Sangre Joven – review

Director: Rodolfo Palacios

Release day:2024

Contains spoilers

A Mexican film, the title of this translates into Young Blood and it is set in a world where vampires are a known entity and are becoming part of society. This has been helped by a synthetic blood replacement being produced and there are a couple of moments in the film where we hear this being referenced. It seems, however, that not all is good as the film opens with a woman wearing headphones who stops shocked as she finds a body – or at least a person, all we see is a lower leg, with the rest of the person off camera.

the criminals

This is one of the areas where the film does struggle – in its cinematography and directorial choices. For instance, the scene after the credits; in this we see Patricio (Aldo Lira) putting out tea and biscuits, he gets a call and we hear him asking about the package and the caller saying they can’t continue to cover for him. So far, so good but there is a knock at the door and he lets three people – Bardo (Peter Lezama García), Martha (Laura Aldrete) and Ursula (Viridiana Bernal) – in. The director decided an overhead shot should show them enter, which offered no real detail and at best was a strange and for me, sorry, artless choice.

Abril Ortiz as Karla

The three are local professional criminals and Patricio has a job for them. They are going to a vampire’s house (given to the vampire by the Government as part of the social integration, and hardly a secret as someone painted a big “V” on the wall). Two live there, Juan (Carlos Hinojosa), an elder vampire and Patricio is aware that he goes out to hunt each night leaving a Young Blood – Karla (Abril Ortiz) – alone. A Doctor (Alejandro Caballero) is using vampire blood to make a serum that de-ages users (and vampire blood cures illness, Patricio has a terminal disease), however he specifically wants untainted (no drugs, alcohol or smoking) Young Blood – presumably it is better for his serum.

pick up

It has taken Patricio two years to track down the Young Blood – it becomes apparent that it is the fact she hasn’t hunted yet that makes her a Young Blood. They will be taking silver chains as they won’t kill the vampire (from whom they cannot extract viable blood) but will immobilise them. When asked why they don’t go in the day, when the vampires are asleep, Patricio explains that blood can’t be extracted when they sleep. It seems a strange lore piece that is added to enable the plot rather than be thought through but also, apparently none of the criminal geniuses considered they could bind the vampires in silver whilst asleep and wait for them to awaken. The film shows Juan going to a bar and picking up a feeder for money and the criminals falling, one by one, to Karla.

reaction to bad blood

There was much that seemed senseless. One criminal’s silver chain doesn’t work as it isn’t pure silver, but if this was a deliberate betrayal it wasn’t explained and made little sense. At one point Martha needs the loo, can’t find it and so pees on the floor and immediately facetimes her lover to have a sexy moment… in the middle of a home invasion! Hardly a professional. Karla bites Bardo but is then violently ill as he has bad blood (presumably drugs but it isn’t clear) but there is no real use of this in the narrative. The whole pick-up part with Juan is a damp squib but we do discover that people who have been fed on cannot remember the act (though Bardo can later) and humans can’t see the fang marks (though the one bitten can).

bite

It’s a bit of a muddle to be honest, with some poor shot decisions and it is overly dark in places. The performances aren’t anything special, unfortunately, and though it is nice to see a 'hunters are the hunted' storyline, with the vampires being preyed upon, it needed a tighter, better thought through narrative and better filmmaking choices. Nevertheless, they had a go, and it is another vampire film to watch. 3 out of 10.

The IMDb page is here.

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