I wasn’t sure whether to ‘Vamp or Not?’ the 2022 war/horror flick WarHunt, but the vampiric aspect seemed too obvious, or even to review it. Partly to save the film’s blushes with a review and partly because the witches might be immortal – but their link to blood is third party – I decided to give this an honourable mention.
Director Mauro Borrelli’s film starts with an allied plane flying over the Black Forest, during the Second World War, with a passenger who is holding on to a case. A flock of birds seem to attack the plane, deliberately causing bird strike with an engine and smashing through the cockpit window. The plane crashes.
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| Jackson Rathbone as Walsh |
Major Johnson (Mickey Rourke) sends a team of men after the crash on a search and rescue, sending Walsh (Jackson Rathbone, Twilight and all its sequels) with them though they resent his presence. Soon they are in a patch of forest that defies navigation, whilst mysterious women appear and vanish and supernatural peril stalks them. The women are witches and the package that has been lost is a grimoire. However, it is towards the end of the film we need to look.
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| feeding warrior's blood |
Walsh and another are captured and they are due to be sacrificed to the Tree of Life, which drinks warriors’ blood. The blood causes the tree to bloom flower buds that sparkle with magic. One of these buds is removed by a witch and its long tendril is squeezed into an injured (or dead) witches mouth resuscitating her. It is the source of their immortality – but it is the tree itself that is vampiric, drinking the blood and its presence in the film is a fleeting one.
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| waking the witch |
We might argue that the witches are vampire/witches because of their reliance on the tree and the immortality it provides. When it is set on fire, they use their magic to manipulate the pool of warrior’s blood to douse the flames and save the tree. It isn’t the best film but it was distracting for an hour and a half – so long as you take it for what it is (unrealistic in all its war/real world aspects – cutting through a thick rope with a dog-tag in a matter of seconds seems less likely than the imagined magic).
The imdb page is here.
On Demand @ Amazon US
On Demand @ Amazon UK
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