The Immortal Hunters – review

Director: Paolo Bertola

Release date: 2020

Contains spoilers

It is a bad sign when I watch a film (incidentally subtitled The Renegade on the Tubi stream but not on IMDb) and have to drag myself kicking and screaming to the keyboard because it is just so poor.

Now, when I say poor, I don’t mean 'so bad its good' poor… not even so bad it isn’t good but at least I can laugh at it… I mean so bad that I was deathly bored whilst watching, bad. So bad that I can’t write a review that, at the very least, is entertaining.

fangs on show

Oh well, so we start with the information that, some time ago the dead started being blamed for bringing disease and there was a move to neutralise them – stakes, bricks in the mouth, cut the corpse up were all used but people were only safe when they were reduced to skeleton state (this is all pretty folkloric to be honest).

the vampire lover

Cut to Romania in 1944 and a battle. The narrator, Vladamir (Ruben Maria Soriquez), is a lone survivor. Injured and doomed he crawls when a woman comes to him and decides he is too young to die and bares fangs… Athens in the present day and he is there with his lover and they serve the King of the vampires, Count Ţepeş. Now, Vlad Ţepeş was not a Count and would not have gone by the sobriquet Ţepeş, but hey, ho… The vampires discover *they* are here (Catholic clerical vampire hunters) and the lover is killed.

a goat based diet

They run off to the Philippines and live in the middle of nowhere – Ţepeş has some form of condition and he must have blood once a week. Some are suspicious of Vladamir as they don’t see him feed (he actually only feeds on goat blood). The clerical hunters show up and one of the nuns (apparently undercover) is the spitting image of Vladamir’s erstwhile vampire lover (though clearly not a reincarnation as she has only just been killed).

hunters

And that’s the story, but I didn’t really care. The thing I noticed the most was the really poor dialogue delivery. The film is in English, but sounds dubbed, though possibly by the original actors as they have Italian accents. But it is just flat throughout. The story didn’t hold me, the characters are instantly forgettable. I’m sorry, I just wasn’t moved in any way – indeed staying awake was a challenge. 1 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Draculaw – review

Director: Scott Deschaine

Release date: 2023

Contains spoilers

A horror comedy (mostly a comedy, to be fair) this not only tickled me but also used a rather unusual trope for the vampire. Of course the title brings Dracula to mind but there is no indication that the vampire at the centre of the film is Dracula, Referred to throughout as The Counselor (James Donahue) he is a lawyer (whereas Dracula hired lawyers) and it is with this vampire plying that trade that we start.

a vampire's contract

Though we only see hands, we hear the conversation between the Counselor and his client Frederick Rockman (Tom McFarland). Rockman wants to start a lawsuit against a rival and, whilst it sounds as though the vampire is trying to caution him, in fact it is clear he tempts him and has him sign a contract. The lawsuit fails and a series of counter claims are lodged against Rockman, eventually settled, though almost ruining him, there then comes the matter of the vampire’s invoice…

Sarah Dewey as Mary

We meet Mary Rockman (Sarah Dewey) as she takes her father into the nursing home. As she goes in she meets a youngish man, mistaking his room for a media room. He is Arc Gabriel (Joshua Greene) – the owner of the nursing home. Once a crack young lawyer, five years earlier something happened that smashed his confidence and he gave up law and moved into the nursing home. Mary tries to solicit his help, at first to no avail. However, after her father passes, his lost briefcase is discovered and they realise they share the same nemesis, at which point he relents – this renewed confidence shows in the filmmakers removing the makeup that made him look haggard.

James Donahue as the Counselor

Arc lost his briefcase when, celebrating a win with his engineer girlfriend Penny (Bessie Amato), the bridge they were on collapsed (invariably due to the Counselor). Her head was never recovered… Meanwhile the vampire is not only a lawyer but he has a pet politician (Dennis Mowery) and makes him get safety laws passed that are annoying and bog people down (there are a range shown through the film and they all take the concept of health and safety to ridiculous levels). This is done for a reason, it causes people to loose time and the vampire feeds on the lost time. He also cannot break a law (or at least cannot break a law and get caught), which is the apotropaic of the film. We, at the end, see him in a nebulous, smoke form where Arc combats him with the law (in the form of a book).

a vampire in the old country

There are various monsters (many seen in the coda) and Arc gets some lore help from home resident Sasha (Adela-Adriana Moscu, One for the Road) who tells him about vampires in the old country – and we get a flashback of a vampire, who is described as ghastly and far from the movie image of a vampire – and also points out that fellow home resident Mrs Hoover (Gerri Weagraff) is an energy vampire. But it is our lawyer vampire that is most fascinating in this with his diet of time. Of course the conflation of lawyer and vampire is telling in and of itself and the film plays with a satirical look at “health and safety gone mad”.

skull-headed bridal revenant

The film isn’t perfect… the haggard makeup for Arc is, quite frankly, rather stage-like, some of the green screen work is very obviously green screen and it isn’t evenly paced. That said some of the effects are brilliant. A skull-headed bridal revenant (Heather Cole) is brilliantly realised, for instance. There isn’t much horror to this; though the vampire's lower face is always covered (due to a horrendous accident, is the cover story, though likely due to a monstrous visage), he is actually more designed to be annoying. The main thrust is comedy, and I was amused, and enjoyed the unusual lore. 6 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Use of Tropes: Katharina

I’ll be honest this Anglo/Romanian ghost story, directed by Florian Zapra and released in 2022, was somewhat excruciating. However, it definitely uses some pretty darn obvious tropes – mostly location and character backstory – and is of genre interest as a result. It centres round a load of Romanian kids (I guess they were supposed to be late teens, but some seemed somewhat younger) in Bistrița, and an English exchange student Raul (Raul Szanto). The Romanian kids decide to take Raul into the Carpathians for some camping fun.

arriving at Hotel Castel Dracula

To get there they hire a ride, and several sneak into the hatchback as too many are travelling. The driver (Florian Zapra) is a drunk but gets them to the hotel that marks their starting point. En route they establish that he does not speak English. The hotel is the real life Hotel Castel Dracula, which is some 3.5 KM from the Borgo Pass. In that respect the drive is almost parallel to the journey in Dracula - indeed when at the hotel exterior, the camera lingers on the statue there of Bram Stoker.

with the ghost

This is the nearest Raul gets to vampires, something he had been interested in, but the uncanniness begins here also, with the driver who doesn’t speak English warning Raul in English to beware of the woods (a sensible warning for forest with a large bear and wolf population, to be fair) and Raul realising that the driver has vanished from a group photo he took. This, of course, makes him as mysterious as the Count’s coachman in Dracula. As they start their hike, Raul hears something calling him and wanders off, ending up in an abandoned building – suggested later to be the shell of a hotel. Within there he sees a ghost, Katharina (Ely Ciotmonda).

Ely Ciotmonda as Katharina

The Romanian lads find him and undertake to catch the ghost – to become rich. They eventually find and speak to her and ask her to come with them and essentially assimilate into the modern world and she agrees. There is a makeover later, where her clothes are exchanged for modern ones and makeup disguises her pallor. The other genre connection the film offers occurs when she tells Raul that she is 549 years old, named Katharina (but wants a new name) and was married to Vlad Dracul (which would have been the father but I suspect they were suggesting Vlad Ţepeş). .

the gang

And that’s it, all the vampiric connection. The kids try and assimilate Katharina into their world, she ends up invading their dreams (or nightmares as they die in each dream) and then they essentially scare her off with harsh words. It doesn’t do much, generally, the acting is amateurish, in honesty, but there was at least a nub of an idea and some genre interest.

The imdb page is here.

X-Men: Apocalypse Vs Dracula – review

Author: Frank Tieri

Illustrator: Clayton Henry

First published: 2018 (TPB)

Contains spoilers  

The Blurb: One is a villain that has been plaguing civilization since the time of the Pharaohs. The other is the deadliest vampire to ever walk the earth. Enemies since the Crusades, they've met again in 19th century London. It's the battle to end all battles as Apocalypse confronts Dracula!

The review: An interesting stand-alone story that jumps between timelines but, mostly, is set on the 19th century. This has Dracula – as a mortal Vlad Ţepeş – faced with Apocalypse’s forces during his war with the Ottoman Empire. It then outlines an attempt to take over a secret society descended from Apocalpyse, based at the London mansion Alexandria House, who eventually summon Apocalypse from suspended animation, but the mutant is bitten by Dracula and no-one knows if he can resist the vampire’s dominion – not even Abraham Van Helsing who joins the society’s survivors to help defeat his nemesis.

And this is quite good fun, a little bit of Dracula action in Marvel is always welcome and this time he was mixing it up with an X-Men antagonist. The artwork was good enough throughout. The story was a good bit of a side hustle and did fairly much what it said on the side of the tin, as it were, but didn't do anything too left field. 6 out of 10.

In Paperback @ Amazon US

On Kindle @ Amazon UK

Kung Fu Slayers – review

Director: Benny Tjandra

Release date: 2025

Contains spoilers

This is a direct sequel to Chinese Speaking Vampires and sees the return of Davy Williams as Tony, the primary slayer of the title, and Sean Eden Yi as Mr Ma – proving you can’t keep a good vampire down (or dead). It also has some key cast changes – primarily Nicole Andrews takes the role of Susie and David Flannigan takes the role of Jim.

I rather liked the first one, it took time to build up Tony and Mr Ma’s school, threw in action as the film developed and had a decent slice of comedy that tickled me. This, I’m afraid, not as much. The conceit behind the films is that there was once a sect of kung fu vampires whose greatest power was to be fluent in Mandarin and that, if bitten and turned, their victims would become fluent in Mandarin. Unfortunately, watching this on Fawesome, there were not hard coded subs for the (quite limited, in this film) moments of Mandarin and, when I put subs on for the Mandarin, they simply said “foreign language” but, with the exception of a fairly meaty Mandarin section towards the end, this should not spoil the film.

Tony and Gavin

So Tony has moved to Montana and is working in construction (whilst writing a script in the background) and living with his and Susie’s son Gavin (Kaden Daughtry). He and Susie are split due to her inability to contain her vampiric tendencies – for Tony and Susie are still daywalking vampires (all vampires daywalk in this). Tony keeps his addiction at bay through Jesus (later a vampire will be destroyed by having a cross against its forehead but Tony can pray and wear/wield a cross). Gavin is not a vampire (Tony will give him the choice at 18) and is bullied at school (probably because he tells the other kids that his dad’s a vampire).

The Overlord and Elvira

Over in LA, Mr Ma’s widow, Elvira (Bai Ling, The Breed, Sacred Blood, Three… Extremes & Dumplings) has found her husband's ashes and intends to bring him back. She is with a monk-like character, who is later revealed to be Eric Roberts, who is credited as Overlord, and barely comes into this (but Roberts has a tendency to turn up at the opening of an envelope, it seems). Why it has taken so long to find his ashes (and how they haven’t blown across the landscape) is not answered. She starts to build a fresh vampire army, some of them hop but most do not.

Gavin turned

Anyway, Tony gets a nibble at his script and so returns to LA with Gavin in tow. They visit Susie, scare off her domestically violent boyfriend, Hank (Matt Mhoon, Crimson Winter) and Tony leaves Gavin with her. Later Tony is attacked by Pastor Roberts (Jeff McDonald) and his remaining follower. Jim assists Tony in that fight, but then the Pastor reveals he needs their help because vampires are back (which made the attack a little silly, even if he was unsure of whether Tony was the active vampire). Meanwhile Elvira turns Hank, he helps the vampires kidnap Gavin and they use his “strong blood” inherited from Tony to bring Ma back to health. Ma immediately turns Gavin and decides to use him to break into Hollywood… Tony and friends have to get Gavin back.

impact of cross

And that’s it, but the comedy wasn’t there like before and the absurdist streak couldn’t keep this afloat to the same degree. The couple of cast swaps were ok but the Susie character was terribly sidelined and felt more a plot design this time than a fully formed character – an issue in the script rather than the performance. In the previous film’s review I mentioned that “Sean Eden Yi seems to be having a grand old time”, I didn’t get the feeling this time around. There was some turning to bat that was blink and you miss it and some of the cgi effects felt hollow, though I liked the vampire death effects. Overall, this was an ok sequel but not as good as its predecessor. 5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

For Night Will Come – review

Director: Céline Rouzet

Release date: 2023

Contains spoilers

This is the a use of a vampire as a (pretty on the nose) coming of age metaphor, with a protagonist whose vampirism is never explained and so the viewer has to take as is. It actually reminded me a little of the Radleys as I watched it but with very notable differences (only one vampire and the incredibly emo tone being two that immediately spring to mind).

vampire infant

The film opens with the sounds of labour and birth. The baby is named Philémon and when a doctor enters the room, presumably a little after the birth, he encourages mom, Laurence (Élodie Bouchez), to put him to the breast. The baby suckles but a trickle of blood flows from under the baby’s mouth eventually staining the white hospital sheet. Philémon is a vampire infant. We see Laurence take him from an incubator and stealing off with him in the night,

arrival

This is not a vampire infant film, however, and the next time we see Philémon (Mathias Legout Hammond) he is an older teen in the back of a car, sat by his little sister, Lucie (Laly Mercier). The car is driven by his father Georges (Jean-Charles Clichet) and it has coverings over the window by Philémon. The family are moving to a small country village or town. They have – we hear later – been fairly isolated. The film makes a point of the crossing of a bridge, which is symbolic of coming of age.

testing light tolerance

Philémon has a medical condition that requires he have fresh blood – it can be intravenously given but later he does drink it and mentions a thirst. It also means he must avoid direct sunlight and later we see him timing himself in the sun, waiting for ill effects. These happen soon and manifest, in the first moment, as tinnitus, it rapidly makes him ill (and is ultimately deadly). There is never an attempt to explain why he is like this, his family just accept it.

Céleste Brunnquell as Camile

Both Laurence and Philémon have implanted mediports so that she can donate blood to him. The plan in this new place, however, is for her to work as a nurse in a blood donation centre and she will steal “spoiled” bags. She does this but the viewer knows it will go wrong eventually. Philémon meets a girl, Camile (Céleste Brunnquell), and starts to fall for her and she, despite an inferred other romantic interest, eventually falls for him. However, the rest of the local kids start to turn against the weird emo kid who often sits in the shade, and this is compounded when Camile cuts her hand down at the swimming spot and he can’t help but suck at the wound.

drinking blood

The issue with the film is it treads ground that many vehicles have walked, and it isn’t that vampire films don’t normally do that, they do, rather it is that it doesn’t stand out particularly in any way. We know where it is going to go, the hatred of the locals, the girl submitting to his charms (she even takes that leap to know what he is and asks him to bite her) etcetera. We even get the devouring (off screen, so the shock value is massively diminished) of a beloved pet – being his sister’s dog, mostly because it seems to bark at him specifically if he is drinking blood. It seems that drinking animal blood causes a rampant itchy rash outbreak.

wrath of the locals

The film looks good enough, and it stays on course as a discourse on adolescence, not fitting in and the unkindness of strangers. The main protagonist, as mentioned, is very angsty/emo but that is adolescence for you, I guess. It just didn’t do anything I felt was interesting with it. The Radleys, at least, had the twins offering contrasts (and some black humour), a vampire hunter and a queer aspect. This brought little to the party. 5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Short Film: Love Bitten

Coming in at just over 11-minutes, this is a short comedy directed by Dan Allen and released in 2016.

It starts in a coffee shop, where Lizzy (Sharon Singh) is breaking up with Alex (Thomas Wingfield), or confirming the breakup at the very least. He thanks her for their time together but accidentally knocks her coffee over, across her lap. As he goes to the counter to get napkins, he thinks to himself that it had felt great and kind of wishes it had been done purposely. He has brought her toothbrush and secretly wishes he had tainted it…

Thomas Wingfield as Alex

Whilst we see clips from Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens, Alex muses that he wants to be the villain. He is watching the classic film on a tablet and suggests to his friend David (Charlie Field) that he wants to be a vampire. David, confused and likely long-suffering, mentions needing to be bitten – Alex decides he can find what he needs on the dark web.

bloodied

Indeed, he does find vampire pills for sale and so orders them. Once taken he makes a choice of who he is going to hunt – white van drivers… Could there be a more deserving section of modern living? Is he actually now a vampire… watching the short will reveal all. The film was genuinely funny and this was down to the Alex character – both in the writing and the performance. Worth a watch.

The imdb page is here.