Short film: If I were Dead

This is a short directed by Jaison Blackrose and put on YouTube in 2015. It doesn’t have an IMDb page at the time of writing this and feels more like the start of something than a complete piece in and of itself. That said it is competently filmed and offers the viewer some tantalising glimpses, even if it asks more questions than it offers answers. It was written by Roy Rodriguez, who also appears in it, however given the lack of IMDb page and credits I can’t say as who.

Jax on a pier

It begins with Jax (I wasn’t too sure on the name) on a pier. Gabby strides purposefully down the esplanade. A man with a bow tie eats popcorn and nods to a man in a red cap. Jax runs towards the esplanade but Gabby backs away as a woman watches with Bow Tie. Gabby backs into Red Cap, who grabs at her but she bears fangs and hisses. Jax runs after her but loses her.

drinking wine

He gets back to his apartment and we see an evidence board, clearly he has been trying to find her. He pours himself some wine and stands on his balcony when there is a frantic knocking at the door. It is Gabby. He invites her in and asks her where she has been, why she ran away… She simply stares at him eventually retorting that he wouldn’t understand.

attack

She tells her story. They were at the park, he was practicing martial arts and she was running. She stopped and a woman (the one we saw with Bow Tie) attacked her, pushing her against a tree as she bit her. Gabby describes the bite as orgasmic and painful and says that there was so much blood… But can Gabby control herself with her human lover? And what of Bow Tie and the others, surely they will come back into this?

fangs out

Well, luckily you can find out by watching the short. There isn’t a huge amount of lore in this. These vampires can go in sunlight and have reflections, there is an indication that blood transfer is needed to turn (or upgrade). Personally, I thought it had a lot of style to it but it doesn’t stand alone and needs to be that part of something much larger.