Old Blood – review

Director: Denise Channing

Release date: 2018

Contains spoilers

This is a film shot in Norwich UK, which seems to have been stuck in producer/distributor Hell… until you watch it and realise it just isn’t very good. Billed as a comedy/horror it isn’t very funny or horrific. It has some unusual lore (not a bad thing) and some ridiculous lore – we are in a world where all vampires dress like Goths. Now I don’t have an issue with setting a vampire film in a Goth setting, but not every vampire would be Goth and certainly the “we’re doing it to hide in plain sight” line has no credibility.

All in all, this is not well shot or acted, but let’s take a look at it.

Sam Terry as Sebastian

After the credits we are in a suburban kitchen that also doubles up as an alchemy lab (itself consisting of about three glass containers). Alison (Caitlin Blanchard), chemist by day and alchemist by night, it would seem, seems less than shocked when a cloak and frilly-shirt wearing man, Sebastian (Sam Terry), appears in her kitchen – instead stating that he must be a vampire (because, cloak & frilly-shirt... one guesses). Rather than fear him, she asks for a sample of blood. She tests it but there is nothing unusual about it (though how she tests it so quickly is best ignored). She asks him to come back the next day, after he’s fed.

Ben Dixon as Bernard

Out in Norwich we are looking at terrible day-for-night shots. A couple of vampires – one called Bernard (Ben Dixon) – are discussing feeding choices and fear pheromones are mentioned. They focus on a young lad who eventually legs it straight into another couple of vampires, one being Perenelle (Henrietta Darcy), and they eat him. So, getting to the point... Perenelle is an alchemist and developed an elixir that allows her to create other vampires (there are also Old Bloods, ancients who can, we assume, make vampires when younger ones can’t – this isn’t explicitly explained).

'inside' a Goth club

Sebastian takes Alison to Perenelle’s coven as he thinks she can uncover the secret of the elixir – much to Perenelle’s chagrin, and obviously so. Meanwhile they are all being observed by Old Bloods who are going to decide whether to kill the younger vampires. Alison has a mortal friend, Lucy (Rachel McNally), who gets killed with no story impact whatsoever. Perenelle has a young girl who she will turn (plot about her drinking from the elixir without permission is not examined). Oh and Goth clubs are apparently outside (with disco lights) because paying for shooting in an actual club was apparently out of budget. Finally there is an inept vampire hunter, who fails to notice his girlfriend is a vampire and yet manages to spot a particularly stealthy Old Blood, overpower him and remove a fang with pliers.

post production fog

It isn’t worth examining the story any further – the unusual lore is around the alchemical source for some of the vampires. The ridiculous lore is around the gothic dress. The dialogue is poor and the sound pretty poor too. The delivery atrocious. A 300-year-old remembers the original Vandals (so no sense of history was apparent when the dialogue was written) and there are three musical montage moments that stifle pace so much as to be more than embarrassing. The day-for-night shots were inadequate, the adding of post-production fog just terrible. Not a lot more to say. 1 out of 10 is generous.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon UK