I caught Vesper at the 2022 Grimmfest and it was an unusual entry for the festival line-up as it really isn’t horror (whilst the tagline for the festival calls it a Festival of Fantastic Films, in honesty it is primarily a horror film festival), rather it is a science fiction film that tonally felt almost Russian but narratively was quite young-adult fare.
It was a 2022 release, directed by Kristina Buozyte and Bruno Samper, and is set in the new dark ages – a time of ecological disaster where mankind’s attempts to stave off ecological meltdown caused the disaster by spreading viruses that have wiped out large swathes of humans, all other animals (mostly, we do see caterpillars and bugs are still around) and wiped-out edible plants.
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| harvesting children's blood |
There are now the haves, who live in oligarch-controlled citadels, and have nots, everyone else. The film follows Vesper (Raffiella Chapman) who lives with her paralysed father (Richard Brake, Bingo Hell & The Munsters). Her father accompanies her and communicates through a floating scout-drone that his mind is linked to. Vesper is, apparently, a child prodigy who is trying to crack the genetic code on seeds sold by the citadel that are genetically locked to provide one harvest only.
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| plant on neck |
Herein lies the tropes that have led to this article. The first is a parasitic relationship between the citadels and the outside world. The citadel provides seeds (ensuring they are only good for one harvest) but in return they want blood – specifically child blood. The nearby farm run by Vesper’s uncle (Eddie Marsan) indulges in these trades and he keeps girls as breeders (and sees them as property we later hear). Though we do not directly hear what they want the blood for (or exactly why, especially as they are able to build replicant type biological creatures called Jugs as a slave workforce) but we do hear that inhabitants of the citadel look to try and live forever. It is not too much of a leap to suppose this is connected somehow.
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| plant on leg |
The other reason for the mention is in the flora we see. Visually the new plant life that has evolved (and/or been created) is one of the most visually interesting aspects of the film. Many of the new plants are dangerous and when a citadel flyer crashes, Vesper finds the passenger Camellia (Rosy McEwen) injured and being drained by plants at her leg and throat. That they are draining blood is not explicitly stated but visually implied and what these plants (clearly adapted with their suckers and tentacle-like appendages) feed on normally (or why they have adapted that way) given the lack of animals, we do not know. However, it feels like a vampiric plant and certainly offers that trope and that, as they say, is that – the rich literally draining the blood of the children of the poor and some apparently vampiric plants.
The imdb page is here.
On Demand @ Amazon US
On Demand @ Amazon UK
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