Diva in the Netherworld – review

Director: Takafumi Nagamine

Release date: 1980

Contains spoilers

My word, what did I just watch? This has to be up there in the most bizarre of Japanese fantasy films. Vampires, cannibals, werewolves and a (pretty dragon-like) kaiju all make an appearance.

It starts with two women speaking to camera. One of them, who identifies herself as Donald (Kiyose Fujiwara), gives the news that she is to retire from professional wrestling and will concentrate on a pop career. The other woman is called Micki (Yôko Kurita) – so yeah, a Disney reference – and is her partner in the new venture, the pair making up the singers of Idol group The Bloodies.

recording

We see them in a car, with their manager driving. He has arranged a show but out in the countryside – we see a rather fake looking mountain in the distance of the landscape. Suddenly he loses breaks and they are going rather fast, the car flies off the road, lands and he breaks but pops a tyre. As they change the tyre (with Donald lifting the car) a man on a bike approaches. He is the servant in a mansion and his Master would be delighted to host them.

the homeowners

The mansion is Western style and he takes them through the house, the manager getting separated when he stops to phone the venue (and gets the servant who suggests the mansion occupants are rather nice and they should stay the night). The servant opens one door and our view is filled with Hanako, the kaiju. This does not seem out of place and then leads them to the lady of the house (who is the master he referred to).

Donald the vampire

They essentially are getting them to stay to kill and eat as they are cannibals but they don’t have the measure of their impromptu guests. You see Donald is a vampire – known to the others and whenever she vamps out they have a supply of blood to inject her with. As well as this is appears she occasionally snacks on Micki when she is asleep. Also, it’s a full moon that night and the manager is a werewolf – hence when he gets decapitated later, his head remains alive and animate for some time after. As well as getting wolfen when the moon comes from behind clouds, light reflecting on a serving lid causes him to grow an instantaneous beard.

the werewolf

It is entirely mad and please do not expect it to make any sense whatsoever. It runs along with some level of comic book energy, following its own rules but, despite its madcap scheme, it makes less sense in a narrative way than, for instance, House. The repeated song by the Bloodies, which bemoans older generations, is catchy but overused in the short running time. 5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Blood & Rust – review

Director: Jeremy Herbert

Release date: 2026

Contains spoilers

Set in Redpatch, Ohio, a Rust Belt town, this film offers a commentary on industrial decline and economic decay, with the vampires sucking the life from a town that was almost undead economically as it stood. This is reflected in the locals who seem almost like lost souls and design principles, such as having the vampires bleed red dust, underline this aesthetic.

noises in the house

It starts with Joe (Jonathan Tazewell) in his house, sleeping in front of the TV, it appears. The glass he holds drops and, on waking, he thinks he heard something. He looks around the house, eventually going into the basement. In there he sees a window has been broken and blames kids. As he leaves we see hooded figures swarm. He hears another noise, looks round again and sees a figure. He runs to a room, blocking a door and phones the local diner.

Mark Kelly as Belko

The reason for phoning there, rather than calling 911, is because he owns it and his son, Lamont (Morgan McLeod), works there on the night shift. Lamont, however, is busy with a customer and doesn’t answer straight away. At Joe's, we’ve seen a hooded figure come through another door and by the time Lamont picks up he can hear growling and screams. The film goes into credits, with images of small-town USA and a feeling of urban decay. We see Belko (Mark Kelly, Angel, Jakob’s Wife & Little Bites) arrive in town in his truck.

Morgan McLeod as Lamont

He attends the funeral, where Lamont is stood before the mourners. It is somewhat excruciating and deliberately so. Though he does carry memories of his father that we see in flashback, and is shown to be grieving later, his outer stoic demeanour and awkward jokes are displayed here and tells us much about him, and by proxy the town itself. Lamont is asked by his mother (Laketa Caston) what he will do now – the answer of working the diner till he dies amplifies the characterisation. Later we hear that she wants him to give his father’s share to her so she can change it to a dollar store. Joe’s death has been blamed on coyotes, incidentally. Lamont is more than the sum of what we’ve seen and we discover that he prepares food for the town’s homeless population. Those who pick up the food confirm that one of the camps seem to have left town.

a vampire drone

So, Lamont is attacked by a vampire and saved by Belko, which leaves them working together. Belko is a vampire hunter who tracks them through animal attacks (Lamont’s girlfriend, Marlene (Diana Frankhauser), is animal control, incidentally). He explains that the vampires we mostly see are drones. Animalistic, they serve a boss (Ross Partridge), who can control if they attack, feed, or simply capture a victim for taking to a bleeding room for him. We later see a bleeding room, but we also see him infusing directly from a victim. He has a strong line in eye mojo. His presence in town has been facilitated as a form of direct action against the homeless – though clearly they are attacking beyond that. Killing a vampire is achieved through piercing the heart and/or beheading, incineration is used to make sure.

the boss being infused

I really liked this, beyond the central narrative about small town decay and authoritative misuse of the homeless, this was a nicely down vampire flick where the vampires are dangerous. It steps away from the glamorous and carves a space into the monstruous. Even the Boss, despite being erudite and well presented, carries an air of the monstrous. They built enough around Lamont so that, despite his stoicism, he was genuinely likable as is Belko. The film is clearly on a budget – perhaps shown most in the fact that the town felt empty as we saw little of people and less of attacks on them, however, these are observations and not criticism. The film deserves a strong 7 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Short Film: Love American Style Season 2 Episode 36 Love and the Vampire

Not actually a short film, but a segment (one of three) from a Season 2 episode of the series Love American Style, the segment was directed by Charles R. Rondeau and comes in about 10-minutes, first airing in 1971. However, as someone has kindly (as I write this) put the segment on YouTube then it fits neatly into the short film category as a standalone piece.

It starts with newlyweds Mryna (Judy Carne) and Wayne (Robert Reed, Fantasy Island: The Lady and the Longhorn/Vampire) who are stood with the eccentric looking Mr Foss (Tiny Tim). We quickly get the background that their car has broken down during a storm and he is rendering aid by giving them his room for the night – after all he expects to be out all night.

Foss, Myrna and Wayne

Once alone, Myrna starts having worries. Foss’ tongue was red and his face was pale – indeed it was a typical set up, breakdown in a storm – she comes to the conclusion that Foss is a vampire. When she notices that there is a casket (or a trunk, according to Wayne) she becomes convinced. She decides she needs protection.

garlic on honeymoon

That involves Wayne leaving the house and getting garlic, which he does but the smell puts him off Honeymoon nuptials. Noticing a couple of pinpricks on his neck leads her to believe that he has been bitten (he thinks he has, by mosquitos). The viewer is aware, however, that Foss is making himself up, using a mirror, to attend a midnight horror film showing and so can it all be in Myrna’s imagination? The show is very sit-com pitched, Carne and Reed are old hands and know what they’re doing with the material and the show even throws in a werewolf gag.

The imdb page is here.

Honourable Mention: Venom Vol. 7: Exsanguination

Author: Various

Artist: Various

First published:2024 (tpb)

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: Venom vs. Carnage in their bloodiest battle yet! Carnage is back! Born anew in symbiote goo and blood, Cletus Kasady is more dangerous and violent than ever before - and he has his sights dead set on an unsuspecting Venom! Untested against the might of his symbiotic sibling without his father by his side, can Dylan Brock hold the sadistic serial killer at bay? Will Carnage live up to its namesake and leave another brutalized symbiote host in its wake? Or is Dylan just bait for Eddie Brock, the King in Black himself? In the greatest depths of space and at the end of existence, some carnivorous new species has blossomed. Something blood-red, with thorns - and an appetite! Plus: There's one thing that can still kill Carnage: Anti-Venom! And if things weren't wild enough, the BLOOD HUNT begins, and Venom must unleash lethal justice on hordes of vampires!

The Mention: I have looked through the Marvel Blood Hunt event extensively where it comes to volumes that were directly part of the event and where the volume majority tied in with the event. I have also looked at post-event vampiric consequences. In the case of this Venom volume, however, I have made it an Honourable Mention as it is a minor aspect within a storyline, events happening during Blood Hunt rather than impacting it/impacted by it.

I also have to be honest and admit that seven volumes in, the primary storyline confused me. Issues around Eddie Brock, his son Dylan being Venom’s host and Carnage trying to destroy Venom. All of this probably demands a wider knowledge of the previous volumes and therefore reading this for the Blood Hunt side (of which there are two storylines) is probably for completists only.

In one storyline we get Dylan, abandoned by Venom, approached by a priest who had been turned. The important part of this story is that when the priest bites Dylan his blood is poisonous to vampires as it has been altered by his half-symbiote physiology. He is also immune to the bite. The priest, in pain due to the blood, is then staked by Dylan. This means that Dylan/Venom could have played a pivotal role in the wider event had the writers desired it.

The second vampire storyline concerns the alien Threkker aka The Captive. He absorbs life force and was imprisoned on Earth, and subsequently captured in a high tech coffin that was found by Dracula and released during the Blood Hunt to hunt symbiotes. It reanimated a previous symbiote host (Lee Price) as a sort of zombie symbiote to lure in Venom (who at this point is host-less and dying). The Captive’s plan is to feed on Venom’s life energy but natural protections come into play, causing the Captive’s bite to begin a feedback loop that makes him feed on himself and desiccate. Not one of the undead vampires, a full back-history being presented (rather than touched on) could have embedded this in the event but this is more a throwaway and more significant to the Venom storyline, I feel.

In Paperback @ Amazon US

In Paperback @ Amazon UK

From Dusk Till Bong – review

Director: James Balsamo

Release date: 2022

Contains spoilers

This one left me rather confused with regards release dates. It follows on from 2015’s Bite School and was released before (and seems to come before chronologically) Bite School 2. In fact Bite School 2 is mentioned as a movie, in a meta piece of Coda, and lead character Tony (James Balsamo) mentions going on to fight Robo-Dracula – which is the basic premise of Bite School 2. It was released three years before Bite School 2 but, I suspect, shot after it. It is disc 3 of the Blu-Ray set “James Balsamo’s Thrilling Three Pack”.

using a prayer scroll

So, after moments of Tony riding a bat (we’ll get to that) and a brief cameo by Eric Roberts, it starts with vampire hunter Screaming Jay Pigeons (Charles Wright) taking on a vampire. He splashes him but the holy water doesn’t seem to work (its daylight, outdoors in the dessert by the way) until Jay declares that it is holy gasoline and sets the vampire alight. As the vampire runs around in flame we see a kyonsi/jiangshi, Broccoli Bob (Bill Victor Arucan, Bite School 2 & the Last Slay Ride), hopping towards him. Also appearing is Jay’s very naked dead wife Lanorea (J.E. Scripps) saying, “Save me, Jay”. She has vanished by the time Broccoli Bob arrives and Jay has time to go through a set of prayer scrolls and affix one to his head.

Spat and Tony

Tony and Spat (a talking side-kick bat) are driving through the Nevada desert – and there is something very Hunter S Thompson/Fear & Loathing about Spat. This offers exposition (and that it is exposition is mentioned). Vicky, who turned millionaire playboy Tony into a vampire, was killed by vampire hunters – later confirmed to be Jay and his partner Father Gill O'Teen (G. Larry Butler, also Bite School 2), Her death made him become human again (he is still getting used to the idea of eating food again) and the subsequent mansion fire burnt all his money (he didn’t trust banks) and so he’s broke. At the start of the film the hunters are still after him and by the end they are allies. Tony stumbles into a vampire outbreak and Jay is collecting vampire eyes so he can “pass through the spiritual event horizon” and rescue Lanorea – who, we discover, was turned and subsequently killed by Jay.

flying by bat

There isn’t too much more to say. Tony is further aided by billionaire Bill Diamond (Robert Felsted Jr.), we get a staking by screwdriver flicked in a condom, some gratuitous nakedness, fighting vampires, and lots of crap bats including the bat I mentioned that we see Tony riding. The bat is actually Mayan bat God Camazotz, summoned in an identical way to that in Bite School 2 in a sequence that involves Lamb of God’s Randy Blythe having his flesh stripped by drawn bats. The model for Camazotz is different, however. When we see Tony riding it is when he declares he has to kill Robo-Dracula. The film itself meanders, jumps back in time and Broccoli Bob seems to reappear even having been seen to be killed (though that could just be a non-linear appearance). It is more stream of consciousness than story. Like the others in the series James Balsamo fans will know what they’re getting and enjoy it. The narrative wasn’t there for me but really that’s the point of his filmmaking – caveated that many do get it, 3 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Blu-Ray @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Bite School 2: Bite Squad – review

Director: James Balsamo

Release date: 2025

Contains spoilers

To get the chronology right, this is a 2025 sequel to James Balsamo’s 2015 film Bite School (at the beginning of this Balsamo’s character Tony meets briefly meets the character George and they say that it’s been 10-years). It is subtitled on some of the artwork as Bite Squad and on others as From Dusk Til Bong, which was a 2022 Balsamo flick which also featured his Tony character. All three films are in the Blu-Ray set “James Balsamo’s Thrilling Three Pack”.

Robo Dracula (whole)

When I reviewed Bite School, I said “This is not a good film, by that I mean as a piece of cinema it does not rank particularly high. However, it doesn’t try to rank high either.” This is just as true of this, if not more so. Tony and George meet in a garden (the sets are very limited in this) and observe a group of vampires with a naked sacrifice. The head vampire is speaking tech speak and has the head of Robot Dracula (Joe Castro). Wires attach (and enter) the sacrifice and draw her energy to bring him new life.

Camazotz

Tony is the chosen one, who will destroy Robo-Dracula with help from the bite squad and the film is filled with talking head interviews as a mockumentary being filmed by someone in the school at the centre of the first film. There are, therefore, plenty of excuses for cameos of musicians and genre stars. Before he can get Robo-Dracula there are other head vampires he must destroy – starting with Mayan bat God Camazotz. In a sequence that involves Lamb of God’s Randy Blythe having his flesh stripped by drawn bats, Tony whips Camazotz but, rather than destroy it, uses it as a ride.

Mimeula

Following that we get him going to France to take on Mimeula (Stu Silverman) a vampire who turns a woman into a mime when he bites her. He also goes to Germany to defeat Krampus – yup Krampus is a vampire in this. This sequence of the three head vampires takes less than ten minutes of film time. We get a scene with Vlad Ţepeş, back in the day, being bitten by a skeletal bat creature and thus becoming a vampire (who will eventually be Robo-Dracula). 

Krampus

There really isn’t much else when it comes to story. It is just gags, low budget props (cardboard circular sawblades, for instance) and a parade of characters and cameos. Yet, still, Balsamo is having a hoot – as are many of those in it. It failed, however, to keep my attention as well as the first one (probably because the story was even thinner than the previous). 3 out of 10 but, again, like the first film it is more than the sum of its score (though perhaps closer this time round) and James Balsamo fans will know what they’re getting and enjoy it.

The imdb page is here.

On Blu-Ray @ Amazon US

Short Film: Vamped (2026)

Directed by Eli Valencia, this short is just under 13-minutes in length. Set in a world were, apparently, vampires are a known thing, this follows Mina (Liia Kasenova), a college student.

She is called by friend Joaquin (Jose Soreque), who is trying to entice her to a party – a vampire themed one. Despite classes the following day she agrees to go, so long as they leave if she dislikes it.

bitten

They arrive and attendees are playing spin the bottle, with a 7-minutes in heaven forfeit. The bottle lands on Keiran (Jonah Martinez) and then Mina and so it is off to the bathroom for, what Mina describes as, the longest seven minutes… Until he moves in and bites her. She pushes him off, leaves the bathroom and demands Joaquin takes her home.

Joaquin and Mina

The film then follows her as she tries to navigate her new normal. A google search suggests to her that the scientific consensus is that there is now known cure for vampirism, Then there is her friendship with Joaquin to consider… The storyline may sound simple, but the filmmakers manage to cram plenty into the short running time.

The imdb page is here and the film can be viewed here.