Obayifo Project – review

Director: Paco Arasanz

Release date: 2024

Contains spoilers

The obayifo is an African vampire type and as Bane describes it: “The Ashanti people of the Gold Coast of Africa have in their vampiric lore a witch who uses his powers to drain the life and energy from children and crops.” So, very much an energy vampire – this is changed in the film – the Bane entry also suggests that they are born with a disposition to be obayifo, so a person cannot simply be turned, and is obsessed with food.

This is an interesting premise and one that is mishandled by giving in to the worst excesses of the found footage genre.

crew selfie

Intertitles tell us this is footage from police files and then, after an opening of indistinct POV footage overdubbed with the start of a police interview with Julio (Sergio María), dating the film to 2023, the film cuts to Julio and his new camper van. He is with girlfriend Carol (María Monroy) and meeting up with cameraman Carlos (Luciano Ciaglia) – who sometimes is called Charlie in film – and they are going to make a movie entitled, Julio tells them, Obayifo 2.

getting on the road

When asked why it is number 2, he explains that in 2003 a group of Ghanaian filmmakers looked to make the African Blair Witch Project and had a shaman invoke an obayifo into the body of a homeless man. So, we have vampiric possession and also a veer from the folklore as relayed by Bane. The footage is online and he shows them (we don’t see it, only Carol’s reaction). The homeless man died, came back to life and attacked the filmmakers slaughtering everyone. He has no memory of the events, apparently.

Siberou Saar as Dr Deke

They drive to Fort Bravo – a wild west styled theme park in Almeria, Spain, where he is meeting Samuel (Lord Berko) who has arranged a meeting for them with Dr Deke (Siberou Saar), a shaman. He gives them a note that will get them past his guardians and says that Deke has agreed to do the ritual for €1000. We get some footage explaining the obayifo – it was unclear but I assume it was meant to be from the earlier film. They then go to meet Deke who, as Carlos had mentioned en route, is Senegalese, so when he is shown the ritual footage he points out that he is from Senegal not Ghana and makes a comment about it all being the same to them. This was an interesting racial prejudice angle that, whilst touched on a couple of times in a comment about not respecting the ritual and a racial slur, was not capitalised upon at all.

the ritual

Deke agrees to do the ritual the next night and reluctantly finds a receptor (Favour David Iyawe) for the spirit. When they start the ritual the receptor can’t help but laugh and so Julio gives him a sedative – later revealed to be MDPV, named in film as a cannibal drug, and a stimulant. The receptor, who is fitted with a chest camera, goes into convulsions and dies. This causes the filmmakers to freak; they take the body to the van with the aim of getting him to hospital, this quickly devolves to Julio deciding to bury him and pulling a gun on the others to force compliance. The film ignores that they knew the original possessed man in Ghana died and then returned and they drive off having left the camera on him! On return, to retrieve said camera, he is up and at ‘em already and they are able to turn its light on and see footage live (as they try and find him).

camera glitch

I mentioned the worst excesses of the found footage genre and we get shaky cameras, annoying noises (like wind) on the footage and indistinct footage due to lack of lighting. It hides the joins, of course, but makes it a pain to watch. The characters are not really interesting enough to hold attention and then the bickering once it goes wrong just loops through overly similar dialogue. The film could be read as a psychotic break caused by the drug and being buried in a shallow grave – after all the obayifo seems to be murdering not feeding. However there is a camera glitch that shows the obayifo overlayed on the receptor before the ritual. The intrusion of the obayifo at the police station, when the incident takes place in the middle of nowhere so is presumably miles away, and shots fired to no effect also suggests a supernatural element.

attack

A mid-credit sequence gives us an influencer (Marila Lombrozo), who has the footage, looking to do a Twitch version of the ritual is placed in order to announce a sequel Obayifo Project: World Domination. My advice is that the racial aspect was really interesting, do more of that, but drop the found footage style and film it properly. That style drops this one to 2.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Honourable Mention: Lisa’s Nightmares 3

This is a straight to video vanity project directed by low budget director Todd Jason Cook and featuring his then wife Lisa Cook (now Lisa DeWild) and released in 1996. I have previously featured the second vehicle, in the series Lisa’s New Nightmares. Lisa starred in many of her husband’s low budget vehicles and the Lisa’s Nightmares were a series of short horror films based on her and shot in their house. This was the third film and, like previous instalments, many of the story ideas were provided by fans.

For this one, however, there was only one vampire segment. The rest was pretty darn slasher. Like others in the series the transfer you can now see is far from brilliant and the original recording was zero budget filmmaking. So you do not go into one of these expecting high cinema or anywhere near.

fangs out

Linked with Lisa writing in her diary (each segment an entry of a remembered dream), she introduces the segment we are interested in by saying she was a vampire. In a chair we see Todd Jason Cook looking nervous. At first we see Lisa’s shadow, his head darts around and then she is before him wearing a negligée as Type O Negative’s Love You to Death plays. She dances, bares fangs and then boobs and then bites him, pulling him off the chair. From the floor (in an unlikely physical feat) he manages to stake the standing vampire. She dies. That’s it. Like those segments in the last film in the series this is little more than a fleeting visitation.

The imdb page is here.

The Journal of Edwin Underhill – review

Author: Peter Tonkin

First Published: 1981

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: It all began on New Year's Eve, with a party at the Rectory, and an accident. Drunk and humiliated, schoolmaster Edwin Underhill stumbles through the local cemetery - a short-cut to his home when the ground suddenly caves in beneath him and, falling into a pit, he impales his hand on a stake.

Underhill, described by his peers as a ‘plain little man', now finds that his unprepossessing looks undergo a distinct transformation. He records in his journal the alarming changes that start to take place: his hair, tending to baldness, now becomes thick and healthy; his teeth sharpen; he finds he craves redder and rawer meat and, at the same time, he begins to avoid daylight and becomes a nocturnal wanderer. The woman on whom he has set his heart no longer shuns him but finds his change in appearance, and his mysterious air, strangely attractive. But along with these bodily changes comes a host of fantastical nightmares and new emotions which he cannot fully understand, far less control.

THE JOURNAL OF EDWIN UNDERHILL follows in the grand tradition of vampire stories from Bram Stoker’s Dracula to the more recent Interview with the Vampire, but it differs subtly from its predecessors. In this contemporary tale Tonkin looks inside the individual, to the innermost fears and feelings of a man undergoing a terrifying transformation.

The review: I stumbled over this vampire novel and discovered a great, Gothically beautiful prose that explores the change from human to vampire. Underhill starts a journal following his embarrassment at a Christmas event and subsequent accident. The accident sees him piercing his hand on a piece of wood that was a stake – removing the stake from the vampire (though her body was dissected and dispersed, so it gives her a spiritual escape but not physical form) and infecting him.

The first half of the book then follows his changes, as listed in the blurb, and the second half once he becomes actually undead. It is interesting that he uses the stake to tie a damaged rose plant, which subsequently produces corrupted flowers. The original vampire is Stana Etain, Countess Issky-Koul who brought the “white plague” to the country village Underhill is living in and, when discussing vampires, the historical figures of Báthory and Gilles de Rais are invoked. She has cursed the familial line of the one responsible for her staking. When Underhill fully turns, he is more a monstrous vampire (interesting given his physical alterations when alive) and literally sloughs his old skin. The vampires are tied to both their grave dirt and the night, and he is able to merge into shadows. He refers to a part of himself as the Dead and there is a conflict between his remaining vestiges of humanity and the Dead. Other tropes included are the use of holy objects, and a struggle is described between light and dark, along with apotropaic things such as garlic and wolf’s-bane. One aspect that was fairly cool was him not seeing some garlic flowers and wolf’s-bane as it was put out centuries before and had no tell-tale life left in it but the magic of it still being effective.

Tonkin’s writing has a definitively Gothic lilt and is wonderfully evocative and whilst the story is fairly simple the atmosphere and characters keep the reader engrossed. 8 out of 10.

In Hardback @ Amazon US

In Hardback @ Amazon UK

Hunter – review

Director: David Tarleton

Release date: 2018

Contains spoilers

For a competent little film this one certainly released with little fanfare and then faded into obscurity, showing up as a free view on the Kings of Horror YouTube channel. It isn’t perfect but it is a fine little watch.

It starts with Hunter Vanelson (Jason Keller) – which sounds suspiciously like Van Helsing phonetically – cage fighting. As things go along, we see him fight his third opponent in a row and, despite taking a beating, turning the fight around and winning…

Jason Keller as Hunter

Hunter wakes, now obviously homeless. He sleeps on the snowy Chicago winter streets. A homeless woman, who sleeps nearby and has befriended him, tells him that he was screaming in his sleep again. She gives him a Twinkie and suggests he tries the new shelter – it has good food. Later, panhandling, he notices a kid, Luke (Ryan Heindl), chatting to a girl, saying he is new in town. When the kid notices him he runs away down the street. Through this we see Hunter having flashes of memory, blood predominates.

Rachel Cerda as Danni

He is walking past another homeless guy who asks him for money, he gives him the paltry change he has but the guy demands more. Eventually his temper snaps and he attacks the guy, beating him and taking his money. He goes to the shelter and his bloodied knuckles are noticed, nevertheless he ends up with shelter manager Danni (Rachel Cerda). The shelter is her thesis and uses therapy with those it helps but Hunter doesn’t want to talk. He gets angry and leaves.

Hunter's fighter days

Back at his sleep spot and his friend has gone but her pendant, the one thing she keeps, is on the floor. He searches for her and eventually sees two men, Peter (Beau Forbes) and Paul (Leigh Foster), dragging her. He carefully follows and sees them attacking, stabbing her and drinking her blood. He accidentally makes a noise and hides… they look but leave without unearthing him (one might have seen him but not made the effort to get him) and bundle the woman into a van. When Luke reaches his home, Peter and Paul are there with a young woman and clearly his act at the bus stop was to lure another victim.

he saw fangs...

So, Luke is a reluctant vampire – young and he hasn’t yet made a kill. Hunter’s homelessness came after a home invasion where his mother and sister were killed – he has guilt because he ran away. Hunter spots Luke as he is dumping the homeless woman’s body and Luke realises he seems to be watching him. In the meantime, Hunter is also staying at the shelter, though he is reluctant about relaying his past still. There is clearly an attraction with Danni and eventually he does admit running when his family were killed but also says he thinks he saw fangs…

tasting blood

Lore-wise the vampires are part of a hierarchical male group – there is reference to women not turning properly and so they do not attempt to. They do have fangs but some like to use knives. One prisoner vampire (because he would not kill) suggests it is a disease. They actually seem quite hardy, but a pierced heart will kill. There isn’t much more lore. The film itself had a few bits that are somewhat unbelievable. The cage fighting Hunter running at a home invasion seemed off, given his bravado in the opening scenes, but perhaps it was the fangs that broke him? His chasing after a bike for an extended period to track Luke took a suspension of disbelief, given the likely impact of his situation on his health and stamina, and the ending sequence also needed the same suspension in places as did the intimate relationship with Danny (it would have worked better platonically). Nevertheless, it was a solid flick that was worth a watch. 5.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Bloodsuckers - A Marxist Vampire Comedy – review

Director: Julian Radlmaier

Release date: 2021

Contains spoilers

One that I had heard of but only recently sourced (the German DVD has English subtitles for those interested) this film runs from the metaphorical use of vampire in Marx: “Capital is dead labour which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks” (Marx 1982 {1867}, 342). A gentle comedy, subjectively I didn’t find it uproariously funny but was pleasantly amused through the running length, this creates political satire by suggesting there was something less metaphorical about Marx’s point.

questions in the book club

It is set in 1928 – the year the first five-year plan was adopted in the USSR and a year after Stalin took power – the film is set in a German seaside town. It starts with a book club on the beach. All the participants are factory workers, and they are reading Marx’s Das Kapital. One of the participants has a question however and reads from the book, quoting the vampire passage. The leader of the club, and others, suggests it is metaphor but the question is asked, what if it is literal?

the Baron

The camera looks to the sea and we see the first of many idiosyncrasies (which I will dwell on later), which is what appears to be someone Kiteboarding – a sport thought to be invented in the 1970s and certainly not popularised until the 90s. On the beach is heiress Octavia (Lilith Stangenberg), her parasol held by her personal assistant Jakob (Alexander Herbst). She sends Jakob to a man, Ljowushka (Aleksandre Koberidze), a distance away, in formal dress, and receives a card that suggests he is Baron Kobersky. The Baron walks away from them.

Octavia and Jakob

At a golf course we see Ljowushka walking across the greens. He gets to a tee where there are sandwiches and a bottle of champaign set out. He eats a sandwich and takes the champaign. Meeting Octavia again she assumes he is a noble who has escaped the soviets and invites him to her home, where they will have escargot (gathered by, and crawling over, Jakob). In the meal she notes that he does not know how to eat escargot but we notice something else. Jakob has a can of coke, Coca Cola did not use cans until the 1950s and the depress opening was much later still. Why would the filmmakers let this slip through?

on the beach

Idiosyncrasies continue in the film, and I believe they were absolutely deliberate. There is nothing that shouts out as a symbol of capitalism than the Coca Cola distinctive packaging. The can is deliberately placed, in a way that resembles product placement. As the film progresses we get establishing shots (both of Germany and Leningrad) that feature modern vehicles, a very modern looking factory, a modern ship), we get the use of obviously cheap plastic fangs and Octavia rides a very modern motorbike. Radlmaier adds these as part of his satire and, in doing so, makes the capitalist vampirism timeless.

Aleksandre Koberidze as Ljowushka

Ljowushka is caught, after taking money from Octavia’s purse, trying to open her safe. The truth comes out that he was from a Russian peasant village and ended up working in a factory (out of lust rather than economy) when he was “discovered” for a film (the actual film October (Ten Days that Shook the World)) by director Sergei Eisenstein (Anton Gonopolski), cast to play Trotsky. Unfortunately the political winds are harsh and all his performance ended on the editing room floor as Trotsky was erased. This left him both embarrassed and politically damned due to the association with Trotsky and he escaped the USSR and, whilst posing as a Baron, is trying to get passage to America and Hollywood.

biting Jakob

The film then follows Ljowushka (still posing as a Baron, with only Octavia and Jakob knowing the truth) as he and Octavia try to make a short film – a vampire film – for him to use as a portfolio piece in America. However, there is rumours of an actual vampire (or maybe it’s fleas) feeding on the factory workers. When Ljowushka is caught by Octavia and Jakob, Jakob checks if the Russian has a reflection and we see her feeding on Jakob (though he has no memory of it). The film casts the bourgeoisie and shareholders as actual vampires. It also poses the proletariat as stupid and people like Jakob, a servant given the title personal assistant and asked not to call Octavia “miss” as an attempt to give the illusion of class elevation, as carrying a self-loathing of their class and a delusion that they are higher than other proletariat – the delusion going as far as his unrequited love for Octavia (Ljowushka, equally, has romantic delusions about Octavia, though she is physically attracted to him).

a film within a film

Another thing the film introduces is racial Othering. In the film there is a Chinese character, Algensammler (Kyung-Taek Lie), a hard working, self-starting immigrant who is openly disliked for making a skin tincture that undercuts the factory’s product and who is the recipient of racist language. He is cast as the vampire in Ljowushka’s film and footage is shown of him biting Octavia (who plays the heroine) when the locals decide she is the real life vampire. This proves enough to convince the mob that she is innocent and Algensammler is the actual vampire and so also serves as an exercise in media manipulation of the populace.

checking reflections

As you can tell there is much going on here, a film of layers that has, be aware, no real horror aspect. Rather it is a comedy drama, which is particularly quirky and offbeat in places. As I said at the head of the review, this was not an uproarious experience, but it was certainly enjoyable, humorous and the layers makes one think. The performances fit perfectly into the film, giving weight to the satire. Definitely worth your time, if you like a more intriguing use of the vampire figure. 7 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon US

On DVD @ Amazon UK

#DRCL midnight children, vol 3 – review

Art and story: Shin'ichi Sakamoto

First published: 2024 (UK)

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: Dracula meets manga in this surreally beautiful and chilling retelling of Bram Stoker’s quintessential horror classic.

In this beautiful, evocative, and often surreal retelling of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, a fearsome enemy comes from the east, bringing with it horrors the likes of which have never been seen in the British Empire. Standing opposed are Wilhelmina “Mina” Murray and her stalwart companions, united in a cabal that eclipses gender, nationality, and station until the day that they can achieve victory.

With Lucy’s life hanging in the balance, tempers flare and tensions rise as Arthur, Quincey, Joe, and Mina struggle to decide who is best suited to offer aid to their precious friend. However, the sudden appearance of Count Dracula may render all their efforts for naught. Will centuries of humanity’s collected knowledge be enough to hold back the count’s advance, or will wisdom and logic falter in the face of the undead king’s maddening presence?

The review: As regular readers will know, the manga #DRCL (and the reason for the title is given in this volume, by the way) has fast become a favourite. Glorious art with a fantastic queer retelling of the story, it takes its broad brushstrokes from Stoker but has created something different but marvellous. You can read my over reviews for vol 1 and Vol 2.

This volume starts with the report in the press of Dracula at the zoo but rather than a story where he frees one particular wolf, Bersicker, he takes all the wolves held there and this leads to a magnificent image (I found the Japanese rendition of it to post below) of Dracula, flying through the London skyline on a wolf drawn sleigh.

The volume is essentially the fall of Lucy/Luke – Lucy is given a gender fluid identity, Luke during the day and Lucy at night. When Dracula tries to take her, Mina spots the deceit as the heroes believe day has broken but Luke ignores Mina (as she is a girl) whereas Lucy and Mina are friends and so her speaking to Mina makes her realise that Dracula has manipulated their senses.

I enjoyed some of Van Helsing’s supposition being broken – such as garlic, with Dracula actually eating the garlic flowers, and him being nonplussed when the students sing a Protestant hymn and hold Dracula and his wolves off with it (something not contained within his books, with a view implied that Catholicism is needed). There is a shockingly gory death and Lucy, once a vampire, taking on an insect-like form. Notable is the fact that although Luke/Lucy was non-binary, the vampirism has forced a binary existence on Lucy due to her new nocturnal life.

The series remains a firm favourite. 9 out of 10.

In Hardback @ Amazon US

In Hardback @ Amazon UK

Honourable Mention: Acid Babylon

I previously looked at Cosmotropia de Xam’s earlier film Phantasmagoria 2: Labyrinths of blood, yet despite that being earlier than this 2020 release, that film is shown as a ‘coming soon’ at the beginning of this. The trailer to P2 actually worked better for me than the actual film did, being genuinely off kilter without highlighting the performances that would kill that vehicle.

This film is even more arthouse than the previous, with less of a narrative (a degree of narrative is offered in some scant, French language narration). Early euro-horror has again inspired the filmmaking but, rather than the very Franco-centric inspiration of P2, this has a range of inspiration (and used a range of their filming locations). These are listed as Rollin, Argento, Anger, Kumel and Herzog. The lack of narrative and, though the central character is described as half vampire and half human, the lack of vampire imagery/activity, has led me to give this an honourable mention.

the woman

The film consists of images, actors in movement, psychedelic overlays, filters and negatives with a soundtrack that had elements of drone and almost an ambient industrial quality. Together with the visual effects this makes for a darkly meditative piece that is arthouse with no discernible mainstream hook. This means, of course, that you will likely find yourself liking or disliking it.

another dimension

As I mentioned, there is no real narrative thread. The narration tells us that when the rivers ran red the vampires left Babylon, leaving one woman who was immortal – being half vampire (the daughter of Nosferatu, it is suggested). The second half of the film sees the world filtered heavily with negative photography and I got a feel of passing into the other dimension that occasionally is referenced in Rollin’s films.

blood on fingers

We get quotes from the book of Revelations on screen – specifically from Chapter 17 pursuant to Babylon. But, at this point there is little else to say – from a filmic sense there is little to put into synopsis, from a vampire sense there is little lore communicated and no vampiric activity/tropes to relay (bar some blood on fingers dripped into a mouth). As mentioned, you will either like or dislike this.

The imdb page is here.