Ravenwolf Towers (feature) – review

Director: Charles Band

Release date: 2016

Contains Spoilers

Modern Full Moon features have been a tad more miss than hit, with plenty of recycling. This is recycled from a series of the same name – filmed as a TV series but only filming three of the initial 6 season run. This was based on those three episodes and I suggest probably runs as well as the series did (I’ve not watched it in serial form). The issue, of course, is that there is no conclusion being halfway through a series run. Beyond that this wasn’t badly shot and was a smorgasbord of ideas.

the clown

It starts, after photographed stills of the city in the past, with the sound of sex and a woman (Cody Renee Cameron, the Neon Demon & Verotika) having enthusiastic nookie with a fellow. We see this being viewed from the wardrobe and then she stops as she hears something. The fellow checks the cupboard, declares nothing there and is then violently grabbed from within. This is in room 1010 and the camera then moves to the door of 2012 where a clown looks out of the door – his presence in film is never explained.

George Appleby as Ivan

Jake (Evan Henderson, Mur-pire) has arrived to work at the hotel and the manager, a gruff old fella, gives him the lowdown, along with a hard time. He warns him about floor 11. It can only be reached by key, is owned by a single family and he should only go up if summoned. As they speak a man comes in, Ivan Ivanoff (George Appleby), and requests a room. As he is later revealed to be a vampire hunter and he is a little person I did wonder whether he was meant to be the Ivan character from the Decadent Evil films? He pays cash to avoid formalities and, in his room, we see him with goggles that glow green and show him ghosts (as in the energy recorded moment of death).

the twins

We cut to floor 11 and Mabel (Maria Olsen, Folklore, Painkillers, There’s No Such Things as Vampires, Beneath Us All & Danni and the Vampire) is feeding the bed-ridden Daddy (Arthur Roberts, Not of the Earth, Countess Dracula’s Orgy of Blood & the Lair Season 1) who, for his part, dislikes the food and is unimpressed with his daughter. Her twin children (black matted hair and misshapen teeth) come in and speak in their own gibberish language, which she understands. Her other son, Samson (Nihilist Gelo) is missing. She finds him and he is deformed but huge and has the arm, ripped off the fellow at the beginning. They go to the room, via the wardrobe, and grab the woman who is cowering behind the bed. Mabel refers to them as sacrifices.

mummified

Jake gets a call from a Doctor Lorca (Michael Citriniti) – a reprised character from the Full Moon features Hideous! and Demonic Toys: Personal Demons – complaining that there is a leak coming from the 11th floor and almost hitting a device he has running. Jake goes upstairs, fixes a pipe and then sees a woman, Mary (Shiloh Creveling), asking for help but begging for the police not to be called. Jake carries her out. Elsewhere on the floor Mabel has mummified a woman and an implement draws out her blood and (its not clear but seems to) convert it to lifeforce. They call this lifeforce Agua (or so it sounded like, though this is Spanish for water) and she distributes it to the children and Daddy in a dropper.

three generations

So this is our vampirism – Ivan later suggests he thought the missing people connected to the hotel were the victim of vampires, but it is something else instead. This refers to traditional vampires, of course, but the family are very much kept alive by the victims' lifeforce. Jake falls for Mary but it becomes readily apparent that she is manipulating him and the ring leader. She was a silent movie star, Daddy is her husband (she can keep him alive through Agua but not maintain his youth – how she has managed the latter for herself is not explained), Mabel is her daughter and the family (that we see, it is implied there are others) are her grandchildren. She is working towards a powerful sacrifice (presumably involving Jake, though we never discover that) and seems to have powers – she can silence a person with a gesture and draw the Agua from someone (as she does with Samson as a punishment for killing the fellow at the beginning).

Evan Henderson as Jake

So there is a veritable kitchen sink of ideas here but more unanswered questions than answered because of the premature ending of the series. There is the energy vampirism, of course, but also the vampire hunter (the film sets up the idea that he must be funded by a benefactor but the identity is not discovered) and he has a crate of vampire killing implements. There was a definite aim to be off-kilter – for instance, the ability to move between rooms through wardrobes and the clown. Lorca has a living doll in his room in the form of a German soldier, who has apparently stuck his helmet spike in someone. However, as a film, this is unsatisfying as it never concludes (and likely never will). But for effort and sheer strangeness 4 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Full Moon via Amazon UK