Directed by David Rose and released in 2011, this short film comes in at around the 20-minute mark and takes a comedic look at the vampire.
Out on the streets of London a gaunt and ghastly character (Tim Dry) is selling a magazine called Top Issues (a riff on the magazine the Big Issue, which is a magazine that is produced for homeless people to sell and gain the opportunity to earn a legitimate income – a UK project it now operates in several countries around the world).
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| selling hot issues |
A group of youths go by and one lunges with vampire teeth that he then removes – noting that he has quite the Edward look about him. They are going to the vampire ball and, not really listening to the remonstrations that he is an actual vampire, suggest the seller goes along with them. At the party he tries, a couple of times, to eye mojo young ladies and fails – though his eye mojo has to be accompanied by a verse starting, “This is the night, most glorious night…” the (telepathic) verse never seems to get further.
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| Rula Lenska as Fairy Mother |
Meanwhile, in the faery ring Melanie (Sophie Sumner) has displeased the Fairy Mother (Rula Lenska) due to reasons unknown. She is stripped of her wand and banished to the mortal realm until she is able to perform 99 good deeds… she argues and it goes up to 100 (and just one big good deed instead won’t cut it). Before she leaves, she cons another faery out of her wand. She emerges in the human realm at the vampire ball.
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| hands |
She meets the seller and asks his name – he says his father calls him son, when asked what his friends call him, he is confused by the question (and thus appears in the credits as Son). Asked where his fangs are he says they only appear when aroused, and when invited to become aroused he does the eye mojo thing and recites the full verse – it looks as though Melanie is caught in his spell and acts as though somnambulating, he follows with his hands positioned just so…
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| Melanie and Son |
In a room, he goes for the bite but his fangs fail to show and Melanie has an idea. As he is the last vampire, she returns to the faery ring and asks whether saving an endangered species would cover her good deed debt… so long as it isn’t spiders or rats then Fairy Mother thinks it will. Thus begins Melanie’s quest to get Son to bite someone… this includes auditioning for the romantic vampire film The Gloaning. Can he become toothsomely aroused? Can she pay of her good deed debt? There are some lowbrow jokes (quite a few in fact) but they have the seaside postcard attitude and are thus pretty amusing, plus Dry and Sumner riff off each other well and this short is worth catching.
The imdb page is here.
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