Vamp or Not? Flesh Contagium

I would be interested to see the development timeline for this 2020 Italian flick, which was directed by Lorenzo Lepori, as the concept has a world devastated by a flu virus and the vaccine causing mutation amongst humans. It would be interesting to know whether development started pre-covid pandemic and how much the ensuing world events influenced the production. Certainly, the tiny cast can indicate both shooting within lockdown and/or the tiny budget that comes with the film. It is a short one, so doesn’t outstay its welcome, but has some strong themes, including rape. In fact, it reminded me somewhat of Amando de Ossorio’s Blind Dead series in that regard – though, of course, fifty years have passed in the intervening period. The film was brought to my attention by Leila as a potential ‘Vamp’ some time ago but it has only recently been viewed.

Executors

It starts with scenes of Udolfo (Pio Bisanti) and Vera (Simona Vannelli) sat playing piano together and skinny dipping in a pond – drawing a sketch of a couple in love. However, in this idyllic scene is a discordant moment when we see a human skull within undergrowth near the pond. Later we will get an explaining intertitle about the world we are in, the pandemic, vaccine and the Government sending out Executors to deal with the mutated threat, but for now...

murdered for food

...From a small building we hear gunfire. Helmut (Lorenzo Lepori) comes out of the building, brandishing a gun, seeming to drag Ornella (Shiri Binder) along with him (though it later becomes clear they are together, after a fashion). In the small stone structure is the person he has shot and a woman who clings to him – this is a robbery, and Helmut has stolen cans of food from them. The gunfire has attracted three men wearing yellow hazmat suits, their faces obscured by gas masks and carrying weapons (a shotgun and a machete for starters). They go into the structure and finish the murder – they are, we assume, Executioners.

Vera mutated

After a run in with the Executioners (and forcing Ornella to fight, using a machete and then, having not killed her target, picking up a shotgun to save Helmut), they reach a building and break in. Helmut leaves Ornella by a door as he explores the place. He finds a room with picked clean bones and a woman, she turns and we see her face is an unnatural grey (and also that it is Vera from the start). She stabs Helmut and then bites at his neck. Elsewhere Udolfo grabs Ornella, drags her to a room, chains her ankle and then rapes her. We later hear that he is the third man to rape her, the second was Helmut and she is pregnant.

Ornella and Udolfo

He explains their situation. The vaccine has mutated Vera and she now has a hunger for blood and flesh. Whilst she acts strangely, she is still capable of speech and seems sentient. Later we see him give her a blood bag and she complains that it is his blood and particularly wants Ornella’s blood. For Ornella’s part, after being raped a couple of times by Udolfo, she seems to offer herself willingly, even developing feelings for him – she helps him hunt prey (for blood) and even binds a wound whilst he is unconscious. Vera seems jealous of Ornella.

the creature in the shoulder

He also explains that Vera has procreated with him by biting his shoulder. This has caused a thing to grow on his back, mostly eyes and sharp teethed-mouth, though it is also developing claws. He feeds it blood and keeps it dormant through drugs injected into it. Ornella calls it a tumour but he believes it to be a separate creature growing upon him and eventually it does separate from his body. It is regarding both Vera’s feeding habits and the shoulder creature that we must look at whether this is ‘Vamp or Not?’.

drinking blood

With regards Vera, she has been changed by the vaccine and despite a look that might be a low budget zombie, she uses tools (the knife), can speak, reason, feel emotions and procreate (not by turning someone but by using them as an incubator for her spawn – a thing she seems to genuinely care for). Whilst she will eat flesh, it seems to be blood that is the main draw – the same for her offspring. These are definitely vampiric and, one would argue, ‘Vamp’. The film itself is low budget splatter with themes in it that will be triggering to some.

The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon UK