Danni and the Vampire – review

Director: Max Werkmeister

Release date: 2020

Contains spoilers

I love it when this happens – I’d forgotten about hearing of this one before it appeared on Amazon Prime Video and, having watched the trailer, it looked fun enough. I watched it and discovered a great, madcap comedy that whilst it did have a romance at the heart, never descended into saccharine or anything like romantic comedy. In short it really stood out and I thoroughly enjoyed myself whilst watching it.

lacking afterglow

Danni (Alexandra Landau) is in her car, looking at maps that have followed her wandering. She takes off and ends up at a seedy bar that advertises Seedy Cindy performing. A guy, Matthew (Derek Ocampo), buys her a drink and eventually they leave together. We see the aftermath of the sex, he in bondage gear, surprised that she had all the gear with her in the car, her nonplussed by the lack of impact of the activity… that is until she gets up for a drink.

crypto research

Going into his kitchen area she sees cryptozoology papers and a file on her. He knew who she was and he calls her the Devil Slayer as Danni is thought to have killed the Jersey Devil. He is part of an organisation called CRIES, who monitor and detain supernatural threats. They have caught a vampire (Henry Kiely), he says, and he is due to go on trial but Matthew is part of a faction who believe there should be no trial, that a murderous vampire should just be killed. He wanted to recruit Danni to help the faction – she leaves.

captured Remy

She finds herself followed by a car and, having not lost the tail, she pulls over and confronts the driver. That driver is Posey (Lauren Reeder) and she says she is part of a rival group, #supnat, who want to preserve and save supernatural creatures. They have worked out (given the lack of remains) that Danni didn’t kill the Jersey Devil but let it go. She has also, rightly, worked out that Danni is trying to fill a fulfilment hole that the satisfaction of freeing the Devil has left. Remy, the vampire, is no killer, she says and successfully recruits Danni to infiltrate CRIES and free Remy.

escaping

Danni does just that and releases Remy – who goes on a bloody killing spree during his escape, killing all the members of CRIES bar Kaine (Scott Vermeire). The sight of Remy and Danni in her car, him blood-soaked, them bopping and the sense of fun reflected in their faces and looks between the actors lets you know (if you hadn't already worked it out) that this film is special. So, Danni decides she needs to help Remy achieve life goals – the main being to set up a vampire refuge and so they set their eyes on taking over a remote church in the hills and, as the film progresses, they develop a friendship that leads to a romance. Meanwhile Posey and Kaine team up (after he confronts Posey, and her realising Remy is not the non-violent vampire, she believed him to be).

strike a pose

It is the leftfield characters of Remy and Danni that makes this work so very, very well (and the performances that bring the characters to life). We see this when Remy shows Danni how he remembers some victims by using taxidermy on body parts – turning a leg (say) into a puppet – and Danni loves it. Her moral compass is entirely skewed from that of regular folks and its brilliant for that but also, at heart, they are both loveable (if homicidal) characters. The sheer chemistry between Alexandra Landau and Henry Kiely is palpable, they genuinely feel like good friends and the resultant romance feels totally natural.

Remy fed

As for the lore, sunlight has an impact but nothing a big hat cannot deal with and AB neg blood is simply the most delicious. How the film deals with religion is unusual – when we meet another vampire, Zelda (Megan Therese Rippey), we see she has a cross shaped scar on her cheek but being in church does not bother the vampires. However, the way they can be killed is not by stake to the heart but by being stabbed by sharpened cross – it’s a strange combination around the impact of religious items but it works within the film’s internal logic. When a vampire is dying, they cough up blood (the vampire equivalent of a dying human defecating).

This is one I really recommend. 8 out of 10. The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK