Blood Lust – review

Director: Christopher McCleod

Release date: 2023

Contains spoilers

I have used the title of this as listed on Amazon Prime Video, but the IMDb page names the film Blood Thirst and the actual title screen does the same. Obviously, both titles are ones that have been used in the vampire genre before. The spelling of the director's surname is from IMDb, the actual film credit lists the director as Christopher McLeod.

This is a fairly short (71 mins) feature that was actually rather engaging. I thought it needed extra – length for character building mostly – and it had its flaws but did quite well for a budget piece.

baring fangs

It starts with a cityscape and then, in a parking lot, we see a car on its own in the centre of the lot. Approaching it is a woman in scrubs, Vanessa (Lindsey Mitchell). As she gets there a couple of guys start hassling her but they have picked on the wrong woman. She fights them off, hissing and baring fangs. She breaks the neck of one and feeds on the other and then, calmly, gets trash bags out of her car. We see her drive away and fly tip the bags, then go to a garage, wash blood off her car and, when driving home, lick blood from her hand (that was a detail I disliked, given she had just washed the car with a high-power water hose and, even if it hadn’t washed away, it would have dried. It felt like a short hand moment but one we didn’t actually need).

Vanessa and Layla

The film cuts back in 1968 and a car picks up a hitchhiker (who clearly is Vanessa). The driver is Layla (Dorothy Hadley Joly), who tries to engage the young woman in conversation and then gives her an apple. We then see Vanessa asleep in the car and Layla attacking her and feeding. I did like the way that Layla is drawn as a 60s housewife in style, rather than being given a more genre stereotypical look and I liked how the style persisted into the present when we see her in the primary timeline. Cut to the present and another person, Bento (Sky Crystal), ditches trash bags in the same spot that Vanessa used. Vanessa gets home, her neighbour, Walker (Tim Michael Schmidt), sees her get home and notices the blood on her scrubs. He is a cop and seems worse for wear but gets a call and heads out.

Sky Crystal as Bento

Back to 1969 and Vanessa and Layla pick up a hitchhiker and Vanessa feeds on him. Layla congratulates her and mentions the next time (I did wonder at the intervening time and what had gone on between the end of 1968 and 1969). Vanessa denies there will be a next time, calls the vampirism a curse and Layla determines to abandon the ungrateful vampire. In the present, Bento carves at a teeth mould, whilst someone screams in the background. The cops are at the fly tipping spot and have decided there are at least three dismembered bodies. Walker arrives and he and his detective colleague spot Bento driving away, he has been sat watching, but put him down as a lookie-loo.

Tim Michael Schmidt as Walker

So, Vanessa works in a blood bank and gets herself blood from there. Walker visits her concerned because he saw the blood on her scrubs and is told that the blood came from a bag that exploded. She later visits him with wine. Bento works in a comic book store, opportunistically takes victims and whilst he mentions an iron deficiency does admit he simply likes the taste of blood. Coincidence has him follow Vanessa and then become very interested when she tries to scare him off by baring fangs. They all converge in the middle, as it were.

victim of a serial killer

The issue I had was mostly around the scripting. There were loose moments with chronology (such as Bento seen at home and then the next minute watching the crime scene – whilst it is time feasible, there is some strengthening of the relay of the passage of time needed). There was also a need, for me, to spend longer exploring the characters and the film felt like it was too short to allow proper character study. A moment when Vanessa’s first victim returns – as a memory or ghost – was not exploited as well as it might have been. On the other hand, I was engaged by the film, I found Lindsey Mitchell’s performance believable and appealing. I don’t know if it was the mannerisms or simply the look with the moustache but I could almost see Bento being played by Elijah Wood. Sky Crystal did well with what was there but the character needed expanding on and he needed more to do with the character and dialogue such as him being referred to as a ‘big one’ when he seemed slight in stature didn’t help. Nevertheless, as mentioned, I was engaged and I thought the photography was particularly good for a budget indie. 5.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK