Diefenbach: Before Dawn – review

Art and story: Benedykt Szneider

First published: 2026

Contains spoilers

The blurb: In a remote village gripped by superstition and rot, a grave robber and a ruthless witch hunter are forced into an uneasy alliance. A cursed settlement. A faith twisted into fear. And a dark nun rosing from the depths of Hell itself. This is unflinching folk horror rooted in medieval dread.

The review: Another indie comic from the Afterlight stable, I was drawn to this due to the folk horror description and was not expecting a vampiric element. Starting with a couple of thieves robbing corpses on a battlefield, one flees when the battlefield rats turn on them and ends up in the company of a witch hunter.

He is taken to an abandoned village, which once had a nunnery and is told the story of a nun, seduced in the night, impregnated and then kept alive by the order until the baby was born and subsequently executed. The father brought her back from the dead and to do this “he made her drink the blood of infants, keeping her in a state between life and death.”

Of course, she is still there, fanged and feral… The graphic is not overly long at 60-pages but is bound better than a standard comic book as it is in paperback format. The art works, a scratchy pen and ink style that works well, adding a sense of dread. There are a couple of typos in the lettering but they clearly have slipped past proofing and are minimal. The story deserves expansion – learning more about the witch hunter would be brilliant. 6.5 out of 10.

Date with a Vampire – review

Director: Jeffrey Arsenault

Release date: 2000

Contains spoilers

Getting a Blu-ray release is this shot on video effort by Jeffrey Arsenault, whose earlier film Night Owl was one I looked at some time ago. This was originally released under Arsenault’s pseudonym Gregory Cabot and kind of straddles the line between horror flick and the softcore sexploitation that he would eventually film under the Cabot name.

opening black and white

Having said that, there isn’t much of a story here (and the story there is takes second fiddle to some naked scenes) and the narrative doesn’t make much sense but, let’s break it down as best we can. Violet (Lori Thomas) has picked up firefighter Chuck (Robin Macklin) in a bar and taken him home. She lives in quite a big house and seems independently wealthy. She offers him a drink, but the upstairs wine has run out and he offers to get some from her wine cellar.

Lori Thomas as Violet

This seemed a bit odd – not only that there was a wine cellar (clearly a basement area) but that the guest would offer to go retrieve. Nevertheless, he does. He hears strange noises (actually a disfigured basement vampire (Joe Zaso, Rage of the Werewolf, Nikos the Impaler & Addicted to Murder 3: Bloodlust Vampire Killer), that he doesn’t see) and then Violet appears scaring him. They have some wine, they have some sex, she admits that her ex was Rachel (Cynthia Polakovich), he doesn’t care that she is bi, she has a shower and they have more sex.

the cellar vampire

The sex, to be fair, was pretty tastefully done but was way too long for the films short 1-hour run time. Anyway, in the second time around she loses control and bites him. He is angry – but not shocked that she is a vampire and he goes for the V word pretty straight off the bat. He tries to leave and collapses. There is a dream sequence (or memory) of Violet and Rachel together, which is odd as the altogether human Rachel sneaks into the house in daylight, takes a shower herself, ends up in the cellar and is got by the cellar vampire and all this seems unconnected with anything and we never discover who he is. Chuck eventually reveals that he was a vampire in a past life – so is immune to turning – but she has his soul trapped (suggestive of being her but that defies logic too).

eat your heart out

And other than the denouement, that’s it. The primary story is way too simple, yet has little logical sense. The sex scenes are way too tame and tasteful to be sexploitative – and are certainly not the titillation that the director would eventually aim for in his art. It is, all told, an oddity but an oddity in a nice set, with good looking art for both the sleeve and the slipcase, a poster, a host of extras including a Cabot short vampire flick, Blood Craving. However, scoring the actual film, 3 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Blu-Ray @ Amazon US

Wormtown – review

Director: Sergio Pinheiro

Release date: 2025

Contains spoilers

When is not a vampire film, actually a vampire film? I struggled with how I would approach Wormtown, a film I first watched at Grimmfest 2025. There is a vampiric parasite at the heart of this – as I’ll explore – and more so it takes beats from I Am Legend, though probably more so the Omega Man. The festival programme said the film had “just a pinch of classic vampire lore and a sly tip of the hat to Richard Matheson’s I AM LEGEND.” I nearly went down Use of Tropes, but there is something essentially Vamp at its heart (for the infected literally and for the film figuratively).

worms in the eyes

It starts with Mayor Joshua (Jim Azelvandre) going for an eye exam. The optometrist has opened up at night for him as he has noticed a light sensitivity. As the eye is examined, worms are seen inside the eye. So… this is the first thing to note. At the heart of this film are worms and this gives a feel of the Strain (I’ll return to the light sensitivity) and, like in the series the worms are easily passed on. The worms have a blood consumption element and we’ll come to that.

a nocturnal existence

So, the film proper takes place where a large proportion of the town populace are infected. The mayor runs a radio broadcast that is the only signal available and plays gentle country folk and talks about the idyllic little town. The populace sleep through the day and the town comes alive at night and, a tad like the Omega Man, modern technology – mobile phones, Bluetooth and the internet – are all shunned. So the infected, like in the Omega Man, shun technology – but there is a reason, as the signals hurt the worms. They develop skin lesions too, much like in the Omega Man, and they act in a cult like way. The film does examine cult behaviour.

Rachel Ryu as Kara

There is a reason, however. When infected, various worms develop acting like a colony. The primary one is the heart worm, larger than all others, coiled round the heart it feeds on the host’s blood – this being the vampiric element I mentioned. They also develop brain worms, which we can assume moderates behaviour. There are uninfected and three women, living in a warehouse area and trying to solve the infestation, are our primary characters. They are Kara (Rachel Ryu) – who is disaffected, hating their life – and the lesbian couple Jess (Caitlin McWethy) and Rose (Emily Soppe), the latter being the scientist amongst them (she taught science at the high school). There are also uninfected living more normally in town, who have the cultists trying to recruit them nightly and there is an Amish community nearby, left alone as they produce foodstuff.

Jess bloodied

At the head of the film some kids get caught out at dawn and one, Tommy (Milo McDonald), is caught in the sunlight. His mother Alice (Maggie Lou Rader) can’t get to him because of the sun and he starts haemorrhaging blood and worms until he dies. The scene is like a vampire in the sun (with added worms). Jess, out scavenging, finds the body, takes worm samples, films the heart worm in the chest cavity and (when Alice cries out from her home) falls into the corpse. This causes a panic, Rose cleans the blood off back at the warehouse, finds a worm burrow, and manages to cut the worm out of her back. However, the worm-folk take it as a desecration of the corpse.

daylight outfits

As the film develops, we discover that Mayor Joshua is holding secrets. One being the state of his body, with the flesh raw and open. Through him we discover this will happen to all the worm-folk, as he puts it, eventually there is more worm than flesh and they are literally eating the infected – they are parasites, they are not in symbiosis. He is also hiding the truth of what is happening in the wider world. He has Rangers, storytellers he says, but essentially the law and some of those move in daylight in specially designed clothing. We also discover that uninfected smell repulsive to the infected and their vision alters so that the dark is bright to them. One character becomes infected and something goes wrong and two heart worms develop and one has to be extracted – it is a visceral scene and a painful process.

sunlight haemorrhaging

I really like this when I saw it at the festival, and enjoyed it more on second view. The vampire tropes are obvious and the worms themselves vampiric, however (though very different) I tonally got a bit of a feel of Stake Land. The practical effects are brilliant, especially the sunlight haemorrhaging. The story perhaps meanders a little and some of the cult themes could have stood a bit more exploration. But I have a soft spot for this one. 7 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Honourable Mention: Creature Commandos Season 1

Directed by Matt Peters and Sam Liu and originally airing from 2024 to 25 (US), Creature Commandos was the first release proper of the James Gunn run DCU, a seven episode animation that does follow Suicide Squad and Peacemaker (which I think fall prior to the soft reboot from DCEU to DCU) – if I have any of that wrong, apologies. It has Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) unable to force humans into clandestine ops (ie the suicide squad) and so she sends a squad of monsters led by Rick Flag Sr. (Frank Grillo) to protect the Princess Ilana Rostovic (Maria Bakalova) from sorceress Circe (Anya Chalotra).

A fleeting visitation

The squad does not contain a vampire however we get two moments were we see the bat-creature vampire Nosferata in the Belle Reve Penitentiary canteen in one episode and later as part of the revamped (pun-intended) squad at the end of the last episode, Her appearances were incredibly brief and not voice acted but the character is part of the DC universe – an evolved animal from the Project Moreau in Superboy she has been portrayed as a full vampire as well. But, as far as season 1 is concerned, a fleeting visitation.

The imdb page is here.

Empire of the Dawn – review

Author: Jay Kristoff

First published: 2025

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: From holy cup comes holy light;
The faithful hands sets world aright.
And in the Seven Martyrs’ sight,
Mere man shall end this endless night.

Gabriel de León has lost his family, his faith, and his last hope of ending the endless night – the Holy Grail, Dior. With no desire left but vengeance, he and a band of loyal brothers journey into the war-torn heart of the Augustin Empire to claim the life of the Forever King.

Unbeknownst to the Last Silversaint, the Grail still lives – speeding towards Augustin’s besieged capital in the frail hope of ending Daysdeath forever. But deadly treachery awaits within the halls of power, and the Forever King’s legions march ever closer. Gabriel and Dior will be drawn into a final battle that will shape the very fate of the Empire, but as the sun sets for what may be the last time, there will be no-one left for them to trust.

Not even each other.

The review: It’s strange, when I came to pull up the reviews of the first two books of this trilogy (this being the third book), I realised that although I reviewed book 1, for some reason the review for book 2 (Empire of the Damned) never happened. Well it is too late now and let it suffice to say that I really enjoyed it and so really anticipated this volume. Firstly, let me cover off that the actual physical hardback is as gorgeous as the others in the series. Illustrated through – with pictures that are meant to have been drawn by vampire historian/inquisitor Jean-Francois Chastain as he draws out the story of how Gabriel de León fought against the Forever King (leader of one of the vampire bloodlines and, we come to discover in this volume, author of Daysdeath – the catastrophe that has almost totally blocked out the sun). We know, from the previous volumes, that Gabe killed the Forever King and that the Holy Grail – actually a living decedent of the Redeemer named Dior Lanchance. Chastain goes between Gabe and his sister Celene, the Last Liathe – a mysterious vampire sect who cannibalise their own kind to save their souls – and there is no love lost between the pair. However between the two the historian hopes to pin down the truth for his Highborn vampire mistress.

Going too deep into the story will be pointless for those who have not read the first two books (like those, this is a mammoth volume) but the world the story is set in is a fantasy one that has a religion similar to, but not actually, Christianity. The characters are drawn in an adult way but beautifully written. One of the concepts I really liked in this was the idea that the capital of the human Empress had furnaces that burned so hot (for smelting and smithing) that they were used to keep the waterways unfrozen and, to attack the invading vampire army they turned up the heat, producing rolling banks of steam that the priests bless – so holy steam rather than water. The story spins from twisted betrayal to twisted betrayal as it speeds towards the end, though the final twist, the final set of falsehoods both work but also feel a tad glib in the execution leading me a little torn over the ending – but that is likely me. A great ending to the series. 9 out of 10.

In Hardback @ Amazon US

In Hardback @ Amazon UK

Burns Night – review

Director: Dean Hoff

Release date: 2021

Contains spoilers

This is a low budget, indie flick from Glasgow where the central figure is a vampiric Robert Burns (Joshua Layden) and my initial reaction, after viewing, was that whilst inventive, the budgetary constraints did limit it and it was perhaps a tad confused… or more likely, less confused but more the viewer picked up the pieces from a much larger world that perhaps needed more communication. Then I discovered that it was based on a series of urban fantasy books by Hoff, which also became a two series web serial called Caledonia (or Caledonia Mortal Souls – it looks as though there was a short, Caledonia, that became the beginning of the web serial Caledonia and season 2 was titled Caledonia: Mortal Souls). The viewer confusion in the film probably stems from not knowing the serial (which I will look at separately) and perhaps then an assumption of prior knowledge on behalf of the filmmakers.

Joshua Layden as Burns

After scenes of Scottish countryside (including a very apparent Nessie in Loch Ness), the film cuts to Glasgow. A woman is having a hard time romantically and is on the phone. She is observed from the darkness by Robert Burns – yes, the Scottish National Poet – freaked she arranges to meet her friend as a man in the background is pulled into the darkness. Burns emerges with blood at his mouth. We then see a man, Chief Inspector Benandonner (Jan van der Black), who watches revellers and declares he hates Burns night.

Maria Jones as D.I. Bishop

Moving indoors we see people go to tables. This is a police station of sorts and the underlying problems within the film come into view during this scene. Firstly, it looks little like a police station and is obviously the set they could get – forgivable, it happens often in budget productions – and then there are the guys who look like they’re in cosplay. Actually, this is a monster facing branch of Interpol and they are creatures of folklore, but we are left assuming that. Eventually the only human on the books, Detective Inspector Leah Bishop (Maria Jones), lets us know this but, before that, we are unaware. It isn’t the biggest issue, but it can leave one a tad confused over details that the series and, probably more so, the books have room to expand into.

Burns and Desdemona

A known person of interest, Sebastian Bloodworth (Stephen Bell), comes into the station claiming it is chaos out there and safer in the station. Bishop has to discover what’s going on but her partner, Dorian Grey (Alasdair Reavey) a half-selkie vanishes. Benandonner enlists Burns to work with her – Burns unrequited love Desdemona (Dean Hoff) had appeared back in town and is also said to have vanished. He goes to Bishop, who embarrasses herself by looking to kiss him – assuming his presence meant she was in a dream. Reality seems adrift, people are stepping into their own dreams (more often nightmares), Burns becomes suddenly human again and Bishop finds the monster under her bed (who injured her as a child, leading her into the world of monsters) is now a cute shoulder pet.

Baobhan Sith

The essence of the film centres around the dreams and mostly we follow Burns from dream to dream, starting with a dream of first meeting Desdemona, a Baobhan Sith who was a general in the fae armies at the time, him becoming a poet (and somewhat unable to keep it in his pants – the real Burns had 12 children) and eventually getting Desdemona to turn him. Probably a bit of a spoiler, but later on we discover that, unbeknown to herself, she didn’t turn him. His love for her and belief in her ability to do so made him become a vampire. As they go through various dreams, they discover what has caused the rip in reality but can they fix it?

a bite

This is more fantasy (and urban fantasy at that, with a lot of fae lore) and a whole lot less horror. The film suffered for budgetary issues – the merman’s tail for instance would past muster on stage in a play, perhaps, but not on screen and the monster from under the bed was cute but clear artifice. Some aspects – for instance two guardians of Glasgow one wearing a Celtic and the other a Rangers top and one of them meeting an angel – needed narrative expansion. Other throwaway bits were genuinely amusing, breaking with the primarily Gaelic mythology, we see Jesus (Neil MacKinnon) in a bar, swirling a glass of water that becomes wine and the barmaid pointing at a sign prohibiting drinking beverages not purchased in the establishment. This was a brave use of Scottish lore and history, which seemed to aim at nothing less than proudly celebrating Glasgow as a city in the denouement. If it was let down, it was mostly in the budget and explaining aspects more thoroughly. 5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Vampyros Lesbos – UltraHD – review

Director: Jess Franco

Release date: 1971 (UK disc 2026)

Contains spoilers

I have previously reviewed this Jess Franco film and this is specifically the review of the Severin UK UHD release of the film. As such the score is going to be different to that for the film in and of itself. I have a complicated relationship with the film, and Franco generally. Drawn to his films (and my favourites are a couple of his De Sade films), I do find them perhaps less impressive as some in a cinema sense (and certainly a lot less then those involved in the commentaries on this disc); it is a circle difficult to square. Severin, however, I am most definitely a fan of and deem them as one of the (if not the) best purveyors of physical movies currently in operation.

Linda and the Countess

So, the film looks gorgeous – it is not going to look any better methinks. It has been scanned in 4K from the original camera negative and is presented in German – which was the fuller cut, the Spanish version edited on release and later restored but I understand dialogue was changed. I mention in my original review the soundtrack and it sounds great on this presentation. The set comes with a slipcase and both a UHD and standard Blu-Ray disc. Both carry the full range of extras.

blood spattered

The extras include a short archival interview with Franco, an interview with Stephen Thrower – who has written on Franco – and an interview with Amy Brown who is a Soledad Miranda historian. It has in the Land of Franco part 12 – a series over several Severin Franco releases, German trailer and opening title sequence and a career appreciation by Sean Baker. There are two commentaries, one by Kat Ellinger and the other featuring Aaron AuBuchon, John Dickson and Will Morris.

the sun worshipping vampire

I doubt any of the commentators would be impressed with my review of the film, but they have a much less complicated relationship with his films than I. Both commentaries recognise that, in many respects, Franco creates a flipped version of Dracula; in a gender sense Countess Carody (Soledad Miranda, Count Dracula) is Dracula (though Dracula, within the story, turned her), Linda Westinghouse (Ewa Strömberg) is a solicitor travelling to her client and so Harker, and Agra (Heidrun Kussin) can be read as Renfield. However other inversions (from the filmic tradition as well as the novel) are the fact that the film is a sun-drenched affair with the Countess a sunbather, who definitely reflects in the mirror and the method of vampire killing is achieved by giving the brain a deadly blow rather than a stake to the heart (perhaps cerebral rather than emotional). The commentators explore the transgressive nature of the text and, whilst I think that both assign happy accidents in filmmaking to deliberate decisions (and I recognise it is likely a case of column A and B), both were really worth listening to.

strange shooting angle

You are not going to get a better-looking print of the film, plus there are plenty of extras with much to pick through for the student of media studies, and aficionados of both Franco films and vampire films more generally. For the set, 8 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On UHD Blu-Ray @ Amazon US

On UHD Blu-Ray @ Amazon UK