Monday, June 01, 2026

It Feeds – review



Director: Chad Archibald

Release date: 2025

Contains spoilers  


Vampiric entities appear in films, not necessarily undead – perhaps demonic, perhaps an inhabitant of another dimension – but they want to feed. Of course I was going to watch a film called It Feeds, it may or may not have proven to be about a vampiric creature, but the title was certainly an attractor. As it happens the entity proved to be an energy vampire.

in the classroom

It starts with Cynthia (Ashley Greene, Twilight & Sequels) stood in a school setting, the blackboard covered in writing attesting to the wolf. She walks as the wind blows through the school and enters an office, a coach (David Thompson) sat facing away and a child (Jayden Kirton) in a cage. If it all looks dreamlike, well it kind of is because it is a brainscape. She tries to encourage the child to let himself out of the cage but he is scared. Eventually he tries but the coach turns and a whiskey glass explodes, cutting her arm. The child retreats, she says they can try next time and she begins to chant under her breath.

Ashley Greene as Cynthia

She opens her eyes in the real world, removing her fingers from the forehead of her client Larry (Dov Tiefenbach, the Strain). Cynthia runs a home psychiatry practice, but she has the ability to step into people’s minds – though what happens to her in the mind happens in reality, so she has a cut arm from the glass. As the film progresses, we discover her clients are sworn to secrecy, they were driven from one town by superstitious townsfolk. Her husband had the same ability but he attempted to wrest an entity from a client and subsequently hung himself. Cynthia’s 17 years-old daughter, Jordan (Ellie O'Brien), screens her clients and does online research to help. Occasionally Cynthia has been able to tip the police as to wrong doers who hurt her clients.

entity behind her

There is a banging on the door and it is a young girl, Riley (Shayelin Martin). She has snuck away from her dad, Randall (Shawn Ashmore, The Ruins) , and she is desperate for Cynthia’s help – apparently a previous client, Agatha (Juno Rinaldi, Jennifer’s Body), had mention Cynthia to Randall and Riley overheard. Jordan is screening her and she talks about a thing she sees. She suggests it stares like a starving dog and is in the room, it caused the scars on her arms (which look like burns), she claims, and it is always hungry. Cynthia walks into the room and can see it, when Randall bursts in and drags his daughter away.

Ellie O'Brien as Jordan

Jordan wants to help the girl but Cynthia refuses to help, she knows it is a real, malevolent entity and out of her skill area. However Jordan manages to follow up, find their home and is captured by Randall for her troubles. Randall’s wife was a nurse who did overseas nursing and it is implied picked the entity up there. It essentially devoured her over time, draining her life and causing massive physical deterioration – the hospital she ended up in believed it was some sort of flesh-eating disease hitherto unknown. When she died, Riley was in the room and the entity passed over to her. Randall has been kidnapping people and the entity has eaten them through Riley (as a conduit) – the energy transference burning them. The entity speaks to the host and, when we hear it speak it says “Feed Me”. In the kerfuffle that follows, Riley dies, Jordan becomes the host and Cynthia has to defeat the entity – not helped by Randall deciding to defeat the entity himself with a plan to bury Jordan alive and let her die with no-one near to become the next host.

enthroned

This was interesting, the idea of being able to enter a patient’s trauma to help them psychiatrically was neat, though similar has been done before. However the entity was a nice touch. Definitely an energy vampire, but one never sated, in its own dreamscape it sits on a throne like chair and controls vine like tendrils. There are moments were you do have to suspend disbelief – Jordan is bound, Riley brings clippers and puts them in her behind-her-back-hands rather than snips the cable ties round the wrists. This led to a tension moment and a delay in escape. But, then again, Riley is a scared child. 6 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Saturday, May 30, 2026

Honourable mention: Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated – Season 1



This was the first season of the 2010-2013 incarnation of Scooby-Doo as a serial cartoon where there was an overarching story arc. In actual fact, I did look at this season’s vampire episode, the Secret Serum, previously. Now, when I reviewed that I said “There is an estrangement between Shaggy (Matthew Lillard) and Velma (Mindy Cohn) – who were, it appears, an item. Plus Fred (Frank Welker) and Daphne (Grey DeLisle) seem to have issues, making the gang drift apart in different directions by the end of this – distractions; what we want is mystery solving not soap opera teen romance. For heaven’s sake we are watching a talking dog…

vampire film

I do not take that back – the introduction of character romance (and romantic failings, in the case of Velma and Shaggy) seemed a distraction as I watched the whole thing – but there was enough mystery solving and Scooby-ness to keep me going back to it (indeed, I might be the father of an adult son but I’ll always maintain that Scooby is for all ages). In Fact, despite the more soap aspect, the season was perhaps darker than other Scooby-Doo series and, as it happens there were (beyond the vampire episode) some vampire connections through the season that were worth mentioning here.

the Bloody Stake steak house

First of all was a restaurant in Crystal Cove (the town that seems to attract fake paranormal activity at a rate of knots). A steak house, one assumes, called the Bloody Stake, which has a vampire logo. The restaurant appears in three episodes of the season and is most notable for Shaggy (Matthew Lillard) and Scooby (Frank Welker) being refused any more helpings on the "All You Can Gorge" night.

stake in hand

We see Shaggy and Scooby about to indulge in the Vincent Van Ghoul (Maurice LaMarche) movie marathon at one point. Due to this we see a tad of a vampire film staring Van Ghoul as a vampire hunter, stake in hand, with the implication that he is fighting off an army of vampires. Van Ghoul is, clearly, based on Vincent Price and I understand that Warner Bros received Price’s estate’s permission to use his likeness and voice.

vampire bust

Van Ghoul actually appeared in the 13 Ghost incarnation of Scooby-Doo and, in this season, his fans Shaggy and Scooby actually meet him when they win a competition to have dinner with him (which is a set up for a new ‘scare’ reality TV show Van Ghoul has, but leads them to saving him from a monster). In the house we see a Poster for O’Vampy, one of his films, and a vampire bust/mask out on display in the horror icon’s mansion.

teen Vamp literature

Lastly, the gang becomes embroiled for a second time with professor and horror author H.P. Hatecraft (Jeffrey Combs, Holiday HellFrightmare, Necronomicon: Book of the Dead & Dark House) – as an aside, Hatecraft is obviously modelled on Lovecraft, who Combs played in Necronomicon. In their second encounter Hatecraft is being ousted by Regina Wentworth (Kari Wahlgren), author of Teen vampire series Dusk (made up of Dusk: Forbidden Love, Dusk: Early Evening and Dusk: Just Before Bedtime). There is a cut-out of the main vampire character causing Daphne to muse at what Fred would look like with “fangs and skin the color of boiled pork”.

Daphne dates an actor

So, there we have the additional vampire references in Season 1 of Mystery Incorporated. Note that in Season 2 there was the reappearance of the Bloody Stake a couple of times and Daphne dating the actor from the Dusk films – but no real vampire reference otherwise. The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Thursday, May 28, 2026

Short Film: Vampires of Dubois County



Director Patrick Higgs created this 6-minute short for the Southwest Indiana Film Fest and released it in 2014. Done as a bit of a travel commercial for Dubois County it starts with a brief history lesson of the vampires leaving Romania due to persecution and heading to the States (there is mention later that their location was, at one point, influenced by the vampire hunter Abe Lincoln being further south at the time.


blood tears

We are then into a series of vox-pop with various residents (tellingly many have plasters on their necks and there are plenty of lost pet posters). In the main positive – though one factory worker is rather negative about his co-workers. Probably the most amusing is the moment with the baseball team and the coach yelling at a vampire for crying (blood tears) as there is no place for tears in baseball.

It is a silly, amusing little diversion that likely means a little more if you are from that neck of the woods.

The imdb page is here.

Tuesday, May 26, 2026

Truckstop Bloodsuckers – review


Director: Galen Pendleton

Release date: 2012

Contains spoilers

For this we are at Little Hope All-Night Diner and, of course, diners that open 24/7 are an ideal location for vampires, especially those with itinerant customers, The film itself is pitched at character driven comedy and at 75 minutes it really doesn’t outstay its welcome.

After rural scenes we start in the diner and the staff consist of owner Roger (Donovan Workun), who works the kitchen and is not a fan of the life he has landed in and two servers, Jeanine (Aimée Beaudoin) and the younger Kolby (Jillean Tucker). There are a few patrons (including a couple of college kids taking in rural life, it seems) and the servers spot something through the window.

Kolby and Jeanine

That something is Wyatt (Gary Cosgrove), an elderly man who enters the diner naked. Apparently this is a thing and they quickly get an apron on him and sat down, for his part he knows what they hide in the basement, he says… insects. Jeanine is due to go on a date with cop Dan (Ryan Parker) and when he arrives they manoeuvre Wyatt into Dan’s car to take him home first.

feeding on Roger

This doesn’t happen as Kolby is in the kitchen with Roger when he cuts his finger. Fangs emerge and she fights it but soon she is on him feeding from his neck. Jeanine gets a flash of this and leaves the car. Yes, the two servers are vampires with Jeanine having turned Kolby and feeling responsible for her, therefore. Later we hear that Jeanine has been two-years off human blood and is described as Vampire Vegan (meaning she has animal blood).

the crooks

If things weren’t bad enough a drug dealer, Cliff (Jesse Lipscombe), and his associates Smokey (Jeff Halaby) and Wheeljack (Randy Brososky), come into the diner. Cliff is into some self-help stuff believing that things will happen if you want it hard enough. When outside for a smoke he sees Jeanine disposing of Roger's bag-wrapped body in the trash and knows what she is – he lived in Detroit, which is full of vampires, he later suggests – and decides he wants that power for himself…

ready to attack

The whole thing is very character driven sit-com and my thought watching was that this could have been the start of a series. The characters are larger than life, but not so much that they become preposterous, undercut with a little bit of stereotyping that helps move them forward for the viewer. We don’t get a huge amount of lore, a wooden stake to the heart kills but to the shoulder seems to immobilise (through the pain of the injury), sunlight destroys, total draining kills the victim where partial draining allows them to turn and the vampires are physically superior.

Ryan Parker as Dan

I rather liked this. The characters held me, the situation was larger than life but worked. It was neatly self-contained with the diner/kitchen, the basement and an exterior round the diner bins and inside Dan’s car. All the actors were offered solid performances and seemed to have a handle on comic beats. A nice little comedy, 6 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Sunday, May 24, 2026

Blood Bitch Baby – review


Director: Donald Farmer

Release date: 2025*
*The Blu-Ray box and actual film suggest 2025, but there is no IMDb page at time of writing

Contains spoilers


Ah, Donald Farmer, with at least 41 directorial credits to his name, mostly within the low budget horror arena, his films have featured here at TMtV several times and I have to admit they haven’t scored very well when reviewed.

Jessa Jupiter Flux as Bathory

This film gets on here by dint of the primary character being Elizabeth Bathory (Jessa Jupiter Flux, Debbie Does Demons & OnlyFangs). Indeed the film begins with Elizabeth speaking to camera, not revealing her identity as such but offering Bathory’s background. As it turns out she made a deal with the devil that she could maintain youth and immortality on the proviso she find a vessel for the gestation of the devil’s child.

waking from a dream

It starts proper with a woman going down a dark street, afraid, kidnapped, vampirically terrorised... and then Jenny (Angel Nichole Bradford, also Debbie Does Demons) wakes as though this was her disturbing dream. She goes to the bathroom and we see bruising on her waist, put there we assume by abusive boyfriend Kevin (Joe Casterline). We see first-hand the abuse; she has a job interview but all he wants is for her to bring him *his* money.

fangs

The interview is with Elizabeth, looking for a caregiver for her sister Sarah (Jesse Seitz) who needs tying down before nightfall and is violently insane. Freaked when she meets her, Jenny runs to her car but is accosted by a strange man whose actions cause her to faint as Elizabeth approaches, all fangs, and rips his throat out (he seems to turn into an aged corpse when he dies). Jenny awakens in a basement as Elizabeth conducts a ritual to make her the ideal host for impregnation by the devil. Her memory is wiped but she has changed – extracting and eating Kevin’s eye when he threatens her.

meeting Iris

The police have a serial killer on their hands, though local professor Keller (Claude D. Miles) believes it is an occult case. Jenny goers to a diner and meets Iris (Mel Heflin, Queen Dracula Sucks Again), a mooch who ends up getting her away from Keller, who has spotted the blood painted sigil on her chest, and ends up in bed with her. But the devil is due to visit and gestation of a Hellspawn is hella quick…

Jenny eats an eye

At just under 70 minutes, this doesn’t outstay its welcome and there is plenty of full-throated screaming – especially from Angel Nichole Bradford. There is puppetry involved and plenty of low budget gore. This was probably the most enjoyable Farmer film I have watched – which doesn’t make it great, of course, it is still shot on a shoestring and has some really bad sfx (the bodies the police are investigating, for instance). Nevertheless, I’m giving this 3.5 out of 10 as, for some reason, it struck a chord even if the vampirism takes second fiddle.

At the time of writing there is no IMDb page.

Friday, May 22, 2026

The Brides – review


Author: Charlotte Cross

Release date: 2026

Contains spoilers  

The Blurb: Told through letters and diary entries, The Brides is a chilling reimagining of Bram Stoker's Dracula – with a devastating sapphic romance at its heart.

'Come to me, and be mine for eternity'

1884. When Mafalda journeys to Budapest to care for her grieving aunt, her secret love, Lucy, hurries from London to comfort her, with chaperone and lady’s maid in tow.

But lady’s maid Alice, blessed and cursed with the Sight, is tormented by terrifying visions. When chaperone Eliza falls prey to a disturbing wasting illness, the women hope to seek the healing waters of Transylvania. At a nobleman’s invitation, they set out for Castle Dracula.

In the depths of the forest, miles from civilization, their host reveals his true intentions; a monstrous ambition which will tear the women apart.

And not all of them will survive.

The review: This is a prequel to Dracula with a touch of sequel. By that I mean that, whilst the majority of the book is an epistolary story from 1893 (and designated 10 years before the events of Stoker’s novel), there are parts set in 1903 as Sir John Seward, as he now is, tales a new position in an asylum and not long later receives charge of Lady Lowell, a zoophagus individual who, it becomes apparent, has a shared history from 10 years before the Crew of Light defeated Dracula.

The rest of the story follows Mafalda Lowell as she and her mother travel to Buda-Pesth to care for her maternal aunt whose husband has recently died in a dual. Mafalda’s orphaned schoolfriend, Lucy North, lives at Mafalda’s parents’ home and the two young women are in a secret sapphic relationship. I had a slight irk in the Lucy character’s name as it sailed too close to Lucy in Dracula. Lucy with chaperone Eliza and maid Alice (who has the second sight) are soon travelling to Buda-Pesth to stay with the family.

Of course, into this comes Dracula and it is obvious from the title that some of the primary female cast will become his brides. In this respect the novel is good at creating a female centric set of characters and still managing to situate them in the timeframe, with the societal misogyny of the time and their responses to that. It is also a rather clever origin story for Dracula’s vampire women and explains small moments from the original novel such as why the vampire women speak English (as Harker understands them). There isn’t much in the way of additional lore introduced except for the use of lemon verveine (or lemon beebrush) which Alice uses to hold off the second sight and which is found to ward off evil. There is a passing mention of hagriding connected with Alice’s grandmother.

The novel is a slow burn – with the vampiric action coming towards the end of the novel (bar some disturbing dreams that Alice has and, of course, Seward’s remembrance). That slowly builds also, with Dracula a shadowy figure on the periphery of the story when he enters the frame until right towards the end. Nevertheless, I enjoyed this, 7.5 out of 10.

In Hardback @ Amazon US

In Paperback @ Amazon UK

Saturday, May 16, 2026

Short Hiatus


Just a quick public service announcement to let you know I am going to put TMtV on a very short hiatus, as I am going away for a few days.

I will be checking comments whilst away and normal service will resume on Friday 22nd May.

See you all soon.