Vampfather – review

Director: Stuart Paul

Release date: 2022

Contains spoilers

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear… I kind of knew when this was released as a Walmart exclusive, it just didn’t bode well. On the other hand, it implied that it starred the incomparable Danny Trejo and he loomed large on the cover. Now Danny, I blooming love, but he does have a habit of appearing in films for 5-minutes, lifting it for the 5-minutes no matter how bad the rest of the vehicle, and then disappearing again. Well… he’s in this for a very short part of the running time and whether it is the director or the editor who is to blame, they really tried to undermine that part of the film!

Luna Rioumina as Brandusa

The film starts with a narration and it might seem a bit personal, but they managed to get the worst voiceover in the world. Anyway, the voice tells us that vampires are things of legends, but are real and when thirsty any throat will do before they vanish back into legend. Then we see a hearse with Brandusa (Luna Rioumina) led in the back. When the hearse stops (outside a castle and I’ll come back to that) she refuses to pay the driver – so it seems it’s a hearse taxi.

Danny Trejo as the Vampfather

She enters the castle – now the castle is composed of graphic cgi exteriors that don’t fit with the urban surroundings and cgi interiors that don’t gel with the physical interior sets. She approaches the Vampfather (Danny Trejo) and here we get the editing undermining of the scene. There seems to be fast cuts to different angles in a sedate scene, bouncing from angle to angle drunkenly. It is simply bad editing. Anyway, Vampfather didn't answer the door as he is conserving his energy as they are all dying but, once Grigore (Marcus Shirock, Angel) arrives, he congratulates them that after 6000-years they’ve learnt to open a door!

the vampires

Once Daciana (Vanessa von Schwarz) and Nikolai (Jared McClure) are present we get the background story that the vampires can no longer feed as the human blood will kill them. Why? Not because of the amount of impurities now in blood as other vehicles have suggested but because we are too pure – having chosen kindness. Frankly, this is a laughable premise (I mean, just switch on the news) and, clearly, we’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto. Perhaps I got the concept wrong… well Brandusa starts talking about the Jewish treasure she has hidden, taken from Nazis who were delicious because of how corrupt they were. This shows I got the concept right and, apparently, in this version of the world we’ve collectively gone good.

self staking

Anyway, after some prancing about after a map to the treasure that Daciana draws, Vampfather gives them all a stake as it is the honourable way out. Cut forward and Sahsa (Alix Villaret, V for Vengeance) comes in late and finds the staked bodies – bar Grigore, who rears up so she stakes him. She gets the last stake and tries to kill herself but it keeps breaking. She is the one who always wanted to be human.

Julia Conley as Chérie

So we get a hodgepodge of scenes that follow, with her and her work colleague Chérie (Julia Conley) going to a Halloween party where everyone is dressed as a vampire and the two women start to kiss until Sasha pushes away as she might want to consume Chérie and the film subsequently tracks their 'will they, won’t they'. Also, we see her consulting Dr Blood (Stan Harrington) who says she is the closest in vampires to being human and a dietary choice would help, and then going to psychiatrist Dr. Oomious – Tom Sizemore slumming a scene and phoning it in – who refuses to treat her. We also get murders of a couple of people in Sahsa’s life and her worrying she’s blacking out and feeding, plus a couple of cops (one who keeps stakes in his garden and the other who asks Sasha on a date).

murder scene

The trouble is, it doesn’t move like a cohesive narrative – rather it feels like scenes thrown together almost randomly that comes to a conclusion (around the Jewish treasure and the murderer) that you neither care about nor make for a satisfying finale. It seemed that there was an attempt to make this comedic, at times, but I wasn’t laughing. There is a coda at the end, which I won’t spoil but will mention the piece of lore that comes out… which is a vampire who bites their own neck can become human (...just don’t). There isn’t a strong performance throughout, even the normally reliable Danny Trejo seemed to phone it in, and the pressure on Alix Villaret to carry the vehicle seems misplaced. All in all, a poor piece. 2 out of 10 is generous but, despite it all, I still have to boost the score if Danny is in the film.

The imdb page is here.

On Blu-Ray @ Amazon US

On Blu-Ray @ Amazon UK