There's No Such Thing as Vampires – review

Director: Logan Thomas

Release date: 2020

Contains spoilers

Director Logan Thomas was behind interesting vampire film the Yellow Wallpaper, which was wonderfully surreal in places but languidly paced. The same cannot be said of this, which has a much more urgent pace – though it does veer occasionally into surreality, which needed more exploring.

It is a horror road movie, something that feels very American to me, and owes a debt to films such as the Terminator (1984) and the Hitcher (1986). It starts with a montage including a man, Joshua (Josh Plasse), thrown backwards, a spray of blood hitting his naked shoulder, wind turbines and an RV.

the opening

As the film proper starts we see a sporty car pull up in a town and Joshua gets out – he has dried blood on him. He runs into a movie theatre and shouts for them to call the police and then runs into a screening of Nosferatu. A member of staff comes after him as he has not paid and locates him where he is hiding, threatening to call the police. Good – it is what he wants. However he soon realises his pursuer (Aric Cushing, the Yellow Wallpaper) is there (though we do not see him clearly). He calls for the patrons to get out or it will kill them all. Some are angry, some laugh at him. He runs, gets in his car and drives off.

the chase

In another, more utilitarian, car, Ariel (Emma Holzer) is driving cross-country to visit friends. She gets a call asking how long she’ll be and, having ended the call, suddenly finds herself being crashed into by Joshua. She goes to check on him and he asks if her car still runs. He gets in, accompanied by lightning in the distance, and she is arguing when he points out lights further down the road and heading towards them. When they reach them, they’ll die, he says. She gets in and he drives off but the top speed of her car is poor and the RV soon catches them.

Emma Holzer as Ariel

Joshua suddenly turns off the highway, losing the RV for a moment. She tells him stop and mentions being a hostage. He tells her that they are being pursued by a vampire and, of course, she doesn’t believe him. She feels sick and demands he stop the car and when he does there is a figure… Ariel can’t believe it, it is her mother. She goes out, calling for her, but Joshua warns she isn’t there – it is an image put in her head. She snaps out of it, believing him – her mother is dead. They eventually get to a town and pull up outside a bar called the Silver Bullet and call the police (who refer to it as a werewolf bar) and are waiting for them when the RV returns. They drive off again but seem to lose it… the sun is coming up.

friends

So, running out of gas and lost (due to no gps signal) Ariel takes them to a church, where a nun (Meg Foster, Shrunken Heads) – in a marvellously OTT performance – tells them that they are in the Valley of the Dark Wind. This is something that I wish had been explored more, a force, which comes at night and that has plagued the valley for millennia, the Native Americans appeased it with sacrifices and Christians saw it as the devil. Despite saying that it had drained all life from the area, the vampire is not the Dark Wind – though connected to it. The nun gives them gas and tells them how to get to Ariel’s friends' house, which is tantalisingly close.

the vampire

What we then get is a further cat and mouse, a reincarnation aspect, and an assault on a police station. The vampire, unfortunately, is rather monstrous looking when we get to see him. I say it's unfortunate because I thought the makeup effects were average and he looked a little too unreal. That said the action was fun, the pace worked and the performances were good enough for the vehicle – with Emma Holzer especially charming in a girl-next-door kind of way. There were mentions of a wider story that deserved expanding on and it did feel, overall, like a chapter 1. Whether the filmmakers want or intend to build a series is unknown as I write this.

Overall, a fun enough way to pass 80 minutes. 6 out of 10. The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK