Pandemic Thirst – review

Director: Chris Woods

Release date: 2022

Contains spoilers

The Covid-19 Pandemic impacted all our lives, in one way or another, and so it is logical that it would also impact movies. More so for the vampire genre. As a metaphor for disease, anyway, the vampire could naturally be used to represent societal anxiety about the virus but, also, it seems to be a natural narrative route to contemplate how the virus might have affected the vampire.

We have had a couple of films here already. Short films Online Order and Open Up examine the impact of lockdown on the vampire, and the feature Vampirus uses the pandemic as a backdrop. This film actually actively uses the virus as part of the plot.

the woman and Willow

To start off, however, I have to note that the film is certainly one done on a budget and the cracks therefore show but I did surprise myself by thinking the film also had more heart than I expected. It starts with the sound of pandemic newscasts and then a voiceover (reading an intertitle) that talks about Covid-19 and the impact it has on another breed – beyond humans. The camera then shows us a young woman, wearing a mask and pulling a suitcase.

attack

She is accosted by a homeless guy and tries to get away, subsequently bumping physically into another woman, Willow (Sushii Xhyvette Holder). Looking round for the homeless guy, he seems to have gone and the two get talking. Willow observes that the other seems to be travelling and she says that she is heading West. Willow is headed to the open spaces of Texas, she says, and the two decide to travel together and go to the already checked in motel room. In there they talk for a while, Willow mentioning horror movies, which the other is not keen on. Eventually Willow unmasks and bears fangs, attacking the other. After the first bite, Willow strips – I assume because blood – why she strips the other would seem to be because titillation.

coming down with covid

Elsewhere and Cynthia (Lixy Lestat) and Sarah (Katie McKinley) are lovers and we get a bedroom scene that, oddly, interjected a man, Harry (Anthony Wayne, Joe Vampire). At first I thought he was watching them, then he exhibited violence against them but it all seemed to be context but not real. Harry is sending the pair out to get drugs from Mexico. Sarah is his wife, we hear later, and she and Cynthia have cooked up a plot to steal from him and head North. Sarah sends Cynthia North as part of the plan but as she drives she begins to feel unwell – she has caught covid-19. She manages to get to a hotel.

Cynthia as a vampire

In the meantime, we have seen Willow prey on a trucker (and bite his willy off). Cynthia, having checked in, goes to her car to get her stuff and bumping into Willow on the return faints. Off screen, Willow carries the girl to her room and puts her to bed. Then she strips herself , removes her blonde wig and bites Cynthia… When Cynthia awakens she is freaked out but the virus has gone as she is a vampire – Willow unable to exactly say why she purposefully turned her (though later it is said that she must really have liked her). However, after they lure Cynthia’s first kill back to the room and get her past Cynthia's reluctance to kill, Willow vomits blood and becomes ill herself.

new breed

Vampires are not meant to get sick but this is a new virus (for a similar idea of a virus suddenly impacting the undead see the low budget Requiem for a Vampire, which used HIV/AIDS) and the dialogue does question whether this one was made in a lab (but doesn’t dwell on it). However there is always the possibility that it is making her something new (again, changing a vampire through disease was done using Mad Cow Disease in the Dead Undead and by genetic manipulation to become a new breed of vampire that feeds on the undead was at the heart of Blade 2). As well as this, there is also the plot against Harry that needs resolving, where everything isn’t quite as it seems.

supreme vampire

There is flesh on show here really for the sake of it, pushing this into an exploitation space, and plenty of gore, which is surprisingly well done at times. The dialogue isn’t the greatest and the delivery has its roots in budget filmmaking. The sets also betray the budget, being limited in scope. However, I did get the sense that there was a huge amount of heart here and that counts for a lot. At 64 minutes it really doesn’t outstay its welcome. I see a low budget sexploitation that aspires to be more than its budget would suggest. 4 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK