Bloody Johann – review

Director: Jakub Krumpoch

Release date: 2023

Contains spoilers

The connection between Faust and vampires is one that rears its head occasionally – with the earliest examples I can think of being 1856 (possible 1855) when Paul Féval connected Goethe’s volume to vampires in The Vampire Countess. This Czech film features the character Faust (Marek Holý) as an antagonist and, as we will see, a master of vampires and zombies.

The film starts with intertitles talking about the deal between Faust and Mephistopheles – who, in this, prefers to go by Mefisto (Jan Dolanský). It tells of how he controls Markéta – a note that she is named Margaret in the English subs I saw, is more often called Marguerite, and is not in Goethe’s story, even though it is mentioned in the film as a biography. Faust slaughtered her family and, in revenge, she murdered their child Helena (Martina Babisova) by drowning her. Markéta did not know Mefisto saved the child and both women were made immortal. There is a prophecy that Mefisto will return.

Martina Babisova as Helena

As the film proper starts we don’t see a winged demon, rather we see a blur where it should be. A taxi driver is phoning home, gets back in his cab and that something attacks him and possesses him – Mefisto has returned. Elsewhere Helena is in a bath, she dresses, puts on makeup and leaves her home – she is a skater girl. An old lady shops, we soon discover she is Markéta (Vera Janku), the local convenience store owner (Duy Anh Tran) helps her and she makes a crack about him not knowing how old she really is. We see, once she gets home, that she has telekinetic powers.

Faust's eyes

A teacher, Jana (Jana Bernásková), is called by her doctor husband, Martin (Roman Zach), as she takes kids to the Faust house. Helena catches up, she’s enrolled as a student. In the house they discuss Faust and Goethe’s novel when Helena starts hearing Mefisto whispering to her. She reaches out to a wall and her hand comes aways bloodied and her blood, that of Faust, releases the magician with an explosion. She (immortal) is unharmed, the class are dead and Jana is knocked down and dazed. Helena runs. The naked Faust, with eyes turned black, lifts Jana and kisses her, leaving her lips bloodied and telling her that she will live on blood. She leaves the house dazed and Martin intercepts her (the House is close to the hospital).

vampires

So, the film then follows Jana as she turns, tracking Helena and Markéta until they meet, and chronicling Faust's antics. Faust steals clothes from youths – ala the Terminator but the film doesn’t show us what he does to them – and then goes into a strip club/brothel with two prostitutes, turns them with a kiss and sets them against the employees and customers. All those they kill become what can only be described as zombies with eye shine who are puppeted by Faust. He builds an army and is found by Jana – after she murders a neighbour, his baby and stabs Martin in the leg.

Markéta's gills

Before they accidentally meet, Helena and Markéta both feed – as it turns out they are both energy vampires. Helena kills a drunk woman and Markéta a girl who robs the convenience store. The vampirism draws the victim's energy/life-force out and they absorb it through gills on their necks. The act makes Markéta younger – played by Lenka Vlasáková – though not Helena; the inference being that the daughter feeds more regularly. Faust’s goal is to kill Markéta for killing their daughter (he is unaware that Helena was saved) and then let lose an undead plague on the city (apparently as he has done before).

feed

The film works but it does have issues. Sometimes it feels like it is being prudish – not showing what Faust did to get his clothes, and all the bar attacks, after the attack on the brothel, are off screen. At others it becomes fairly gratuitous – some of the scenes of the attack in the brothel spring to mind. It seems to not make up its mind. Faust’s wish to attack the city with the undead is not explained, neither is Mefisto’s desire to have him return beyond the chaos he sows. The Jana and Martin section doesn’t overly have a satisfactory denouement. That said it was still watchable, 5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.