Directed by Abiel Bruhn and John Rocco, this 2018 film features witches but there can be an overlap into the vampire or use of vampire tropes. In this case I think there is an inference that we can look at and, if that inference is accepted we may well class this as vamp. However, it also needs pointing out that the three witches are referred to as the Three Mothers and this directly refers to the witches of Dario Argento's Three Mothers series – and the lighting through this film reminded me of Suspiria, deliberately so I’d say.
The film follows Amber (Elyse Dufour, Drakul), a woman entering into a rich area to babysit – however it is clear that the name is a pseudonym and in reality she intends to rob her employer. The employer is Ted Hooper (Joe Walz) a paranormal investigator whose show hasn’t really got off the ground and who hasn’t seen a genuine supernatural event in twenty years of investigating. His wife died a year before and Amber is to sit for his son Kevin (Jack Champion). Kevin spends most of his time in his room drawing sinister pictures of three dark figures – later he tells Amber he is being haunted by them, they come in his dreams but his mother saves him.
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| pizza time |
Also in the house will be Ronnie (Bailey Campbell), son of Ted’s date Charlotte (Deanna Rashell), he is a bit of a tearaway. Amber has noticed a door that Ted says leads to his office and is locked and so Amber has contacted her friend in crime Rod (Jermaine Rivers), telling him to bring both his van and lock picking kit. Ronnie also wants in to the office, to see what cool stuff is in there, and he actually finds the key (which seems all too convenient and, by the end of the film, we discover it was). The relationship with Kevin and Amber is interesting in that he sees her take watches and money from his father’s room and whilst he mentions it he seems keen to believe her “Robin Hood” excuse and they do seem to quickly, and naturally, bond.
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| the grimoire |
Anyway, Ronnie and Kevin get into the office and Kevin looks at a grimoire regarding the Three Mothers (we later discover it was written by the witches' acolytes, after they were executed, and the ink contained their ashes), gets a papercut and bleeds on a page, which absorbs the blood and summons the Three Mothers who then terrorise the people there including Amber’s not quite boyfriend, Martin (J. Benedict Larmore) who is trying to talk her out of crime, neighbour Vincent (Ben Barlow) and Rod’s girl Lindsey (Amber Neukum). So how are they vampire – well we discover they were child killer witches who were executed at Salem and so we have the trope of blood reconstituting from ashes (in the ink, of course). This is a different background to Argento’s Three Mothers, who are living (if ancient) and scattered across the globe. But I mentioned an inference…
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| Ronnie's end |
They kill Ronnie first and we see him strung over a tub and his throat slit, with them catching the blood in it. Later we hear them say of Kevin that “We've already tasted his blood. Soon we will bleed him dry.” That also comes with the knowledge that, back in the day, they bled children either quickly or over weeks. The inference comes into it when we are told “They tend to play with their food.” The inference being that bleeding the children is the source of their food – in other words their blood. If we accept that inference, we accept them being vampiric witches and, as one of them possesses Lindsey, we also get vampiric possession.
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| a witch |
If I had an issue with the film, it was the fact that they chuck in the kitchen sink. The family dog Finley is killed (off screen, we hear its whimper) but then it seems that it is now some sort of Hellhound, in his kennel with glowing eyes, but they do all that to do nothing with it. Equally the possession seemed odd when we see they can take on other people’s forms and are corporeal. However, the film kept a good pace after a slower start and the lighting that reminded me so much of Suspiria was gorgeous. As for the Vamp or Not, if you accept the inference their food is the blood of children then it is Vamp.
The imdb page is here.
On Blu-Ray @ Amazon US
On Blu-Ray @ Amazon UK
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