Vamp or Not? Bingo Hell

This 2021 release was directed by Gigi Saul Guerrero for the Welcome to Blumhouse movie run that the production company were doing in association with Amazon. I watched it as the trailer looked fun, not expecting to do a ‘Vamp or Not?’ – and that aspect is a bit blink and miss at that.

The film is set in Oak Springs a rundown neighbourhood where businesses are selling up and people moving out. The hipsters are moving in and it is, of course, a cautionary tale about gentrification on one level – for a traditionally vampiric take on this try Vampires vs The Bronx. Before we meet the primary characters, we see Mario (David Jensen) dancing round his living room, he has a case full of money and tells a picture of his wife (who we discover later had recently lost her battle with cancer) that he loves her. He starts stuffing his face and we see it seems to be bingo balls he eats, there is plenty of green slime and he falls down dead.

Adriana Barraza as Lupita

We meet Lupita (Adriana Barraza, the Strain), a formidable, cigar smoking woman and she becomes our primary protagonist through the film. Through her we meet her friends; mechanic Clarence (Grover Coulson), Morris (Clayton Landey), Yolanda (Bertila Damas) and Dolores (L. Scott Caldwell). Lupita is devastated by the decline in the neighbourhood – a place we learn that she and Dolores had cleaned up of drug dealers and gangs years before. For the moment, however, they have bingo.

the vanity plate

When Lupita arrives at the Hall to set up she notices a fancy car with the vanity plate “B1G W1NN3R” but it quickly drives off. She steps on something and discovers a $100 dollar bill covered in green slime – that goes in her bag but she subsequently puts it in the Hall’s donation box. Mario, who runs the bingo hall, is missing of course – his keys left in the door. Lupita does the bingo calling and, once the game is won, she announces that the donation box funds will go to Yolanda to help with keeping her hair salon running. Before they are done the lights go out – as though Mario forgot to pay the electric.

Let's play bingo

The next day there are fliers for Mr Big$ Bingo. The hall has been taken over by Mr Big (Richard Brake) and Lupita is less than happy. Inside it is glossy, all flashing lights and flashier owner and its offering big prizes. There is a free play voucher but each player gets a dollar sign hand stamp (which seems to infect the hand). The first prize given is £10,000 and, over the next couple of nights that increases ever upwards. Winners die – they die horribly whilst they believe they’re happy. So, why the ‘Vamp or Not?’

surveying his kingdom

Well it centres on Mr Big – at best guess he seems to be some form of devil or demon (we’re never told) and he is after souls but, importantly, he states that he seeks “All the desperate souls… We feed off them.” Later he reiterates that, after manipulating the system so desperate souls need him, “…we feed off ‘em”. It is only two lines but important enough to repeat and this creature – whatever he is – feeds on souls and that makes him vampiric.

bleeding green slime

Interestingly, the money he gives seems to melt into green slime after a while and he also seems to bleed said slime. He is connected to the money and, therefore, when a whole bunch of it is burnt it actually seems to cause him pain, causing him to whimper and protest the destruction of the money. It is as though they are connected, somehow it is his essence – and we can see a similar situation in Dracula, where Harker cuts at the Count, catches his coat and he seems to bleed money: “the trenchant blade had shorn through his coat, making a wide gap whence a bundle of bank notes and a stream of gold fell out.” Coincidental, I’m sure, but an interesting intertextual connection nonetheless.

L. Scott Caldwell as Dolores

The film itself was fun and I wasn’t bored for the running length – this was driven by the powerhouse characters of Lupita and Dolores, especially the former but also helped in great part by Richard Brake’s suitably OTT performance as Mr Big. However, a fun film isn’t automatically a great film nor one worth repeat watches, and the jury is out on that one. 

shotgun Lupita

In honesty, it actually felt to me that the film wanted to emulate some of Rob Zombie’s oeuvre but that might also have been because of Brake’s presence, as Zombie has used his presence and acting chops to great effect a couple of times. Unfortunately, this lacked a certain je ne sais quoi that would have pushed it into that arena of genre film but enjoyable enough nonetheless and, with the consumption of desperate souls, certainly vampiric.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK