Director: Roxy Shih
Release date: 2018
Contains spoilers
A take on the vampire genre that pushes it to being a psychological disorder, this one might pass the uninitiated by. Under the hood it is a morality play about addiction but perhaps does not go far enough into its own darkness to explore that meaningfully – laying the simile on thick but not allowing the primary protagonist enough rope to walk the character to the gallows, as it were.
It starts with a scene outside a warehouse club. We get a couple kissing and then we see a woman (Mischa Barton) leave the club and start talking to a friend on the phone, wondering where they are. As she walks down the road a woman, Carla Franken (Maria Olsen, Folklore), approaches her asking for help. Carla then, catching the woman off guard, attacks her, cutting her wrist and starting to drink the blood from the wound.
We move to an idyllic moment; a father, John (Adam Huss, Demon Slayer), is playing soccer with his son Brian (Tate Birchmore). Their play is interrupted by a phone call. Despite Brian’s protest they have to leave – John is a surgeon and on-call. As they drive John suggests that it is dark already and so they wouldn’t have been able to play much longer anyway. To distract his son, he plays a game of switching the headlights off for a few moments. He crashes – though not during the headlight game…
He awakens to see his wife Chloe (Madeline Zima, the Vampire Diaries) looking at him. He has been unconscious for two days. He asks about Brian and Chloe’s reaction tells him all he needs to know. He starts howling in anguish, the medical staff trying to give him painkillers as his body seems wracked in pain but they seem to have no effect. We see a montage of tests being performed but they cannot discover what the source of his pain is – except to say it seems to be an emotional/psychological reaction. Chloe (who was a nurse) mentions PTSD though this is dismissed as it doesn’t fit the symptoms.
The pain is utterly debilitating, causing him to shudder and shake constantly. At Brian's funeral he is approached by a man who introduces himself as Herb Morris (Grant Bowler, True Blood) – he has been told about John through a doctor contact and can help him. John dismisses him, but takes his card. Later, whilst trying to eat, he accidentally smashes a glass and cuts his hand… he licks the blood and something happens... later still he deliberately cuts himself and drinks the blood. Chloe finds him in the morning, blood at his mouth and an open wound. But he has stopped shaking – the pain has gone.
He goes to see Herb who tells him that he has a very rare type of PTSD that manifests in pain through the body (this is tied into guilt). Blood causes the pain to stop for a while but it has to be fresh human blood. Drinking your own blood only works the once. Ok so it is a strange mash up of psychiatry (in the PTSD) with the physical reaction to only a certain freshness and species of blood. The V word is mentioned and the myths (sunlight, garlic, mirrors etc) are dismissed. There is an interesting idea behind Herb’s story, who developed the condition during 9/11 (and thus the text can be read as the US collective response to that tragic event) but his lack of guilt at what he does to both victims and those he supplies belies the capacity for a guilt so expansive that it causes his condition (grief would be a better cause textually).
John tries to go it alone but is soon back with Herb. Of course, Herb is a dealer and needs to keep his junky hooked and compliant. His method of supplying fresh blood is morally reprehensible but he keeps the morality grey by preying on sexual offenders and other criminal types. The story follows John on his downward spiral and subsequent attempt at redemption, but he never seems to go as far, negatively, as one would expect when one looks at the way the tropes are normally played. It is by not going as dark as it might have done that this feels too safe in its story.
I did think that they might have looked to pull a cure out of the bag – after all this is a ptsd based on traumatic guilt, if he could learn to forgive himself (for what amounts to an accident, they didn’t crash when he was being an idiot with his headlights) then surely he could cure himself – but it doesn’t take this route. His path to redemption isn’t that steep because he never spiralled as low as he might, as I mentioned. By playing this too safe the film loses something and is not quite the horror or the thriller it tries to be. 5.5 out of 10.
The imdb page is here.
On Demand @ Amazon US
On Demand @ Amazon UK
Release date: 2018
Contains spoilers
A take on the vampire genre that pushes it to being a psychological disorder, this one might pass the uninitiated by. Under the hood it is a morality play about addiction but perhaps does not go far enough into its own darkness to explore that meaningfully – laying the simile on thick but not allowing the primary protagonist enough rope to walk the character to the gallows, as it were.
 |
| attack |
It starts with a scene outside a warehouse club. We get a couple kissing and then we see a woman (Mischa Barton) leave the club and start talking to a friend on the phone, wondering where they are. As she walks down the road a woman, Carla Franken (Maria Olsen, Folklore), approaches her asking for help. Carla then, catching the woman off guard, attacks her, cutting her wrist and starting to drink the blood from the wound.
 |
| halcyon days |
We move to an idyllic moment; a father, John (Adam Huss, Demon Slayer), is playing soccer with his son Brian (Tate Birchmore). Their play is interrupted by a phone call. Despite Brian’s protest they have to leave – John is a surgeon and on-call. As they drive John suggests that it is dark already and so they wouldn’t have been able to play much longer anyway. To distract his son, he plays a game of switching the headlights off for a few moments. He crashes – though not during the headlight game…
 |
| distressed Chloe |
He awakens to see his wife Chloe (Madeline Zima, the Vampire Diaries) looking at him. He has been unconscious for two days. He asks about Brian and Chloe’s reaction tells him all he needs to know. He starts howling in anguish, the medical staff trying to give him painkillers as his body seems wracked in pain but they seem to have no effect. We see a montage of tests being performed but they cannot discover what the source of his pain is – except to say it seems to be an emotional/psychological reaction. Chloe (who was a nurse) mentions PTSD though this is dismissed as it doesn’t fit the symptoms.
 |
| Adam Huss as John |
The pain is utterly debilitating, causing him to shudder and shake constantly. At Brian's funeral he is approached by a man who introduces himself as Herb Morris (Grant Bowler, True Blood) – he has been told about John through a doctor contact and can help him. John dismisses him, but takes his card. Later, whilst trying to eat, he accidentally smashes a glass and cuts his hand… he licks the blood and something happens... later still he deliberately cuts himself and drinks the blood. Chloe finds him in the morning, blood at his mouth and an open wound. But he has stopped shaking – the pain has gone.
 |
| Grant Bowler as Herb |
He goes to see Herb who tells him that he has a very rare type of PTSD that manifests in pain through the body (this is tied into guilt). Blood causes the pain to stop for a while but it has to be fresh human blood. Drinking your own blood only works the once. Ok so it is a strange mash up of psychiatry (in the PTSD) with the physical reaction to only a certain freshness and species of blood. The V word is mentioned and the myths (sunlight, garlic, mirrors etc) are dismissed. There is an interesting idea behind Herb’s story, who developed the condition during 9/11 (and thus the text can be read as the US collective response to that tragic event) but his lack of guilt at what he does to both victims and those he supplies belies the capacity for a guilt so expansive that it causes his condition (grief would be a better cause textually).
 |
| farming |
John tries to go it alone but is soon back with Herb. Of course, Herb is a dealer and needs to keep his junky hooked and compliant. His method of supplying fresh blood is morally reprehensible but he keeps the morality grey by preying on sexual offenders and other criminal types. The story follows John on his downward spiral and subsequent attempt at redemption, but he never seems to go as far, negatively, as one would expect when one looks at the way the tropes are normally played. It is by not going as dark as it might have done that this feels too safe in its story.
 |
| blood on lips |
I did think that they might have looked to pull a cure out of the bag – after all this is a ptsd based on traumatic guilt, if he could learn to forgive himself (for what amounts to an accident, they didn’t crash when he was being an idiot with his headlights) then surely he could cure himself – but it doesn’t take this route. His path to redemption isn’t that steep because he never spiralled as low as he might, as I mentioned. By playing this too safe the film loses something and is not quite the horror or the thriller it tries to be. 5.5 out of 10.
The imdb page is here.
On Demand @ Amazon US
On Demand @ Amazon UK
2 comments:
I enjoyed this film for the most part but totally agree with your overall assessment. I expected the main character to go down a much darker path (ala Midnight Son, if which this movie reminded me a bit sans the supernatural element) and was disappointed when that didn't happen. Which, as you've stated, causes the redemption arc to feel far less significant.
Overall though I enjoyed most of it. I'm a bit of a sucker for clinical vampirism stories.
Thanks for the comment - yeah, I think overall they played it that bit too safe. I can see where you are coming from re Midnight Son, though I felt that a much stronger vehicle
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