Vamp or Not? Don't Wake the Dead

This was a 2008 flick by Andreas Schnaas, who is known for his low budget, splatter filled madcap horrors. It was Leila who suggested to me that I could look at it as a ‘Vamp or Not?’ and pointed out its similarity to the Blind Dead films. Now if you haven’t seen the four original Blind Dead films they are a must (mostly, the third film does let the series down) for any fan of horror exploitation cinema and, in fact, I noted the vampire tropes that cropped up in the first two films. The idea that it might be along the lines of the Blind Dead was a deal maker.

Templar rises

That connection (though the term Blind Dead is not mentioned) is seen straight off the bat when we are told of Knights Templar in a Germania castle who are killed but lay a curse. Every 66 years, for one night, these Knights will rise and take their revenge and the only two things that can stop them are the morning sun and the Sword of Mecca.

calm before the storm

So, the film follows a couple of women shopping, they eventually stop for a drink and are met by a third and hurried to the coach that will take them all to Schloss Karnstein (so a connection to Carmilla) where they are helping a friend decorate/restore the Castle interior. A Motorbike sets off at the same time and in the same direction.

Lana and the portrait

Meanwhile, the friend, Lana (Sonja Kerskes), is trying to remove or cover the portrait of a Nazi officer, though creepy butler, Janowitz (Wolfgang Wobeto), argues that it is part of the castle’s history so should remain (and we cut to scenes of Nazi soldiers fighting against the Knights Templar and losing). Lana phones her friends in the (real) band Gang Loco who are meant to be coming to the castle also. Meanwhile the bike has tried to get the coach of ladies to turn back.

leader of the dead

So the bike rider is a (leather coat wearing, habit-less) monk called Vincent (Ralph Fellows) who does a blood ritual at the castle to awaken the Knights (and some Nazi zombies now on the Templars' side). Why? So he can destroy them, but the film doesn’t really explain why a blood ritual is needed when the curse is meant to awaken them anyway. Unfortunately, right at the beginning he manages to break the blade of the sword of Mecca. The dead kill the band members out on the road (and they reappear later, turned and playing a track at an undead party in the castle) and they lay siege to the castle looking to kill the women within.

fangs

Other potential vampire connections are a direct connection to Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires as Vincent suggests he hunted them (he is also a user of the flying guillotine and suggests that Wang Yu trained him in a reference to Jimmy Wang Yu and his film Master of the Flying Guillotine). The dead turn their victims ritualistically and one, in flashback, has fangs. Some seem shuffling and zombified but others seem sentient. We see one rip a victim’s heart out and then drink the blood from it. Vincent tells us that sunrise will melt the flesh off the deads’ bones (though when we see a newly turned in the sun’s rays the creature more explodes) but in response to the sunlight statement he is asked ‘like a vampire?’ and he responds that vampires and zombies are pretty much the same.

zombie girl

Therefore, I think it is clear that the filmmakers were just throwing the kitchen sink in. The vampire connections were deliberate (hence the seven golden vampires, which in turn is intertextually related to Dracula, and Carmilla references) but these are definitely more a hybrid, perhaps more correctly termed as zompires. The Blind Dead side is as much aesthetic as anything. This is definitely of genre interest, whether it is of casual viewer interest is really down to whether you want a take your brain out, gore film which wears its exploitation heritage on its sleeve.

The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon UK