Horror and Hamsters – review

Director: Randy Smith (segment)

Release date: 2018

Contains spoilers

When is a vampire film not a vampire film? There could be a few answers to that but today we are looking at the segment La Grosse Mort. The short had been in the anthology Monster Pool: Seven deadly Sins as the segment Lust, also. As for this anthology, the film has a formula where it alternates between a horror short and a scene of hamsters being cute – and I’m not kidding.

So, what do I mean, not a vampire? The creature in this segment is vampiric but there is a specific play around it not actually being a vampire in film, as you’ll see.

eating energy

It starts off with a woman, Cassandra (Rhapsody Blue), searching through a dating website until she comes to Tim (Jake William Smith). They meet in a club, he seems shy and perhaps clumsy and she seems sexually dominant. They leave with a specific aim of having sex. She is atop him when we see a tail behind them. Who it belongs to is, at first, not clear until its pointed end jabs her in the back, piercing her flesh. It pushes her down to Tim who draws her lifeforce from her (so an energy vampire), killing her.

producing a stake

We see many accounts on the dating site become inactive and then see Tim walking and talking to Anne (Kaleena Jay). They seem to be getting on but she is worried about the area he has taken her to and asks that he not attack her by the dumpsters. He says it isn’t his thing, unless she wants him to, when she suddenly elbows him in the nose causing it to gush with blood. He laments her choice, suggesting that they had made a connection, but she has a stake and she buries it in his chest.

alas, it will not work

There are some sarcastic pain sounds and then laughter. A stake won’t work, he jibes he’s not a vampire. He is, Anne insists, but he corrects her and states that he is an incubus. Now the incubus has less association with the vampire genre than the succubus but the former is the male version of the latter and he is definitely an energy vampire at the very least. Of course he might not be the only creature haunting the night. As for the segment, it is good fun and centres on a lesser used entity, 6 out of 10.

At the time of review there is no IMDb page

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