Lost Girl – season 1 – review

Director: Various

First aired: 2010

Contains spoilers

“What are you doing?” You could well ask. After all the series Lost Girl is about a succubus rather than a vampire. However, you know what, there are similarities between succubi and a certain type of vampire. Admittedly, I did consider a ‘Vamp or Not?’ but that will be covered in this first couple of paragraphs anyway, and also considered an Honourable Mention – but to be fair the vampiric activity happens in virtually each episode. You see our main character, Bo (Anna Silk), is a succubus and because of this she feeds of energy, or chi, by drawing it through the mouth or through sex.

Yes, her feeding habits are akin to an energy vampire and, to a degree, I was reminded of lifeforce… ok she kills rather than zombiefies her victims, can’t turn into a bat-like alien creature and is purely terrestrial in origin. In fact there is a lot less nudity too but she does remind me of Malthida May in that film, just a little. The various creatures in the series are collectively known as fae, all of whom hide in plain sight and feed on humans one way or another and this makes her a natural, albeit magical, entity (unlike a standard myth succubus, who would be a demon).

sucking chi

As the series starts she is a barmaid and a creepy customer tries to slip her a date rape drug. Having turned him down he targets a young human woman called Kenzi (Ksenia Solo). Bo rescues Kenzi and sucks the life energy from the would-be-rapist, she then takes the girl home to her squat, to sleep off the drug, and makes plans to leave town. Kenzi, however, filmed the kill but also recognises that Bo is someone to be on the same side as. From here on in the core friendship at the heart of the show is forged. There is also mention of vampirism, something Bo denies as blood is not involved. She does admit to a building hunger for energy. However.

Bo's victim

Unfortunately her kill has been found and the investigating cops are Dyson (Kris Holden-Ried, Underworld Awakening & The Death of Alice Blue) and Hale (K.C. Collins), both fae and a lycanthrope and siren respectively. They catch Bo and she discovers what she is, you see as a newborn baby she was spirited away from fae society and left with human foster parents. As such she is unaware of the fae, their clans and their great divide.

Ksenia Solo as Kenzi

They are split between light and dark and the fae must choose sides at their coming of age. Bo is forced to go through the old fashioned version of coming of age (a fight to the death with two under-fae, or more monstrous monsters) – the hope of the two sides is she’ll die and the problem of an unregistered, unaligned fae will go away. Through help from Dyson and Kenzi she wins but refuses to join a side, declaring herself neutral and with the humans. She and Kenzi form an odd-case detective agency and she begins to get help from Dyson and Trick (Richard Howland), the owner of a neutral ground bar. Both Trick and Dyson know more than they are telling Bo about her mother and heritage.

Jeffrey R. Smith as Seigfried

We do get some more common vampiric moments but they are frustrating in their brevity. We meet Siegfried (Jeffrey R. Smith). When we meet him he is hanging by a noose, but being a vampire that hasn’t killed him. He drinks blood but is killed quickly in the episode by a mesmer (Paul Amos) who forces Siegfried to push his own hand into a waste disposal, to torture him, and then cuts his own heart out. It is a brief meeting.

Lynne Griffen as Halima

We also meet Halima (Lynne Griffen), an aswang who is poisoned by her food – human cadavers; in this case foot soup. This leads to a haemorrhagic fever, which Kenzi also contracts when she inadvertently eats some of the soup not realising the main ingredient, and Halima’s main role in the episode is to die. Again we see very little of the vampiric creature, a few minutes in episode and, to be honest, it seemed less like an aswang and more like a ghoul in habit.

aswang chow

The series as a whole, however, is good fun. It is nice to see the centre stage be taken by two strong female characters and whilst Bo relies on Dyson as a lover, tipster and food source she seems no weaker as a character for that, cutting Dyson off when he isn’t on the same page as her. I enjoyed the first season, good escapist television with a succubus/energy vampire. 6 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Draghoula – review

Director: Bashar Shbib

Release date: 1995

Contains spoilers

Oh dear… One supposes that this was designed to be an off-kilter comedy. It failed. Simply put... it just wasn’t that funny – except in the basest ways and even then it barely raised a titter.

This was a Canadian offering (for a genuinely funny Canadian vampire comedy, see Karmina, which was produced just one year later) and one can only wonder at the production pitch. It’s about a guy infected with vampirism that makes him…

We’ll get to that…

The film starts with a wolf howl and we see a cloaked figure, Armadona (Robyn Rosenfeld), we also see a woman head for her car. The car won’t start and she pops the lid. Armadona approaches and asks what is wrong. She strokes the length of the woman’s body before biting her.

Chriss Lee as Harry

Harry Silverman (Chriss Lee) is a scientist searching for the guilt gene (there might have been an entire discourse about Harry’s repressed desires and guilt that never happened). The board from the company he works for have decided he is costing too much, using too many rats and is taking too long. He is told to cut down on rats and cut his budget. He is also told to work with Sabrina (Stephanie Seidle), a fellow scientist who will help with his research and manage his curtailed budget.

Stephanie Seidle as Sabrina

Harry is less than happy. However, Sabrina eventually asks him out on a date to see a Polish film, which subsequently causes an argument; her seeing it as filth, he as artisitc. This doesn’t go down well with his (stereotypically) overbearing Jewish mother, Ida (Victoria Barkoff, Vampire High), as it is Shabbat. In the meantime Harry has also contacted a rat seller (Kathy Slamen) but her rats are too small. She has put him in touch with her boss, Armadona, who has supplied him with Transylvanian rats.

Armadona inspect the rat bite

One of these rats bites Harry and he becomes feverish. He is then taken by Armadona and initiated into vampirism as she is looking for the Dracula. However, his vampirism causes him to shave his body hair, don women’s clothes and put on make-up; the drag of Draghoula. Why? It might be a comment on androgyny – but I doubt it, he is trying to emulate woman not become gender-neutral (though one definition of androgyny is to fluidly move between genders). In many respects I think it was for a cheap laugh, given the film didn’t explore why in any way.

putting the drag into Draghoula

Anyway, Sabrina notices the change and tries to save him. His mother, at first, blames Sabrina but then hires an Arabic vampire scholar, Laila Zresbos (Bobo Vian, the Hunger: Fly by Night) to help cure him of the Desmodantia Transylvanus (or vampirism to me and you). Much could have been made of the cooperation between Jew and Arab – but wasn’t. Their actions does lead into the lore, which was in equal parts interesting and frustrating.

Armadona and Harry

The main lore we get (other than Sabrina isolating the vampire gene and developing a cure) is about religion. Armadona wears a cross to hide her by limiting her power (but then bleats about becoming weak and needing a strong Dracula) – a device that would later become central to the anime Rosario + Vampire. Laila declares that the effect of a religious artefact is dependent upon the religion of the vampire. They confront a sleeping Harry with artefacts and neither the cross or the Koran affect him. Jewish artefacts cause him to growl in his sleep.

consulting the expert

I said it was frustrating also and that is because, when awake, the artefacts do not seem to work. It is later revealed that this is because Harry is an atheist (and went along with Jewish traditions for his mother). Fair enough, then why growl? Perhaps because deep down he is still Jewish, then surely that should have manifested in sleep and awake (they could have played with guilt issues here but didn’t). However the religious aspect of the film was interesting, if under-explored.

But the film itself, not so. Any wry look at issues that might have been are not actually contained in the film. The comedy wasn’t funny and the climax was sub-Benny Hill. Had this been played straight, then it might have been accidentally funny, as it was played for laughs it was not and some of the performances are simply excruciating. Poor all round but the interesting look at faith, and the iconography surrounding the various religions, boosts it to 2 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Amazon link for the VHS tape.

Mad, Mad, Mad Monsters – review

Directors: Jules Bass & Arthur Rankin Jr.

Release date: 1972

Contains spoilers


This was a cartoon sequel to the 1967 stop motion animation Mad Monster Party? - ish… I say ish because whilst it featured a cornucopia of monsters and was part directed by Jules Bass it actually is about building a bride for the Frankenstein Monster and the subsequent wedding, whilst the monster already had a partner in the earlier animation.

It also features voice actors (mainly Allen Swift as the monsters, with Bob McFadden voicing Baron Frankenstein). This gave the thing a more generic cartoon feel. Of course, they couldn’t get Karloff back to voice the Baron, as by the time this was produced he had, sadly, passed on, but I have to say that I hated the Baron’s voice through this.

Dracula with Norman

Basic story is that the Baron builds a bride for the monster, but Igor wants her for himself. He actually loses the bride, at one point, and the monsters have to go rescue her from Modzoola (essentially King Kong). Meanwhile Harvey the postman is having a nervous breakdown, having had to deliver wedding invites to the monsters, and so gets a new job – standing in as manager of the hotel where the wedding will take place. His histrionics are contrasted against the bellhop Norman, who believes all the monsters to be movie stars from his favourite films.

Dracula and son

Of course Dracula is part of the proceedings. He now has a son and a cat. Other than a few comments about blood types; Dracula, “What blood type are you?” Harvey, “Why?” Dracula, “My favourite type!” As well as the son turning into a bat, there really isn’t that much of a role for the character. Though his part is bigger than, say, the Mummy or the Creature (from the Black Lagoon).

The bride

The trouble was, quite frankly, I was bored. The gags were average to say the best and the actual animation poor. Add in how much the Baron’s voice bugged and the fact that the plot was flimsier than a see-through shroud worn on a monster’s wedding night and I finished watching the film less than impressed – though thankfully it was fairly short.

Not brilliant. 3 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Vamp or Not? Once Upon a Warrior

Directed by Prakash Rao, Once Upon a Warrior or Anaganaga O Dheerudu (to give it its original title) was a Bollywood production, in Telugu, that was unique given its Disney backing. One supposes that Disney saw this as a doorway into a large new market.

The film itself is a fantasy epic set in the mythical tear shaped land of Angarajyam, where the populace are terrorised by an evil sorceress called Irendri (Lakshmi Manchu). It is Irendri who is the focus of our ‘Vamp or Not?’

In many respects she is like any witch type character from many a western film (though somewhat more colourful in costume). Late in the film we discover that she was stopped previously by a swami but she managed to put her essence or soul into an amulet, which passed down to her descendant, the good gypsy Priya (Shruti Haasan) and (when the pendant is touched by fire) she was able to reform and begin her evil ways again.

Siddharth as Yodha

The core story concerns the children of a village all falling into a sleeping sickness due to the evil taint Irendri had left behind – in the form of skeletal serpent servants. One man, Druki (Vallabhaneni Ramji), is sent to fetch a miracle child called Moksha (Harshitha) back to the village in order that she might save the children. Her protector is the blind warrior Yodha (Siddharth). He happened to be in love with Priya and believes her to be dead.

drop of blood

As it happens she is held captive by Irendri who maintains her youth and power by periodically taking a drop of her blood. This is placed within the magical pendant and she needs Priya as it must be the blood of a relative, Priya being the last of her line. When blood is placed in the pendant (which is captured by a serpent) she replaces the stone and she is infused with energy. At one point – when she goes to harvest the blood – she states that she needs blood and becomes physically weak. She questions how long she has to thirst for blood.

a bath of blood?

She also seems to bathe in blood – or at least a bath that has red liquid – but this was not definitive. She worships a serpent demon called sarpa sakthi – this actually takes form through her hair – and this being informs her that the blood of Moksha – if taken during a lunar eclipse – will grant her immortality. This, of course, is a further example of gaining power through blood.

revitalised through blood

I think this is enough to class her as a vampiric witch and thus I have gone Vamp. The film itself isn’t too demanding and seems aimed generally at a younger audience. It then veers off into less trodden pathways, such as making Yodha a drunk and watching him go off to con drinks out of travellers. Of course good has to triumph over evil and true love has to find its course and singing and dancing have to happen. The imdb page is here.

Breaking Wind – review

Director: Craig Moss

Release date: 2011

Contains spoilers

Whilst I will caveat this (as I often do with comedies) that the comedic art is one that is received subjectively and what I might find funny you might not, it seems that Twilight spoofs are all too common nowadays and I can’t understand why.

Don’t get me wrong, there have been some brilliant spoofs done independently and released virally across the net. However when it comes to films (be they painfully independent or films with clearly a bigger budget) the idea of spoofing/satirizing Twilight is akin to shooting fish in a barrel – easy and pointless. It also makes you wonder where the film wants to find an audience; those who hate Twilight are unlikely to watch something that apes Twilight and those who love it will find it an anathema.

Danny Trejo

In this case we have a film that is so cynical that it apes the Eclipse movie and yet names itself in the style of movies 4/5 – creating a flatulence gag designed, surely, to put the most die-hard comedy fan off with its banality and, of course, creating a brand image akin to the films currently doing the rounds. It also seeks to ‘ingratiate’ itself with the fans of Twilight by dedicating the film to them and exploiting them by playing lifted YouTube footage of them screaming at trailers – including the rather annoying English lass who went viral with her over-the-top reactions. What this film does have in its favour, however, is Danny Trejo (From Dusk Till Dawn, From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money, From Dusk Till Dawn 3: the Hangman’s Daughter, Blood Ties, 7 Mummies & Slayer). It is always a pleasure to see Mr Trejo in a film and this film gets an extra point due to his cameo.

Edward and Little Edward

And boy does it need it. Flatulence, cock, vagina and cum gags abound and they just aren’t really that funny. We get a stuttering (as opposed to on-running) gag about mini Cullens, with Little Edward (Pancho Moler) having the hots for Bella (Heather Ann Davis) and Edward (Eric Callero) getting jealous. There were moments that almost worked, such as Jacob (Frank Pacheco) and the wolf pack being of a chubby persuasion – one would hope that it was a satire of false body imaging in popular media, actually I think it was there for a cheap fat gag.

when Depps attack

Other bits did work better, When Danny Trejo tells the story of the tribe – and their history with the vampires – the tribe is attacked by a gaggle of Johnny Depps in various character costumes and I must admit to a quick snigger. However it was rare moments of sniggering (rather than copious hilarity) punctuating a rather boring film. It’s not even as though I was overly offended by the ‘bad taste’ elements – they simply weren’t that shocking either, just a tad puerile.

All in all a poor 3 out of 10 (and remember 1 point is for Danny Trejo’s cameo)

The imdb page is here.

Fortean Times and Some Music

The Fortean Times 2012 special looks at our toothsome friends. As you can see the cover article looks at Vampire Killing Kits – I’ve not read it yet but a quick scan reveals it follows the sensible line of pointing out that no such kits have been authenticated as anything other than a modern phenomenon. There is an article featuring Dr Gregory L Reece “who hangs out with werewolves and vampires”, a look at 18th century vampire autopsies and a look at Dracula tourism in Romania.

Since I thought I’d mention the FT issue to you all I also thought, as I haven’t put any music on the blog for a while, that I’d post up a tune. The Boneyard Zombies are a local band offering a combination of horror punk and surf music. The lead singer, Dunc, has been a friend for many, many years. This is a track from their forthcoming CD called Vampire Love.

Vamperotica: Tales from the Bloodvault – review

Director: Kirk Lindo

Release date: unknown

Contains spoilers

This is an obscure little flick, only available on pay-for-download and brought to my attention by Alexander over at Freaks and Fiends. Let us start by saying that it stars Glori-Anne Gilbert (Blood Sisters: Vamps 2 & Countess Dracula’s Orgy of Blood) and I think you’ll guess what we’re going to get.

Actually, as well as being a tie in with a magazine called Vamperotica, the film contains a conceit that is kind of fun. For all intents and purposes it is a softcore flick, with very little core and a lot of soft – some rubbing, a little boob (okay a lot of Glori-Anne’s boobs) and nothing much else (the film actually sports some Seduction Cinema covers in the background in some shots and makes them look like hardcore works of erotic art). However they deigned to make a little wrap-around story.

casting call

This begins with Nick Kovak (Nick S Capiot) trying to sell a film idea – to no avail. It seems Nick’s name is dirt. Next thing he has a gun against his head held by Tony (Adam “El-Diablo” Goodman) who is there with Maria (Patricia “The Diva” Goodman). They work for Mr Gambetti (William Beard) and Nick owes him money. He tries to stave them off with talk of his brilliant vampire script and he is given 48 hours. He needs to cast a vampire Queen and gets some awful actrsses (and we have to sit through the auditions) but then in comes the perfect woman (Glori-Anne Gilbert) and she snacks down on another actor as part of the audition – of course they think he is drunk not dead afterwards.

biting Tima

Having picked up a stolen video camera, Nick insinuates himself into various locations with various people, getting them to play opposite the Vampire Queen as she seduces and kills them. Of course they all must be drunk when they fall to the floor. Women as well as men are seduced by her but the scenes are about as tame as a tea-party, to be fair. Glori-Anne can’t keep her top on, mind you. Eventually they head back to Nick’s office.

blow a kiss

Having devoured his cameraman, she persuades Nick to play opposite her as the vampire hunter (he has a cape, a hammer and a screwdriver for a stake). During this feed she bottles some blood (the fact that it just wouldn’t work as depicted can be ignored, to be fair). Cops at the door, looking for the stolen camera, provide him a getaway opportunity and he manages to pocket the tape to show Gambetti. Of course, he hasn’t checked whether vampires show up on film…

tina bleeds

Bad acting – universally, though Glori-Anne Gilbert is having a whale of a time as the Vampire Queen. A poster of From Dusk ‘Till Dawn 3 in pride of place. No real story – just the conceit of pretending to have one that is actually so wafer thin it is transparent. Bad filming, sound issues on the file. It is not a great film. But there is something cheeky about it. 2 out of 10.

The film can be purchased here and there is no IMDb page at the time of review.

Santo en la Venganza de las Mujeres Vampiro – review

Director: Federico Curiel

Released: 1970

Contains spoilers

Santo (himself) once more fights vampires and this time in colour. This is not related to Samson Vs the Vampire Women (to give the earlier film its US title) save that the films featured Santo.

crap bat royalty

This one starts off with a coffin adorned with a carved crap bat and marked with the legend Countess Mayra (Gina Romand, Santo contra la Hija de Frankenstein), the date 1730 and a carved crap bat. The coffin is opened (by person unseen) a stake lifted and the vampire is disposed of. From things that we hear later on this occurs in Transylvania. The film then displays, what I can only describe as, a member of crap bat royalty.

Victor Junco as Dr Igor Brancov

Modern day and the villainous Dr Igor Brancov (Víctor Junco) is leading his henchmen, Carlos and Boris (Nathanael León), into a cave like crypt area. The cover stone to get into the necropolis is emblazoned with a crap bat (they appear all over the show in this flick). Now Brancov is a caring villainous character, warning hs henchmen of the poisonous spiders and the leaping rat with the lethal bite. They eventually find a room of empty coffins and Mayra’s coffin with her remains. He decides that she must be taken back to his lab but, once revived, she will live back in this crypt.

mumified Mayra

They take the coffin back and Brancov – in typical villainous monologue – reveals the backstory and plot. Mayra was a vampire woman priestess who lived for two hundred years before being hunted and staked. Her vampire descendants travelled from Transylvania to Mexico bringing her remains with them before being wiped out. He will transfuse her mummified remains with blood (interestingly it has to be a(n overly complex) transfusion, which explains why her descendants just didn’t pour blood on her) and then use her blood to make the monster he is creating immortal. Phew…

reviving the vampire

To get the blood he has sent two more henchmen, Marco and El Gitano (René Barrera), out to kidnap someone. They are at a go-go bar and have selected a particular dancer to be their victim. Because she ends up backstage with a lover they kidnap him as well. The girl is strapped up next to the mummified remains of Mayra. I suggested the process was overly complex because it involved playing with the mad scientist electrical equipment as well as transfusing but soon Mayra is alive again. She explains that her soul has been trapped in her mummified remains, listening to all (I guess this is the excuse for her speaking Spanish rather than a Romanian dialect!) and will grant Brancov his request once they have killed the last living descendant of the hunter that killed her… Santo.

eye mojo

Yes Santo does eventually appear in the film! A reporter, Paty (Norma Lazareno), is picked up by her fiancé the police Lieutenant Robles (Aldo Monti, Santo in the Treasure of Dracula & Santo and Blue Demon Vs Dracula and Wolfman) and his comedy sidekick Beto. She is going to interview Santo. Santo and Robles have worked together in the past but there are no strange crimes at the moment (all about to change Santo). They go to his match as do Brancov and Mayra. She uses eye mojo to tell his opponent to kill Santo and to try and get Santo to throw the match.

Santo investigates

That attempt to kill the wrestler is unsuccessful and so she visits his home. Alerted by the flashing Buddha statue (I kid you not) Santo escapes her attempt to stab him with a crap bat adorned dagger and, with a hearty laugh and a quip about beautiful women not normally sneaking in to kill him, he grabs the vampire but she gets away in bat form. The problem, of course, is that by revealing herself (because she went after Santo) he is now aware of the vampiric menace and goes out of his way to stop it. Paty, of course, becomes a damsel in distress.

painted fangs

A few little things to note… The monster is rubbish, a normal looking muscle man with a bandage on half his lower jaw. Indeed the monster aspect was a plot point too far, just appearing occasionally and with no real satisfying aspect. It appears that when a flock (?) of vampire women attack they let the vampire men fight whilst they flap their chiffon ineffectually. Some of the fangs are painted in post-production and look bad. Vampires have to be in their coffins at dawn and a second staking apparently does not mummify the vampire but rather turns them to dust.

staking

The DVD I bought (by DVD Digital) had an issue in that on two occasions the English subs froze and dialogue shot by with an earlier subtitle stuck on screen (clearly the subtitles in those two sections had not been built). One bit was during a wrestling match and was of no consequence. The second was through a long dialogue section with Mayra and might have been important. It doesn’t stop overall enjoyment of the film though.

fancy a bite

And it has to be said that, despite a lack of Santo at the head, a pointless Frankensteinian 'monster' and some massive plot contrivances, this was an enjoyable flick that generated some real atmosphere from time to time. It was, however, internally inconsistent with said atmosphere. However, whilst not the best Santo movie, it certainly isn’t the worst. 4 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

The Blood of Roses – review

Author: Tanith Lee

First published: 1990

Contains spoilers

The blurb: Love, history or blood… which is the strongest?

In childhood something black settled on Mechail Korhlen and drank from his throat. And later somebody pitied him enough to kill his poor deformed body when he became an adult. But then Mechail chose to return from beyond the veil to enact revenge - and to follow Anjelen, ruler of the sinister monastery sited deep in the forest.

The fulfilment of his detiny had begun.

In Blood of Roses, Tanith Lee, winner of the World Fantasy Award, has written a novel of glittering wonders, of strange and powerful magic and vampiric desires…

The review: I like Tanith Lee. I must admit I haven’t read too much of her work (this is the 6th book I have read by her) but, whenever I read her work, I am always struck by the beauty of her prose and her unique perspective. Sometimes that can be a little too much, however, and the Blood of Roses strayed terribly close to that.

However I must first say that this is not the normal vampire fare that you might be used to. Lee does add in some interesting, almost antique concepts. When we see the attack on central character Mechail Korhlen, the vampiric creature attacking him is a giant black moth. This brings to mind the idea from one tradition that the vampire's soul manifests as a moth or butterfly. This was explored in the film Leptirica. At another point Lee really builds the traditional connection between vampiric activity and werewolves, that perhaps modern writers have lost sight of.

However the book doesn’t follow a traditional structure, presenting a story, jumping back in time and presenting a further story intimately connected to the last, yet previously unseen, which might stretch out ahead of the last in scope and will certainly add to the reader's understanding of events. In this way Lee builds up layers of story that reveal the plot and premise.

Essentially this is an alchemical story – alchemy in terms of the spiritual rather than base metals – it explores the intimate and yet distant relationship between paganism and Christianity and the usurpation of paganic rites by the cult of the Christus. It explores the meaning of the anima and the animus, extoling a feminism that riles against the misogynist and yet can only be resolved within a balance of the genders. If all that sounds heavy… it is.

It is explored within a prose that is so rich it is like wading through molasses. It is beautiful but, perhaps, somewhat heavy going over the novel’s immense 678 pages. It is here that perhaps it was in danger of being a little too much. The underlying story themes and heavy prose will switch a lot off, and I found I had to be in the right mood to appreciate the work. However it is a work of beauty and worth the effort. 7 out of 10.

Lady of the Dark: Genesis of the Serpent Vampire – review

Director: Philip Gardiner

Release date: 2011

Contains spoilers

Edit 13/5/2015: Images removed at request due to my sympathy for the request. Director Philip Gardner has a background in documentaries and we featured Diary of a Vampire some time ago. When it came to that I was underwhelmed by the poor research that went into the documentary but was wowed by the imagery and music.

Thus it came as less of a surprise when this low budget English movie turned out to be very artistic in basis and musically driven. The beginning of the piece starts with a narration by John Symes that talks about the serpent in the Garden of Eden and how, when Eve ate the apple, the serpent discovered mortality. Of how the serpent was worshipped but eventually, as the focus of worship was changed, it was hunted as the dragon or expelled by St Patrick. How the vampire myth grew around the serpent and of the prophecy of the next genesis of the serpent cult.



Eve (Melanie Denholme) is an ordinary woman in a loving marriage and taking two weeks off work. During this time she is bitten by a snake – she sucks the poison from her own leg, it would seem, and then eats an apple (the symbolism being obvious, perhaps too obvious). At first she seems to just become (even) more sexually charged for her husband but then things start to change. She suffers nightmares and they're filled with dark eroticism.



Interestingly most of the film is shot in a pov looking at Eve, be it her husband’s POV, or a web camera (into which she diarises). We never see her husband (or his face at least) and story aspects such as where he vanishes to – though that does seem eventually to be revealed – and what becomes of her job are left to imagination. Eventually – after a trip away and a hurried affair with a psychiatrist that might have left him dead on her hotel floor (this is insinuated, we do not see a body) – we realise there is a man held captured, hooded and possibly mutilated (we see a jar with what might be parts of his face) in her home. The logical assumption is that this is her husband (though it is never spelt out) and eventually she uses the man to feed.



The film is therefore to be judged really on four aspects. Firstly Melanie Denholme’s performance. Hers is the only voice (bar prologue and epilogue narrations) we hear and, other than some random victims, the only face we see and, overall, she offers a strong performance. Perfect? No, but compelling at all times and she manages to portray a metamorphosis of her character that moves through anguish and madness. Secondly there is the film style and, despite the noticeably low budget, Gardiner creates some visually impressive scenes. Be they physical – a snake skin sheet wrapped around Eve becomes a serpent’s tale through its drape and position – or atmospheric – though Eve is the aggressor, when she is silently followed through her home by (we assume her prisoner/husband) there is a palpable claustrophobic tension imbued in the scene.



Thirdly there is the music and I was less convinced. Some pieces worked really well but there were some set pieces using vocal songs (and one plinky plonky piece of electronica) that intruded on the scenes rather than complemented. Finally there was the gore. To a degree this had pretensions of torture porn (Vampire of Quezon City sprang to mind) but pulled back from the brink (though it remains gory) due to its artistic direction. One can’t help but think it didn’t quite know what it wanted to be at that point.



The film plays with some symbolism, quite obviously. It leads Eve down the Lilith root and (of course) Lilith and vampires are frequent bedfellows. It is interesting that Eve at one point devours her victim whole and we see her with naught but a rib left in her hand. I also want to mention the birthing of an egg – the idea that this is the rebirth of a species. One cannot help but notice, however, that Eve at one point is a force of nature that damns mankind for its blind destruction and at others is more like Lilith hating men (the gender) as evil things, refusing to be abused and needed to be on top (sexually, metaphorically and in the food chain).



The problem is that this might just be too arty for its own good. As well as the budget limiting what the director wanted to do artistically, the most likely audience may not want the arthouse treatment and wonder why the torture porn pretence was not embraced. I think many a person is going to hate it and whilst that was not the case for me I don’t think it quite made it to the artistic heights it wanted to scale. There was something in here, something interesting with regard the Eve/Lilith cross-over but it shouldn’t have relied solely on Melanie Denholme’s performance and perhaps entered into some more traditional narration and interplay – or (to gather the other audience) dropped the mythology and been more explicit around the torture. 4 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Honourable Mention: Population: One

When I feature something on the blog called Population: One, you’d be forgiven for immediately thinking that this would have some form of I am Legend connection. It doesn’t.

Population: One is a surreal piece of eighties video art, rather than a film, directed by Rene Daalder and released in 1986. It featured artist and lead singer of LA Punk Band the Screamers Tomata Du Plenty as himself. The last survivor of a nuclear war – or the sole survivor of a mass suicide pact, as he puts it. He offers a psychedelic and surreal history of the USA told through song and featuring himself and Sheela Edwards.

Jazz Vampire

It is down to Sheela Edwards that this film gets its mention, as we meet her through the song Jazz Vampire, a song that sees her donning fangs in the worst 1980s MTV sort of way, as well as a crap bat. The whole piece is a bizarre journey powered by performance art that could only have been conceived of in the eighties, clothed in a mad collage of video.

The imdb page is here.

Indemnity: Rage of a jealous Vampire – review

Director: David Dietz

Release date: 2010

Contains spoilers

I came across this as a concept and made contact with the film, as it were, through its Facebook Page. I was directed to Maddy GTV, where the film could be found to watch for free. Normally that would lead to the film getting an “honourable Mention” but, as the film is due to be available to buy soon and removed from Maddy at that time, we are into review territory.

The first thing to note is that this is a short film, some 50 or so minutes, and as such it doesn’t outstay its welcome. It is just the sort of film that I can imagine being hitched together with a couple of others to form an anthology flick, and whilst it is clearly of a low budget itself it would certainly beat some vampire orientated anthology sections we have seen on the blog before now. Not to say that it is perfect but it is certainly better than some.

William at night in the woods

It begins with a man, William (David Dietz), running through the trees and here we get our first issue with the film. It is very difficult to see within the night shots. I am sure lighting can be difficult to nail for night scenes and there is a bonus to not using day for night shots, but it is annoying for most viewers when they have to squint at the screen (and it still doesn’t clear up). All that said, I was watching a free, relatively small download. One hopes the DVD has cleared this up, or at least improved it. If not then the other thing to note is that the outside scenes are relatively few.

Joe and William

William is clearly being pursued and we see that it is a woman, Angela (Crystalann). A car comes along and he flags it down. He shouts for the driver to get moving. Luckily, despite this initial shouting and his subsequent refusal to answer a single question, the driver doesn’t just pull over and boot him out. We see Angela march on down the road after him. William is dropped at a bar – the Rinky Drinks Road House. He wanders through the smoky bar – the barman Joe (Daniel I. Radakovich) puts on an extractor – and orders a brandy.

first meeting

Much of the film is built on the dialogue between William and Joe. The dialogue itself isn’t too badly written and, at the peaks, the performances seem natural enough. However there are also some dialogue and delivery troughs. I mention this only to be scrupulous about the quality as, for a low budget indie, performances and dialogue aren’t too bad at all. Radakovich hams it a bit, but it fits the character. Joe eventually opens up and tells him about Angela, a woman he met in a bar. They fell in love at first sight but now she wants to kill him – literally.

catching a break

She has attacked him several times, he describes a violent harridan, but he can’t bring himself to kill her (even in self-defence) something 'inside' stays his hand. When a couple of rednecks come in and cause trouble, William fights with the ringleader, Bubba (Seth James). He seems to be losing but, after a while (and out of sight of everyone else), he catches Bubbas fist in his hand and then breaks his arm.

Alison with fangs

Now, if the slightly inaccurate title didn’t give the game away, we do establish that Angela is a vampire. If the off-screen kill of the “Gas, Grass or Ass” demanding driver, Leroy (Nicky J. Allison), didn’t give the game away, then her glowing red eyes (seen in the first minutes) and her subsequent sprouting of fangs to eat the deputy sheriff (Henry Tjernlund) certainly does give the game away. By the way, I say the title is inaccurate as she is not really jealous… Nevertheless, if William’s comments about something inside preventing him from killing her and his feat of melee strength haven’t given the long term story twist away nothing will.

Cushing'd cross

The twist doesn’t twist that much, therefore, but the construction of the film and the path to it is pleasant enough so that it doesn’t matter. The actual story doesn’t bring too much new to the vampire genre table but it, again, is a pleasant enough tale to watch. We do get some additional bits of lore – two bits of pool cue Cushing’d into a cross wards a vampire, but it relies on faith to maintain the ward. Sunlight would seem to be a problem and a stake in the heart kills (but we won’t mention the fact that the stake vanishes in between shot angles).

red eyes

Okay, despite a soundtrack that really did fit nicely, there are some problems with this. Not so much a problem on a freebie, more problematic when purchasing. However it wasn’t too bad in the grand scheme of things. Some of the dialogue was nicely written and delivered. The story wasn’t spectacular but did what it had to. It speaks of better things to come from David Dietz (and stakes that will remain in shot, one hopes) and it deserves 4 out of 10 overall.

The imdb page is here and the homepage is here.