Bloodsucka Jones vs. The Creeping Death – review

Director: Justin Armao

Release date: 2020

Contains spoilers


Before I get into the review, a public service announcement. I really was rather taken by the first Bloodsucka Jones film. It wasn't perfect, perhaps, but I was so taken by it that I crowdsourced this sequel – not for a huge amount of money, but enough to get the digital version on release. Time passed and I forgot about the film… Then I thought about it recently and wondered why I had heard nothing. I went to the funding page to realise that the film had been completed some time ago and perks given…

Jessica Dercks as Christine

I contacted the filmmakers, through the funding page and then through their Facebook Page. They replied via Facebook straight away. It turns out that they have not been getting messages through the funding page and couldn’t get all their backer details. They have bent over backwards to sort me out and if you did back the film and didn’t see your perk then contact them through Facebook – there was no malice and they will help.

zombies

The beginning is so very eighties with a young lady fixing her roller blades and Walkman. She takes off down the street when something piles into her… zombies… suddenly she is down and mobbed. We see a car pull into frame, in it Bloodsucka Jones (Preston Gant) and his (almost) silent sidekick Vanessa (Maria Canapino). They look across at the attack and we see one of the zombies look up, green lightning in her eyes. The car backs slowly away, out of shot.

good health insurance

The film gives newcomers a handy guide to the last film and then we are at the hospital were human protagonist of the last film, David (Justin Armao), and ‘vampire’ antagonist Stewart (Matt Kelly) are recuperating from the events previously told. Except… well Stewart discovers that he is no longer a vampire, he lost all his blood in the event and had a full transfusion (reminiscent of the cure in Near Dark). David has good health insurance and is nursed by three glamour nurses. Stewart is tortured by his health care team.

sucking from a blood pack

Stewart is sent a chemistry kit and visited by sidekick Kenny (William Cutting), who sucks on Stewart’s blood pack. Stewart ends up making chocolate pudding for the hospital, prior to discharge, and putting a green concoction prepared from the chemistry kit into the dessert. This, of course, is the thing that creates the zombies. David, when home, is back with Christine (Jessica Dercks) and is struggling with intimacy with the vampire – not helped when she pulls fangs on him. He suspects Stewart is up to something and goes to enlist help from vampire hunter Tony but ends up with his brother Timmy (Brian Girard). When they realise the danger is real they find Vanessa and she goes and gets Bloodsucka Jones.

meditation chamber

The scene of her getting Jones, wonderfully rips off the Empire Strikes Back and Vader’s meditation chamber… but the chamber is an Afro, which opens, and then we see the bald, scarred head of Jones and his Afro lowered onto it. We get a flashback story to this later. It is also noticeable that Preston Gant is sporting natural facial hair in this film – comment is made about the missing false ‘tache in dialogue. The film goes on to have Stewart struggling to control his easily distracted zombies (or Kennies as he calls them), and the heroes looking to get sidekicks for David and Timmy and thwart Stewart's plans. The plot in this episode is thin, eschewed for more comedy sequences.

Preston Gant as Bloodsucka Jones

This is no bad thing. When I reviewed the first film I said, about the comedy, “most of the cast is quite inexperienced and I think they struggle with the comic timing”. This is not the case here, and the core cast feel much more comfortable with comic timing and confident within their scenes. Preston Gant slips naturally into his role and is an absolute pleasure to watch. I did find the first film funny, but I definitely found the humour this time around that bit more entertaining. I will say there is a distinct lack of vampirism in the film. Christine is pretty much side-lined, Stewart is an ex-vampire, and other than flashing fang and the occasional apparent strength Kenny does little that might be called vampiric, but his presence through the film ensures that this is a vampire movie still.

Romeo and French Fries

I really enjoyed this, the cast seemed to be having fun, the photography was professional and the jokes worked for me. There might have been a little more narrative plot, but it didn’t suffer without and managed to build an opening for a third film. Bloodsucka Jones himself is a great character. I also have to give a shout-out to the characters Romeo (Evan Mack) and French Fries (Dione Kuraoka), who were simply marvellous. 7 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Blu-Ray @ Amazon US