some distance away for the act. When she gets home she is informed that she is to be joined to another youth, Bodey (Mathieu Whitman). We soon discover that Jessaby is Ada’s brother and thus their intercourse in incestuous. Incest has often been seen as a gateway to vampirism – indeed the back story of the fake vampire in Mark of the vampire was one of incest and suicide, until it was deemed too shocking and was relegated to the cutting room floor.

the pit

Ada knows that her purity will be tested, as a pre-requisite to the joining, and she paints blood into the gusset of her knickers in order to suggest that she is on her period. She also looks into Dawai’s kiln and realises that the jug head in the kiln has her likeness, so she takes it and buries it, knowing that it means she is to be sacrificed. There is a celebration of the joining’s announcement in the evening, with Jessaby keen to ensure that Ada doesn’t put her impurity onto him.

Larry Fessenden as Sustin

When she accompanies her father, Sustin (Larry Fessenden, Stake Land, Stake Land 2, Habit & also I Sell the Dead), into town, where he makes money selling moonshine, she asks him whether the pit has ever taken a baby and he says it has. Whilst in the chemists she steals a pregnancy test – which back home shows positive. However by hiding the jug she has broken the community’s covenant with the entity.

having a vision

Ada starts having visions, and these prove to be her seeing through the entity as it awakens and attacks community members to punish her (and the community) for the break of the covenant. When this occurs her eyes become milky. The victims are either taken at the pit or dragged there and we never see what it is. Ada also starts to see a spectral boy (Alex Maizus). He is one of “the Shunned” and it is revealed that those killed by the pit (rather than being sacrificed to it) are forced to spectrally walk the woods for eternity – so, in its own way, the pit creates undead of its victims.

Sacrifice

It transpires that Dawai had made a jug that he hadn’t shown anyone, as it was a baby and no one was with child (that he was aware of) and so thought it a mistake. As mentioned he makes the jugs in a trance and when he comes around he feels strange, but has no memory of the process or the jug itself. Thus he doesn’t know that the second one was of Ada. He tries to pull a face from his subconscious and makes one of Bodey. Thinking it is what the pit wants, Bodey is sacrificed; his throat slit over the pit into which he bleeds out. Of course, it isn’t the sacrifice the pit wants and the reprisal kills continue.

remains in the pit

The one to die, after the sacrifice, is ill and has been taken to the pit for healing. So the pit/entity not only desires and demands blood (and specific blood at that) but can also heal. The healing process involves getting into the pit and immersing oneself in the waters – which, of course suggests a bathing in blood. We have no reason to not believe that the healing would normally have occurred. I won’t spoil the story further as we have all the elements needed to judge the film.

the shunned

So we have an entity, I’d guess – after all it can leave the pit – perhaps a spirit or if it is a creature we don’t see it. I might go as far as to suggest it is an avatar of the spirit of the land. It demands a blood sacrifice and actively chooses the one it wants (unlike the shunned, the chosen ones are said to then walk with it). If it fails to get the chosen one, it destructively punishes those who have a covenant with it and those killed, rather than are sacrificed (ie made holy), become undead and walk the woods (normally invisibly, perhaps they can allow themselves to be seen or perhaps those who are between the two worlds can see them – Ada is in such a place having been chosen). It is her transgression, it would seem, that has led to her being chosen – the fact that she is carrying a baby conceived through incest.

Ok, it is unusual, but I think Simon is right and there is a vampiric element to this. Whether consciously included by Kinkle, who wrote as well as directed the film, I don’t know – but it’s definitely there.

The imdb page is here.