Blood Pay – review

Director: Brace Beltempo

Release date: 2025

Contains spoilers

Vampiric Machines are a lesser used vampire trope and, this has both a physical machine and the AI driving it.

It is set in a dystopia where AIs are taking human jobs and we get some news scenes outlining the background. Without this, the viewer would find it being dystopia a little less easy to spot, set as it is in a nice apartment and on a beautifully sunny coastline.

The apartment belongs to John (Gianluca Busani) and though he is successful (in real estate it seems) he is depressed. We first see him waking and then going for a walk. An old friend (possibly ex) approached him. Hilarie (Marta D'Ambrosio) has moved back into the area after a co-worker went missing and she was asked by the employer to return. She also has bought John a birthday present, he is about to turn 40, and makes it clear she wants more. She picks up on his down mood and he admits depression and that he is getting therapy. When he leaves her, he throws away the present.

Gianluca Busani as John

That he was pre-chosen for what happens could be suggested by him suffering sleep paralysis and seeing a woman crawl over him. Beyond this, we do get the impression that he is a lady’s man – sleeping with a client’s wife, previous liaisons with a woman who runs his gym, etc. He also feels suicidal (though he can’t go through with it). He sees an advert for the Blood Pay system and decides to buy it – missing the part of the advert where the owner kills himself with a remote control.

set up

He has to meet out in the dessert to take possession of the system (from a couple of thugs, one masked) and meets Eva (Maria Vittoria Varoli and voiced by Barbara Sirotti) when he sets it up. There is a control box that opens and contains an organic looking vagina and, once it is set up, to access many of the services – such as extreme pornography and snuff – he has to jack a needle into his arm and pay in blood – which goes into the box. Eventually Eva tells him he needs to pay the next subscription but the price is up and he ends up having to kill three people for their blood…

giving payment

And this is part of the problem. This escalated quickly, way too quickly. The kills could have been spread out to offer more tension. The system records dreams and we see one of his and it is neatly weird but it absolutely shies from showing any of the services he is paying for. There is a line between what a film should show or leave to the viewer's imagination, this edged its bet so much that you see very little – even the kills (bar the last) are pretty tamely done.

Maria Vittoria Varoli as Eva

What the AI is up to is partly answered – she is bored and has eternity, However what she does with the blood and why she needs it isn’t answered but there is a commercial aspect revealed in an end credit sequence. It isn’t a spoiler to the main story and we see a Blood Pay establishment and a man go in and use an ATM – where you can deposit and withdraw blood. The man has black circled eyes and looks either tired, a junky or dead (a vampire perhaps?) and it wasn’t clear if he withdrew or deposited.

in a virtual world

This could have been really good, but it pulled some punches and escalated too quickly to build the tension. It might have revealed much more about the world they have created and what the AI wants the blood for, but more may eventually be revealed as it has a “to be continued…” Nevertheless, a vampiric AI is worth the entry fee. 4 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK