Short Film: Love American Style Season 2 Episode 36 Love and the Vampire

Not actually a short film, but a segment (one of three) from a Season 2 episode of the series Love American Style, the segment was directed by Charles R. Rondeau and comes in about 10-minutes, first airing in 1971. However, as someone has kindly (as I write this) put the segment on YouTube then it fits neatly into the short film category as a standalone piece.

It starts with newlyweds Mryna (Judy Carne) and Wayne (Robert Reed, Fantasy Island: The Lady and the Longhorn/Vampire) who are stood with the eccentric looking Mr Foss (Tiny Tim). We quickly get the background that their car has broken down during a storm and he is rendering aid by giving them his room for the night – after all he expects to be out all night.

Foss, Myrna and Wayne

Once alone, Myrna starts having worries. Foss’ tongue was red and his face was pale – indeed it was a typical set up, breakdown in a storm – she comes to the conclusion that Foss is a vampire. When she notices that there is a casket (or a trunk, according to Wayne) she becomes convinced. She decides she needs protection.

garlic on honeymoon

That involves Wayne leaving the house and getting garlic, which he does but the smell puts him off Honeymoon nuptials. Noticing a couple of pinpricks on his neck leads her to believe that he has been bitten (he thinks he has, by mosquitos). The viewer is aware, however, that Foss is making himself up, using a mirror, to attend a midnight horror film showing and so can it all be in Myrna’s imagination? The show is very sit-com pitched, Carne and Reed are old hands and know what they’re doing with the material and the show even throws in a werewolf gag.

The imdb page is here.

Honourable mention: Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated – Season 1

This was the first season of the 2010-2013 incarnation of Scooby-Doo as a serial cartoon where there was an overarching story arc. In actual fact, I did look at this season’s vampire episode, the Secret Serum, previously. Now, when I reviewed that I said “There is an estrangement between Shaggy (Matthew Lillard) and Velma (Mindy Cohn) – who were, it appears, an item. Plus Fred (Frank Welker) and Daphne (Grey DeLisle) seem to have issues, making the gang drift apart in different directions by the end of this – distractions; what we want is mystery solving not soap opera teen romance. For heaven’s sake we are watching a talking dog…”

vampire film

I do not take that back – the introduction of character romance (and romantic failings, in the case of Velma and Shaggy) seemed a distraction as I watched the whole thing – but there was enough mystery solving and Scooby-ness to keep me going back to it (indeed, I might be the father of an adult son but I’ll always maintain that Scooby is for all ages). In Fact, despite the more soap aspect, the season was perhaps darker than other Scooby-Doo series and, as it happens there were (beyond the vampire episode) some vampire connections through the season that were worth mentioning here.

the Bloody Stake steak house

First of all was a restaurant in Crystal Cove (the town that seems to attract fake paranormal activity at a rate of knots). A steak house, one assumes, called the Bloody Stake, which has a vampire logo. The restaurant appears in three episodes of the season and is most notable for Shaggy (Matthew Lillard) and Scooby (Frank Welker) being refused any more helpings on the "All You Can Gorge" night.

stake in hand

We see Shaggy and Scooby about to indulge in the Vincent Van Ghoul (Maurice LaMarche) movie marathon at one point. Due to this we see a tad of a vampire film staring Van Ghoul as a vampire hunter, stake in hand, with the implication that he is fighting off an army of vampires. Van Ghoul is, clearly, based on Vincent Price and I understand that Warner Bros received Price’s estate’s permission to use his likeness and voice.

vampire bust

Van Ghoul actually appeared in the 13 Ghost incarnation of Scooby-Doo and, in this season, his fans Shaggy and Scooby actually meet him when they win a competition to have dinner with him (which is a set up for a new ‘scare’ reality TV show Van Ghoul has, but leads them to saving him from a monster). In the house we see a Poster for O’Vampy, one of his films, and a vampire bust/mask out on display in the horror icon’s mansion.

teen Vamp literature

Lastly, the gang becomes embroiled for a second time with professor and horror author H.P. Hatecraft (Jeffrey Combs, Holiday Hell, Frightmare, Necronomicon: Book of the Dead & Dark House) – as an aside, Hatecraft is obviously modelled on Lovecraft, who Combs played in Necronomicon. In their second encounter Hatecraft is being ousted by Regina Wentworth (Kari Wahlgren), author of Teen vampire series Dusk (made up of Dusk: Forbidden Love, Dusk: Early Evening and Dusk: Just Before Bedtime). There is a cut-out of the main vampire character causing Daphne to muse at what Fred would look like with “fangs and skin the color of boiled pork”.

Daphne dates an actor

So, there we have the additional vampire references in Season 1 of Mystery Incorporated. Note that in Season 2 there was the reappearance of the Bloody Stake a couple of times and Daphne dating the actor from the Dusk films – but no real vampire reference otherwise. The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Dracula (2025 – RO) – review

Director: Radu Jude

Release date: 2025

Contains spoilers

Not to be confused with Luc Besson’s 2025 version of Dracula, this is a strange one and no mistake. Definitely comedy, partly satirical, partly trolling filmmakers and viewers alike, partly plumbing vulgar depths, it runs at a whopping two hours and fifty minutes and in some regards absolutely outstays its welcome and in others keeps the viewer absolutely fixated on the strangeness within.

AI Ţepeş

What this is not, in many regards, is a film that owes much to the novel Dracula (a fifty minute interlude of the film does owe another novel, and I’ll get to that), rather it fixates on Vlad Ţepeş, perhaps rightly so as it is a Romanian film, with quite a bit shot in Sighișoara, where Vlad III was born. So the opening sequence of the film contains various AI renditions of Vlad Ţepeş saying “I am Vlad Ţepeş Dracula, you can all suck my cock.” This opens us up for discussion of the film’s repeated use of AI, always done in an obvious way with glitches welcome and realism ignored.

Oana Maria Zaharia as Vampira

The film then cuts to the (fictional) director (Adonis Tanta), who is making the film we see whilst conversing with various AI models regarding additional sequences – for this runs like an anthology, not all vampire related, with a central film that is cut through the production. The central film features a tourist restaurant in Sighișoara where a cabaret-like play of Dracula takes place, staring a washed up actor (Gabriel Spahiu) playing Dracula and Vampira (Oana Maria Zaharia) playing Mina. The show has a moment where patrons can pay to be with the actors – the woman (Ana Dumitrascu) who pays €1500 to be with Dracula demands her money back when he can’t sexually perform – and ends with them running through the town play-hunted by patrons with stakes. As this story progresses the pair decide to run away (they are essentially human trafficked) and are subsequently literally hunted.

stake in the ass

The sections are of varying lengths, intercut further with scenes with the director, and whilst some are vampire orientated – a vampiric Vlad Ţepeş returning to the house of his birth a (restaurant on the ground floor and) tourist attraction upstairs, or a vampiric and broke Vlad Ţepeş with tooth ache visiting the dentist (a dentist named Dr Caligari); noting various aged and gender actors play Vlad Ţepeş – others are most certainly not vampire stories. An example of the latter being a tragic tale of love (though barely romantic) on a collective farm during the Communist era. At one point we get a vampire (and zombie) satire of capitalism, invoking Marxism and Moretti, as a vampiric Vlad Ţepeş terrorises workers whose role is to play games and level up to then sell the passwords to Americans. That ends with a stake in the ass.

the muppet-headed vampire

Most interesting was the longest segment – at 50 minutes – which was a rendition of Romania’s first vampire novel; Vampirul by G.M. Amza and Al. Bilciurescu (1938). It was subject to the same trolling attitude to the creative process with bad AI, an interior inn setting with the bare sound stage floor and cut out customers, a wonderfully acted bridge scene where the 19th century period illusion is shattered by the unedited modern street with cars and modern building in the background and the vampire looking like a man wearing a muppet’s head. SPOILER – the last was silly but almost forgivable as the book is one where the vampire is actually a very human protagonist playing on local superstition and fear. However, it was – despite the irreverence around it – fascinating if only for its heritage but did definitely tickle me in its absurdity.

emerging from the biopic

If what I have described feels strange, in places (a dildo tree and some usage of its strange fruit or with penis-enlargement ads spoken over Nosferatu) deliberately sexually immature, AI slathered so thickly to be a satire of the use of AI, muppet headed vampires and multiple Vlad Ţepeş (including a fanged one emerging from the Romanian historic biopic Vlad Ţepeş), deliberately mise-en-scène that does not miss anachronisms so much as revel in them, absolutely meta moments and a running time that is akin to a filmic marathon – it is all these things and more. But so very deliberately so. Perhaps the experiment works (the on-screen proxy-director suggests at one point that the film might be better called Frankenstein). Perhaps it doesn’t. In fact it is a mix of both and really, as such, hard to score. I am going for a straight down the line 5 out of 10, realising some of the underlying commentary might mean more in Romania but still fascinated and, in honesty, loving the muppet vampire.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

Short Film: Love Bitten

Coming in at just over 11-minutes, this is a short comedy directed by Dan Allen and released in 2016.

It starts in a coffee shop, where Lizzy (Sharon Singh) is breaking up with Alex (Thomas Wingfield), or confirming the breakup at the very least. He thanks her for their time together but accidentally knocks her coffee over, across her lap. As he goes to the counter to get napkins, he thinks to himself that it had felt great and kind of wishes it had been done purposely. He has brought her toothbrush and secretly wishes he had tainted it…

Thomas Wingfield as Alex

Whilst we see clips from Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens, Alex muses that he wants to be the villain. He is watching the classic film on a tablet and suggests to his friend David (Charlie Field) that he wants to be a vampire. David, confused and likely long-suffering, mentions needing to be bitten – Alex decides he can find what he needs on the dark web.

bloodied

Indeed, he does find vampire pills for sale and so orders them. Once taken he makes a choice of who he is going to hunt – white van drivers… Could there be a more deserving section of modern living? Is he actually now a vampire… watching the short will reveal all. The film was genuinely funny and this was down to the Alex character – both in the writing and the performance. Worth a watch.

The imdb page is here.

Honourable Mention: Love Bites (2025)

This 2025 movie, directed by Laméo Flores, is not a vampire movie. However its presence on TMtV may become more understandable when I point out that the original French title is Dracula est amoureux. It is a well-crafted, well written and well-acted drama, a bitter-sweet portrayal of the aftermath of a relationship and the impact of trauma on the lives of the sufferers of the trauma and those who love them.

The opening sees Anatole (Roman Freud) in a doctor’s waiting room with boyfriend Liam (Lyad Smain). Anatole has an ear infection and is exasperated with Liam (who has googled a homemade earache cure consisting of onion juice). They reference a painting that seems out of place in a doctor’s waiting room but we don’t see it until the end of a scene – it is a bat and there is later another clear bat motif (although as much of the film takes place at a Halloween party, that isn’t too unexpected). Anatole is called through to the doctor, Liam says he loves him but Anatole doesn’t reciprocate.

Liam and Gabriel

Three months later and they have split and Anatole has ghosted Liam. Liam is getting ready for a Halloween party – a private, invite only party he intends to crash because he knows Anatole will be attending. He dresses as Dracula – and this is the reason for the mention as he maintains this outfit for the film, so acting as a vampire. At the party, he manages to get in by posing as the cousin of one of the attendees, Victor (Léonard Chouin), but is sussed by a young woman who blackmails him into sitting her young brother, Gabriel (Nathan Haggege) who is dressed as a ghost – whilst she goes off elsewhere.

fang

The film follows the pair bonding as they try to find Anatole (Liam forgot that he’d be in fancy dress also) and moments within the film take Liam out of the present and show us moments from their relationship, which builds a picture of the reason their love was ill-fated. When he does eventually find Anatole, he is dressed as Frankenstein’s Monster and there is a line suggesting that the Monster and Dracula being together does not exist in any tale. Absolutely brilliantly paced, this gets on here by dint of a costume but is a very watchable tragic love story.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

The Divine Enforcer – review

Director: Robert Rundle

Release date: 1992

Contains spoilers

On the surface this should be a cult classic but somehow just isn’t, it sits in a place where it should be so bad it was good, but was just bad, and all that is a crying shame. Note that whilst there is something supernatural (or psychic, at least) going on, the vampire in this is a serial killer rather than undead.

It starts with a car and a couple, the woman unnamed and the man named Otis (Don Stroud). He pulls up and it wasn’t overly clear whether he picked her up or she was a prostitute but she certainly gets spooked when he pulls a needle, injects her and then starts suckling at the hole. She gets out of the car and legs it. She comes across a drunk derelict who turns out to be a bit rapey. Otis injects him (he collapses) and she falls into his arm.

Erik Estrada as the Monsignor

Talking of rapey, three guys are assaulting a woman when a man (Michael M. Foley) intervenes and beats them with his martial arts prowess (nastily breaking one’s arm in the process), he rescues the woman. Elsewhere, Otis has the woman he's kidnapped tied up. He pricks her with a syringe and starts to drink her blood. Another cut and we are with Monsignor (Erik Estrada, Chupacabra Vs the Alamo) who is having breakfast. His housekeeper, Merna (Judy Landers), has a newspaper and mentions the serial killer the press is calling the Vampire, who kills women and drains them of their blood. They are expecting new priest Father Daniel, there is a knock at the door and he has arrived early – it is the kung fu man.

Don Stroud as Otis

So, Daniel is a bit of a vigilante and has a gun with a cross on the handle, a crucifix dagger and crucifix shuriken. He starts getting names and details from confessions and goes taking out the bad guys. However, we also discover that he has second sight that he also uses in order to be God’s vengeance. The film veers all over the place, from Otis and Stroud’s wonderfully deranged performance, as he kidnaps women, drains their blood to make smoothies and also takes their skulls, to Daniel kicking ass in the parish’s seedy underbelly.

Merna and Father Daniel

Otis starts going to confession – which Daniel must respect the sanctity of (despite using them as focal points for his retribution) – and this sets them up as enemies. Daniel also meets Kim (Carrie Chambers) a young woman with the second sight, which has latched on to Otis, and he promises to help her. In the meantime, the other priest in the house turns out to be Father Thomas, a grouch who does little more than read about the vigilante and the vampire in the papers and who is played by a woefully underused Jan-Michael Vincent, who was phoning the performance in. I mean, Erik Estrada was underused but nothing on how wasted JMV was. It is possible that Otis also has psychic powers, or he is just batshit delusional – he gets a visitation from victims at one point and a skull talks to him.

This should be a recipe for cult status. It really should. On that score it fails and the whole thing is a slog. 2.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Short Film: Love at First Bite

At a scant 5-minutes, Audrey Zane’s 2024 short movie is a succinct little piece that starts off in a Halloween party. Christine (Kiara Petrucci) is dressed as a vampire – and you’d be forgiven for assuming that this is a film with characters acting like vampires. Clearly bored, she heads into the bathroom and discards her drink. Looking towards the mirror she produces fangs, which she can’t see as she casts no reflection. Yes, she’s a real vampire…

showing fang

On her way out of the building she sees another lady, Lilah (Elizabeth Baker), sat in the corridor, apparently drunk and dressed as a vampire. Christine approaches her and asks which vampire she is. Lilah says she is one of Dracula’s brides and Christine responds that it’s a coincidence as she is Dracula. As Christine explains that Dracula doesn’t need to be a guy, my mind went to some recent contention with a genre commentator railing against gender swapping Dracula. It seems to me that a creature who has mastered shapeshifting into wolf (or dog), bat and even “floating moats of dust” could happily shift between genders at will and as desired.

Lilah and Christine

Getting back to the short, Lilah noticed Christine in the party and noticed the social walls she erected, saying as much and Christine is impressed with her observational skill. Perhaps Lilah is doomed to be a meal rather than the bride of this Dracula but what if they were both vampires who were pretending to be vampires?

The imdb page is here.

Honourable Mention: Jim Haggerty's Unnatural Causes

A 2025 portmanteau film directed by Jim Haggerty, there are three stories here and, whilst arguably, there might be a revenant in one of the segments, the reason for the mention is the wraparound and that is both a fleeting visitation of someone who may be acting as a vampire, rather than being one.

The film starts with a news report of the death of a minor celebrity. Vlad Eterno (Baron Misuraca, 60 Seconds to Die & Seymour the Unfortunate Vampire) was an actor in low budget horror films, whose films veered towards the really poor eventually, but he was due a comeback by making a TV series for the same channel the news is on. The newscaster reports Eterno’s alleged age as 300-years-old.

out of the coffin

A couple of Goth women are let into the funeral home to see the body before the family get there. They discuss how he was meant to be a vampire – so with the mythology of being 300 and a vampire, likely acting as a vampire. They give him a rose and he awakens, gets out of the coffin and gives them a film tin with the first three episodes of the series Unnatural Causes (our segments obviously) and tasks them to get them seen. He then leaves; getting into a black Cadillac, which then drives off and vanishes – so perhaps there was some truth to his supernatural claims? Maybe it was a publicity stunt? But, from our point of view, that’s it; bar his intro segments to each short film, a fleeting visitation.

The imdb page is here.

Die drei ??? - Erbe des Drachen – review

Director: Tim Dünschede

Release date: 2023

Contains spoilers

In English, The Three Investigators – Heir of the Dragon, this is a kids’ film about three young amateur detectives from Rocky Beach California and based on the long running American book series. This is based on the German editions and therefore Jupiter Jones was renamed Justus Jonas (Julius Weckauf), Peter Crenshaw was renamed Peter Shaw (Nevio Wendt), with only Bob Andrews (Levi Brandl) retaining his original series name.

The Three Investigators

At the head of the film, it is the day before the boys take a trip to Transylvania. Justus is helping his uncle Titus (Florian Lukas) and his Aunt Mathilda (Jördis Triebel) wants him to get her actor Steven Yates (Gedeon Burkhard) autograph whilst over there. Bob is working as a library assistant and is given a go-pro by librarian Miss Bennett (Dela Dabulamanzi) for his trip – she got it from lost and found. Finally Peter is at a race but his father (Mark Waschke) is a no-show to watch it, that is because he is busy making finishing touches for the trip – they are interning with him whilst he does sfx on a horror film. Peter sees the end of a video call where a hysterical maid, at the castle, is screaming about Vlad.

acting the vampire

The Vlad they mention is, of course, Vlad Ţepeş and we get a little history about Draculea but mostly it is fictionalised, talking about a maid he fell in love with and the tomb he made for her that myth suggests contains his treasure – which is a blood red ruby. The movie being filmed is a vampire movie (indeed a Dracula one). When the film crew are welcomed by the Countess (Gudrun Landgrebe) the lights blow and she explains that the castle is old but caretaker Repta (Valentin Popescu) does his best to keep it going – Peter comments that the man is pale as a vampire. There is a commotion when the maid leaves the castle screaming about a family curse.

Mark Waschke as the dad

So, there is a curse, a fear of vampires/Dracula, a hidden treasure and then the mystery of the Countess’ brother vanishing in the 1950s when being forced to stay in the castle crypt overnight as part of being initiated into a Vlad obsessed secret society (and heirs, one guesses, to the Order of the Dragon). However, there are tensions between Peter and his father, which lead to tensions amongst the investigators themselves. This main mystery has a genre interest due to Vlad Ţepeş and a belief in vampires (mostly on Peter’s part and, of course, the departed maid). Beyond this we get acting as a vampire, with Steven Yates playing the vampire in the film, with a classic look bedroom scene and a stabbing a cross with sword, causing it to bleed, scene lifted, of course, from Dracula (1992).

Vlad and his dead bride

The film itself is ok. It is a kids’ movie and so peril is mild, and the young actors hold their own and manage to stay on the right side of the annoying line. However, it doesn’t do anything overly special either. Maybe one for die hard fans of the books, but certainly one for German speaking kids who like detective flicks. Perhaps not so much for those who fall outside of those categories. But it is perfectly competent. 5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Blu-Ray @ Amazon UK

After Midnight – review

Directors: Various

Release date: 2005

Contains spoilers

Like its predecessor, Around Midnight, this was a shot on and straight to video effort and so, like that, it carries the caveat that If you are able to track down this anthology film it is going to look just that – with the fuzz one expects from such a film.

This is half an hour longer, however, and feels more ambitious (though it still isn’t great). They get rid of the host and have the wraparound as a woman (Nancy Feliciano) reading a book called After Midnight (thus the segments are the stories therein) – she does become a vampire. All the segments, bar one, are vampire, also. The one that isn’t is about a woman (Heidi Honeycutt) on her own when a virus has killed off the rest of the world it seems.

Sky and Art

The first segment is I Want to be a Vampire in which reporter Art (Johnny Monotone) pitches up at a woman’s house, she’s called Sky (Laura Giglio, Deep Undead), as there have been vampire related deaths reported and he wants to interview her with regards this due to her claims of being undead. He is sceptical, however, despite her insistence she is a vampire and her suggestion that she is 166 years old. He asks for the lights to be put on (vampires are scared of the sun, not lightbulbs) and she takes him to meet her feeder (Cruz Machine) who is strapped up in the closet. Eventually her façade breaks and it is revealed she is a wannabe – but perhaps Art is more than he seems…

bite

In the most complex of the stories (and the segment that struggles the most narratively because of this), entitled A Moment of Darkness, we see a woman in a disco. She is Dr. Janeane Melocarro (Cindy Osbourne). She meets a guy but this is superfluous to the main story. At home she gets a page and goes to the hospital in which there is a violent patient (Tiffany Warren) who manages to bite her and, of course, she turns. Where things become confused is with the vampire visiting her and, it appears, that they knew each other though no indication to that effect was given in the hospital scene.

photographing the dead

The last vampire segment is called the Perfect Subject and it involves a girl (Isabelle Stephen, Vampire Sisters) who has paid a photographer (Rick Trembles) to come and take some modelling shots – first clothed and then nude. He buggers off, much to her disappointment, so she gets dressed whilst another photographer (Michael Will) enters and strangles her because when she is dead she becomes his Perfect Subject. He is somewhat shocked, therefore, when she opens her eyes… guess what she is…

fangs

And that’s it, much more vampire facing but still a low-to-no budget effort, straight to video with a horrible print. There is a market for such films, of course, and this probably deserves the same 2.5 out of 10 that the other got, marred by simple narratives (and narrative confusion in the more complex story).

The imdb page is here.

Short Film: Canine

A nine-minute short film directed by Hunter Woelfle and released in 2023, this is one that certainly has acting (or more accurately dressing) as a vampire but you can read the creature within as vampire also – though this is through subtleties.

It starts with a girl (Isabel Oliver Marcus) flossing and cleaning her teeth before doing her goth style makeup and then putting in fangs. She walks down the street and is unnerved by a car that seems to slow but it eventually passes her. Then she notices bright eyes flashing in a dark pathway.

Isabel Oliver Marcus as the girl

One owner of the eyes comes forward and it is a cat, which she pets. The other set doesn’t come close and eventually she leaves. After she does, we see the eyes rise in the darkness, as though the owner was shapeshifting into something taller. She goes to a party but is sat by herself, at one point spotting shining eyes outside. She leaves and sees the earlier cat dead on the pavement, one if its fangs seems to be missing. She gets home and ready for bed but there are noises that are spooking her…

fang

As well as the eye shine and potential shapeshifting (and the fact that the film concentrates on fangs) there is also some shadow play during the denouement. This was an interesting, ambiguous little short, which relied on atmosphere rather than dialogue. The imdb page is here.

Valerie – review

Director: Jay Lind

Release date: 2002

Contains spoilers

Not to be confused with the director’s 1992 film of the same name, this was a straight to video, zero budget flick that has received Blu-ray treatment in a collection of five of his films, released by SRS video.

When I got the set, I was conflicted, after all I didn’t particularly think the films would be masterpieces but there were at least two vampire features (this and Carmilla). I watched this first and was pleasantly surprised. Yes, it is low budget and has plenty wrong with it, but it was also a very watchable psychosexual drama.

bite

It starts with Nosferatu on TV and then cuts to a graveyard and, in a crypt, led on top of the tomb is Valerie (Maggi Horseman). She rises and does a slow amble through the graveyard – a note that the night lighting is well done but the shots seem out of focus, probably deliberately so to give a dreamlike feel. A couple are in the car and the lady (I think Crissy Madarang) hears something, she sends the guy out. He is killed by Valerie, who gets in the car with the, now topless, girl and feeds from her.

Maggi Horseman as Valerie

Valerie’s mom (Kelley Rouse) wakes her, with Valerie complaining that she is an adult (she’s 18). Her mom notices that she has had a nosebleed in her sleep and her face is smeared with blood. She goes to her therapist and talks about her dream and how excited it has left her. She works at a boutique, then takes lunch on a boardwalk and finally goes to dance class. She disassociates whilst in class, reliving memories of a violent sexual assault that leaves her screaming and comforted by her friend Lori (Mellani Love).

pick up

So, we discover that she was assaulted, immediately after believing she had been followed home. She cannot remember the assailant and refers to him as a vampire. Her step-father doesn’t believe it was an assault, rather she invited it and essentially victim blames. She is also self-harming. She regularly dreams of being a vampire, with Lori and the girl from the first dream (who is a person she has seen in real life) taking victim and vampire roles in the dreams. There is some evidence that she has killed someone she picked up, but that could be a dream also (and a serial killer called the moonlight maniac is mentioned occasionally to obfuscate the truth further).

Lori with fangs

As the film progresses, she meets an older artist, Jack (Jay Lind), who she falls for and who falls for her. Lori is less than pleased but it seems that she has sapphic feelings for her friend (these are unreciprocated in real life, but the fact that she and the other woman feature in her vampire dreams suggests that subconsciously Valerie entertains the notion). The whole film moves towards the realisation of who the attacker was.

projecting the vampire

The dialogue is sometimes off – I couldn’t believe that two 18-year-olds would be that coy around sexual language. However, aspects like Valerie’s ofttimes bluntness, worked well with the character and the performance suited that. There was no shying from nudity and some of the themes were very dark (rape, self-harm and attempted suicide). One poor aspect was the chosen soundtrack, which I felt was too bombastic. The film is more belief in vampires and acting like a vampire, though the projection of a vampire persona (the only male vampire) on her attacker kind of makes for a vampire and Valerie is an untrustworthy witness to her own narrative. However, surprisingly entertaining and worth watching 5.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.