Its difficult to tell where this Brazilian film, which is viewable on Netflix, was pitched. It is certainly a comedy but it felt like it tried to be a family comedy – thus the gore aspects are low – but concentrating on an adult character and side-lining the child, or making the teens supporting but not centre, felt a bit of a move from that. Nevertheless, it was pretty effective at what it was doing, despite a major flaw with the main character.
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| podcast |
Fernandinho (Leandro Hassum) is a retired footballer who presents a podcast with his two cohorts Chicão (Antônio Fragoso) and Claudionor (Eliezer Motta), with teen Ameba (Caio Mendonça) behind the scenes. Fernandinho is a controversial figure as he missed an easy open goal in an important final – he claims a mosquito flew up his nose but many accuse him of deliberately throwing the game. Now here is the problem, as well performed as the character is by Leandro Hassum, and despite the film showing a character growth, the character isn’t particularly likeable. To a degree I was reminded of the character Carl Black from the
Meet the Blacks films.
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| poster |
Nevertheless, after the podcast there is a party (who for, isn’t actually said, but I suspect his wife, Vanessa (Monique Alfradique)). His youngest daughter, Monica (Maria Flor Franco), feels let down as he had promised a celebrity would attend, who has not. He goes to try and get his daughter from his first marriage, Carol (Mel Maia), to come down. She used to be Daddy’s little girl but now barely communicates with him – there is an indication of the generation gap when he complains about an Anime poster she has up, lamenting the loss of the Dora the Explorer poster and not understanding that the fiercely demonic looking character is the good guy of the series.
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| arrival |
During the party there is a visitor and Fernandinho goes to the door. At the door is a man, his face hidden by a hood. When he pulls the hood back he is revealed as Greg (Romulo Arantes Neto), Vanessa’s brother who they haven’t heard from in five years. He insists on being invited in – and so we know as the viewer what Greg now is. His rucksack, Fernandinho discovers, is incredibly heavy (later he realised there was a fold-up coffin in it). Greg tells his sister he has been backpacking around the world, but specifically mentions Romania, and he asks whether he can stay for a few days – which becomes a couple of months.
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| grabbing the bat |
Fernandinho generally resents his brother-in-law but eventually realises that he is a vampire. He has a comedic/slapstick tussle with a bat that gets in the house, which is clearly Greg – indeed there are plenty of crap bat moments in this. He checks out Greg’s room and detects a strange odour, discovers he has added blackout cloth to, and boarded, the windows and finds an odd pendent. Meanwhile a strange plague of, mainly, women developing anaemia is on the news. It is when he follows Greg to a club that he categorically discovers the truth but also bumps into Michele (Renata Bras), his ex and Carol’s mother, with whom there is no love lost but who he tries to protect from Greg. He has seen Greg feeding on a woman and managed to catch it on phone but (of course) Greg does not show in the footage.
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| Edson Celulari as Drax |
The film does play with a lot of lore, most works but some does not. Ameba tells Fernandinho that there are two types of vampires; Scouts and Alphas. The former prepare the way for the latter. Greg is a Scout, preparing for Drax (Edson Celulari) AKA Dracula, who has world domination plans (and claims to have conquered the North already). Sunlight destroys and so Fernandinho is confused when Greg appears and uses the pool (normally he sleeps till dusk). What we discover is that he is wearing a full body rubber/latex suit – but that didn’t really work for me, just in that, though he looked perhaps a tad redder, one would think it would be obvious (to touch if not to vision). They do not film or reflect and they can turn into bats, of course.
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| killing a vampire |
A cross will ward but only when wielded with faith. In this any faith will do – and so there is Fernandinho’s faith in his football club Vasco. Stakes (or wooden crossbow bolts) and holy water must be blessed by a priest from the Catholic Apostolic church – exclusively, one feels, for a plot point of going to the wrong church and their weapons not working. Alternatively coating the wood of the stake/bolt with some virgin’s blood also works (as a symbol of purity) but only from a female virgin (this turns a common vampiric obsession on its head). Drax has two Nosferatu bodyguards. If the Alpha vampire is killed then the others become human again, without exception it seems and without memory of what occurred when a vampire.
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| undercover cosplay |
The film kept me watching, that needs to be said as does the fact that Leandro Hassum turned in a fine performance and utilised good comedic timing – my issue with the Fernandinho character was in the writing of the character rather than the performance. The dislikeable aspects of the character were not enough to make me not want to watch the film. There are various vampire properties being watched through the film and a couple of nods to the 1992
Dracula firstly in a violent shadow play moment between Greg and Fernandinho as they talk and then when Fernandinho dresses like old Dracula when he, Carol and Ameba look to infiltrate the vampire lair.
6 out of 10.
The imdb page is
here.
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