The Bloody Indulgent – review

Director: Ken Roht

Release date: 2014

Contains spoilers

Apparently Kevin Scott Richardson is a Backstreet Boy (a boyband and not a sexual proclivity) and the thought of a pop person jumping onto the vampire bandwagon, replete with musical wheels, is not new. After all British pop combo McFly also did it, four years before, with the film Nowhere Left to Run.

The big difference with this vehicle is writer/director Ken Roht has not made this based on some radio friendly basis to please prepubescent fans. This is a gory, drug fuelled trip into a warped rock and roll dystopia, with lyrics that plumb sexual depths – and it is genuinely funny.

Coco performs

It starts in the Bootleg Club where Coco (Tracey Leigh) sings and strips (in a burlesque manner). Her act is followed by club owner Sid (Brian Gaskill), the unfunny magician, ably assisted by Dori (Laura Martin). Outside the vampire Burt (Kevin Scott Richardson) chases down his friend Todd (Brandon Heitkamp) for no other reason than he feels like it. As he does so, he sings… and as the line, “Surprise you f*cker!” is enunciated all radio-friendly boyband thoughts fall aside.

Kevin Scott Richardson as Burt

He bites Todd and cuts down his complaints about it hurting and about the fact that his girlfriend, Connie (Diva Zappa), hates vampires. When Todd becomes freaked out that he will now have to be bisexual (like all vampires) Burt dodges the point but then says he chose Todd over a nearby girl because he was hot – as in very warm-blooded. Todd returns to Bootleg but Burt is prevented from entering by bouncer Dwayne (Dylan Kenin, Let Me In) who holds up a cross. Burt grabs it (his hand smokes), throws it aside and attacks the bouncer.

Connie staked

Inside Connie is doing her song, when she notices that Todd is now a vampire. The song stops and she eventually changes it to a chant of “Kill the f*cking vampire” aimed at Burt (now in the club). Sid intervenes but Burt attacks him and then there is general mayhem, during which Todd turns Connie. When they get outside Connie is off the rails, attacking anyone who is close. Burt calls up a vampire hunter (Kenneth Hughes), who cleans up his messes for a price. The hunter quickly arrives and stakes Connie. Burt decides to take Todd to Candyland, a warehouse run by psychopathic artist and exotic drug dealer Clare (Sharon Ferguson, Buffy the Vampire Slayer).

planning vengeance

Eventually all sides will converge on Candyland, but let us look at the sides. There is Dwayne the bouncer, who hates Burt – but Burt tells him that if you kill the head vampire (him) all the other vampires die, plus a bevy of female vampires that Burt will create. Then there are the strippers from the club, Sid died as he was attacked so he didn’t turn and they all want revenge (and arrange a stripathon to raise the money to pay the Vampire Hunter to turn on Burt) and then there are the zombies.

Nick and Marty

Zombies? In a stroke of genius we get a pair of zombies called Marty (Clay Wilcox, True Blood) and Nick (Max Faugno) . These zombies can still speak but are getting stupider and their motor skills suck! They see Connie, dead and staked, and Nick wants to kiss her – Marty explains that he is probably confused and wants to eat her brains. He does actually kiss her and the zombie ooze from his mouth turns her into a zombie also. Connie wants to eat Burt.

sneaking up on Burt

Lore-wise things are a tad loose. We have already touched on holy items being apotropaic, and Burt insinuating bisexuality as a vampire trait as well as the "kill the head vampire" rule (can Burt be trusted though?) We see vampires killed by their throats being cut (rather than beheaded, which just seemed odd) and through the stake. We get a lyric that tells us more, “Stab him in the heart, shoot him full of silver, shove garlic up his ass!” However the film is chaotic in parts and so loose lore is fine.

Burt, a lying, conniving s.o.b.

I really enjoyed this, the music was more in the rock opera arena though stylistically it moved around quite a bit. The revelation was Kevin Scott Richardson, who was fantastic as Burt. He was clearly having a great time and the character was brilliant. Forget angst filled vampires, Burt was an asshole, first and foremost. A lying, conniving s.o.b. who likes to overindulge in blood and chemicals. He really was fun to watch. Other highlights include a sex/love/lust song set in a scuzzy toilet and zombie Connie’s first attempt to eat brains.

The film nicely mashes horror (or gore at least), music and (most importantly) comedy together and I genuinely found this funny. All in all this gets a well-deserved 7 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.