Cult of Blood – review

Director: Robbie Lopez

Release date: 2024

Contains spoilers

Very nearly a “Vamp or Not?” However, by dint of some fangs, a late bat-form and mention of a vampire cult this sneaks into review but the vampire content is incredibly low. It also features a woefully underused Michael St. Michaels from cult favourite The Greasy Strangler as both the mayor and an evil entity who might be an energy vampire.

In a building dubbed Castle del Vampire, which has a sign painted inside declaring it part of the Order of the Dragon, a woman with pink hair runs and screams as she is killed by three robed figures. Elsewhere a cop, Taggert (Kyle Ament, Protégé Moi), is putting up missing person photos. He shouts out to his partner Patrick Ashworth (Mikael Mattsson, also Protégé Moi) who we don’t see at this point – as an aside Mattsson is given full face sfx makeup for the character that is so obviously makeup one wonders why they bothered. Taggert goes off screen and a hooded man comes on screen and starts pulling the posters down. Taggert chases him to no avail.

Dave Sheridan as Todd

We get an advert for Todd-Wan-Do, a mixed martial art brought to the people of Chicago by Todd (Dave Sheridan, also Protégé Moi) at Castle del Vampire. Todd is the leader of the vampire cult. Over the road is a Christian bookstore run by Stacy Fields (Thomas Smith) who has called the cops, Taggert and Ashworth, about seeing a young innocent girl enter the place and then hearing screams. As they discuss this they see the (not innocent, according to Stacy) Princess Jill (Nadia White, Harvest of Horrors) enter – Ashworth develops an immediate crush. In the place Jill, Todd and Crystal (Felissa Rose, Nikos the Impaler & Pandemic Thirst), along with cult members, summon the giant head of their dark overlord and make a sacrifice – his words make it appear he feeds on their energy.

captured

Cutting to a pair of influencers, T-Rav (Dan Gregory) and Joey Danger (Jessie Hobson, also Protégé Moi) who are with their long-suffering girlfriends Donna (KateLynn E. Newberry) and Shirley (Larissa Dali) for date night (but still live streaming). Donna has invited Tom (Ryan A. Johnson), another influencer, and his girlfriend Cindy (Bearce Isabelle), along. They get to a bar, Tom gets drunk(er than the rest) and they attract a guy named Roach (Bryan Slusher) – unbeknown to them a member of the cult – who has a crush on Cindy (nothing is done with that in a meaningful plot way) and who subsequently lures them to the Castle… Once there, having found the previous sacrifice, their days are numbered as Todd decides to use them for the Blood Ritual.

fangs

The film kind of aimlessly ambles along. Things happen more for device and joke than anything else (there is a definite undercurrent of humour, with Dave Sheridan mugging the camera for laughs) and the vampire aspect is less than explored. Jill shows fangs occasionally, there are the names of the order and the castle and they call themselves a vampire cult at one point. The three main cult members refer to others in the cult as humans – indicating they are not. We also get, through ritual, Todd transforming into a bat creature. The tension is pretty absent and the influencers are annoying rather than sympathetic – I think deliberately so. The girlfriends are more sympathetic. I get what they were trying to do and this is a cut above Robbie Lopez’ Protégé Moi. More for a beer fuelled viewing, this does have its place. 5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Short Film: Vampiri (1985)

Originally released in 1985, the 18-minute Fabio Salerno short film was shot in Italian and can be found on the Blu-ray set “The Other Dimension and the films of Fabio Salerno”. Likely originally shot on Super 8, it was most likely then lifted off VHS for this set (as the film elements are lost). Salerno was a DIY filmmaker, and you can definitely tell in this effort.

It starts with a voice, layered over a few occultish pictures, which says “The Gods saw that the daughters of men were beautiful. They fell in love with them and they took them as wives. Since then, many have become creatures of the devil. Among these, the vampire. Ancient Slavic superstitions spoke of ghosts that came out of the corpses to suck the blood of the living. Of course, it’s just a legend. But each legend contains a grain of truth.”

driving through the city

The intro gives us a pause for thought, invoking a strange mix of Gods plural along with the Devil of monotheistic Christianity, as it strays towards the idea of the vampiric ghost. The film is that bit weirder still. A woman drives through the city - an opening that invoked a feel of Hanno Cambiato Faccia's opening scene. She stops, removes her headscarf and goes into a building, whilst holding a cat carrier. She goes to an apartment. Another woman answers the door and the first asks for Mrs Tinetti. The woman who answered is her niece but her aunt is away. The first woman had brought her cat because the Aunt was going to cat sit and the niece offers to do so. Left with instructions that the cat eats only eggs and will open them herself, she watches the first woman leave.

the neice

There is a moment of getting back in her car, putting the headscarf back on and then, with brolly in hand, leaving the car and walking the city streets. Elsewhere police are investigating the stabbing of a woman – clearly, in the filmmaker’s mind, connected, I can only assume she was a victim of the vampire. Meanwhile, the niece has got an egg out and dropped it,, the egg cracking open to reveal a chick (I think, the quality of the film stock is atrocious). She is afraid of the cat, a wall (I think) bleeds, the cat becomes a man who chops her neck with a cleaver, the first woman materialises on a chair and goes to the niece to feed from…

feeding

It is all really strange, narratively uncommunicative and the DIY filmmaking (beyond the atrocious print quality) doesn’t help. I was taken by the idea (though I may well have got the wrong end of the stick) of the cat being a type of Trojan horse, a familiar of the vampire who kills the prey allowing the vampire to feed. It is not suggested that this is a cat vampire. Is it an important part of the history of vampire films? No, not really. But it is part of the oeuvre.

The imdb page is here.

Blade Vol. 1: Mother Of Evil – review

Author: Bryan Edward Hill

Artists: Elena Casagrande & Valentina Pinti

First published: 2024 (TPB)

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: The Daywalker returns for a new era of vampire hunting! True evil is patient. A dark, ancient power has been simmering quietly for centuries. And when Blade himself is the one to unknowingly unleash it, Marvel's entire supernatural underworld comes out of hiding to demand that he handle it - or pay a pound of flesh for his mistakes! But Blade's greatest hope of success rests with the last person he wants to ask: a hostile ex! Blade must travel to Japan to meet a high-end arms dealer who may be the key to defeating the Adana, the deadly threat Blade has inadvertently released! And as the pulse of its power ripples across the Marvel Universe, a familiar friend is drawn into the fray. Bloodbaths, blackmail and Blade - you won't want to miss this one!

The review: A limited length Blade adventure, it runs for the length of two volumes and this one sets the story up and the limited run is probably its weakness as it feels rushed. It starts with Blade tricked into killing a warrior who, though fearsomely dressed, is the key to stopping the resurgence of an evil entity named Adana. By killing the warrior, and then losing the weapon he wielded, which is the only thing that can kill Adana, Blade opens the way for her to emerge, possessing the girl he thought he was protecting. Adana’s goal is the end of the world.

Blade spends the rest of the story trying to find a new method of killing the entity. This includes getting help from Tulip, the ex and arms dealer mentioned in the blurb, trying to steal Lucifer’s sword from a vampire who lives on an ever-moving armoured train and begging guidance from an unlikely ally…

The artwork is strong, and portrays what it needs to, but was shy of being breathtaking, to me, but the issue lay in the rushed feeling of the comic book. Because this is a very limited run it really crammed the narrative in but, especially as this is global and apocalyptic, it felt rushed and in feeling so it lost impact. Not that this is poor by any stretch, but it could have stood for room to breathe. 6 out of 10.

In Paperback @ Amazon US

In Paperback @ Amazon UK

The Vampire Lestat (Interview with the Vampire Season 3) – review

Directed by: Various

Release date: 2026

Contains spoilers

Actually, the third season of Interview with the Vampire – you can read my reviews of Season 1 and Season 2 - the season was renamed the Vampire Lestat to indicate that it generally followed that volume of Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles (not entirely, for instance one part would come from the much later volume Merrick). Of course, the first two seasons, whilst following the heart of the first novel, moved the events in time, changed things about the characters and invented aspects especially around the physiology of the vampires (making them sexual beings, for instance, is the big one but in this we see them smoke and drink and pee).

om stage

For those who have read the Chronicles, you will be aware that the Vampire Lestat is where Rice moved from Louis’ (Jacob Anderson) perspective and into Lestat’s (Sam Reid). It is where Lestat shifted from villain to anti-hero, where Rice (in my opinion) fell in love with (or declared her love for) the character and Lestat took on the persona of the rock star and, in this, we follow him, and his band The Vampire Lestat, on tour and often we fall into the excesses of the rock band. For those who remember the movie Queen of the Damned this veers away from the gothic/nu-metal infused version of that film and grabs into a Glam Rock inspired musical style that works well in the vehicle, which veers into a MOR territory occasionally. The whole feel of the show breaks away from the gothicness of season 1 and 2 and embraces a modernity (which strangely does have a retro feel).

the Failures

It starts with an auction, that has happened after the disastrous concert (which will mark the beginning of the next season, with another title change to Queen of the Damned to indicate the move of core book volume). The first item is a lot of material from Lestat including recordings and handwritten scores. The lot is deliberately burned by the auctioneer before bidding begins. The second lot is a cabinet and turntable, with speakers, a magnum of Lestat’s blood and a collection of one-off vinyl pressings. Most importantly in the pressings is a collection called The Failures, Lestat’s self-narrated recollections of the events that make up this series. Incidentally the voice of the Failures (the on-record link, as it were) was director Guy Maddin.

recording the album

The tour the band are on is being documented by none other than Daniel Moloy (Eric Bogosian, Blade Trinity), now also a vampire. The band – guitarist Alix (Seamus Patterson), guitarist Larry (Noah Reid), drummer TC (Sarah Swire) and bass player Salamander (Ryan Kattner) – are, at first, unaware that Lestat is actually a vampire – that is until a deadly fight with a coven of young vampires (more difficult than it should have been as Lestat is stoned having drunk from someone on drugs) literally bursts into their world. Lestat has a body double (Sam Reid again) who goes out in public after gigs, allowing Lestat space to do what vampires do. When they start recording an album, I loved the idea of Lestat running into the sun to manipulate the perfect pained scream for the record.

awakening Akasha

One aspect that is pretty central to this season is the idea of the Great Conversion. Not from the novels, it has been mentioned in passing previously but it is a topic of conversation within this. Signifying a mass conversion to vampirism with a goal of world domination, and Lestat’s rock star status (to be fair, he was playing 1000 capacity venues with no particular album support, so one questions just how much of a star he was) becomes a rallying point to that. We do get flashbacks to parts of Lestat’s life, including encountering the statue-like Akasha (Sheila Atim), Marius (Christopher Heyerdahl) and Lestat’s interactions with them – Marius is ordered to dig a deep sleeping Lestat up as she chooses him to serve and, of course, Lestat drinks from the Queen.

blood shower

Lestat’s mother Gabriella (Jennifer Ehle) also features in flashbacks and modern times, as Lestat turned her. Given the inclusion of sexuality in the vampires, that relationship is drawn as physically incestuous. Of course, this all goes to make for a very complex and conflicted Lestat, a Lestat who still loves Louis but hates the lies he sees in the released Interview with the Vampire (how much was Louis’ embellishment, how much Daniel’s and what influence the Talamasca had, can be debated). Sam Reid is genuinely brilliant as Lestat, if he embodied him in the Interview seasons, he owns the character in this. Indeed all the performances are good but I have to highlight Jennifer Ehle, who was wonderful as Gabriella and imbued a Mercurial air and, at times, seems to have consciously groomed and manipulated Lestat. I enjoyed this – 7.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

The Hand of Night – Blu-Ray review

Director: Frederick Goode

First released: 1968

Contains spoilers

It is sixteen years since I reviewed the film The Hand of Night under the alternative title Beast of Morocco. The print of the film I watched was particularly poor but, this year, the excellent Vinegar Syndrome label have released a Region A Blu-Ray of the film that has been restored from a studio-supplied master.

Paul and Marisa

The film is so much better to look at after restoration – though there are still definite flaws, with the night scenes, especially on the Moroccan streets, not being imaginatively lit and thus losing definition. Nevertheless, this is a quantum leap in quality, and I would suggest looking at the screenshots with the original review and contrasting, the difference is marked.

Gunther and LeClerk

The extras contain two features about Associated British Pathé, a commentary track with Jonathan Rigby and Kevin Lyons, and finally a brief vignette by Kim Newman, which is a love letter to the film and probably my favourite of the extras. It is nice to see the film getting some love. The Blu-Ray sleeve is reversible and, at time of writing, a Limited-Edition Slipcase is available.

finger-bone stake

I’m not particularly going to go into the film, I do that extensively on the original review, but suffice it to say that it is a rather unusual vampire film, Although some of the standard tropes are there; dying (and decaying) in sunlight and stake to the heart (with dissolution), primarily, but with an unfortunate bat motif also (as creatures of darkness, as there is a light vs dark narrative in this). I say unfortunate as the bat, seen most clearly in the title sequences both flying and staked with a finger bone but also in a dream sequence and in a too dark street scene, is truly crap.

caught by the sun

It should also be noted that this is a virtually bloodless vampire film, something that is by design as the commentary points out, and is more about seduction to darkness than it is feeding the dead (in fact it contains zero feeding, either seen or referenced). In some regards the human character Paul (William Sylvester, Devils of Darkness), in being described as neither alive nor dead after surviving the (pre-film) accident that killed his wife and kids, can be argued as being much more the undead than the primary vampire, Marisa (Aliza Gur).

William Sylvester as Paul

The interesting motifs used can’t prevent the film from being flawed. I said in the original review that “Sylvester doesn’t seem a strong enough actor to carry {the} character exploration forward” and, whilst agreeing with Kim Newman’s observation that he is less hero and more protagonist, my opinion did not shift on this rewatch. As such, despite looking so much better, the 5 out of 10 I gave the film originally remains the same. However, as a physical release the Blu-Ray gets 7.5 out of 10, a generally lovely restoration and some interesting extras. The Blu-Ray is available at Amazon US but the limited slipcase is available when buying directly from Vinegar Syndrome - link live when posted.

Very Short Break

It is time for Rebellion festival, four days of punk and alternative music in Blackpool. Whilst I distract myself with around 350 acts over 6 stages, TMtV will go on a short break. But worry you not, normal service will resume on the 10th August.

Short Film: Revamp

Directed by Conrad Faraj, this 2020 short film packs quite a bit into its 6-minute run time. It is shot in black and white and starts with Mercy (Makenna Weyburne) walking along whilst shaded under an umbrella. Of course, there is a good chance that the filmmakers named her for Mercy Brown. She spots the weeping Lilly (Bailey Weaver) and makes a beeline for her.

She sits by her and offers the crying woman a cigarette – an offer that is declined. She introduces herself and then asks what is wrong. Lilly has just discovered that her boyfriend is cheating on her, Mercy offers her a way of getting revenge and invited her for dinner at her house that night. She has left when Lilly calls after her to ascertain the address.

bloodied

We did not see a response but suffice it to say Lilly got there. Mercy offers her wine and, after Lilly declines, Mercy glugs it straight from the bottle. She distracts Lilly and nips over the table and bites her, a very quick bite. Lilly asks what that was and Mercy suggests that it is done, as her man servant Rufus (William Irving Grossman) drags a fresh cadaver in for them to feed on, after which there is the question of revenge…

the question of revenge

A competent short, the black and white worked for it and Weyburne gave the Mercy character a fine amount of idiosyncrasy and a grand dash of both old and modern. As I said at the head, they managed to cram a whole lot into not a huge amount of time.

The imdb page is here.