Use of Tropes: Bat Zombies

I guess this 2023 feature, directed by Brian Orvik, couldn’t help but use tropes being a stitch together of several public domain films, with a slapdash of new footage, and a re-dub to aim towards something more comedic.

The films used include the Last Man on Earth, House on Haunted Hill, The Bat, White Zombie, The Devil Bat and Night of the Living Dead and so you can see, given the inclusion of Last Man, why tropes might be used.

Indeed, in this tale of zombie bats and infected humans, the reanimated dead are all called zombies but they can be repelled by mirrors (as opposed to not reflecting) and are killed by a stake to the heart – as per the Last Man on Earth. For that reason this deserved to get a brief honourable mention due to use of tropes. 

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Vampire Zombies... From Space! – review

Director: Michael Stasko

Release date: 2024

Contains spoilers

With the best will in the world, this film drawn like a 1950s-B should score low, it really should. However, I sat amused as I watched this. Michael Stasko and his team aimed for something straight out of Ed Wood’s playbook and totally committed to it and that commitment paid off, this should be bad, or so bad it’s good, rather I think it is actually pretty darn good.

Drawn in Black and White it starts at the MacDowell tobacco farm and mom, Bernice (Catherine Valle) sings a lullaby as she and pa, Roy (Erik Helle), put daughters Mary (played young by Elizabeth Wacheski and older by Jessica Antovski) and Susan (played young by Lauren Meadows and older by Charlotte Bondy) to bed. Later in the night the family dog, out on the porch, starts barking. Susan goes to the window and sees it run off into the tobacco fields, she follows.

spattered in mom's gore

Mary gets her parents and they look for her sister, who has been traumatised when she found the dog fed on by Dracula (Craig Gloster). In response Dracula causes his spaceship (yes, he’s a UFO flying Dracula) to blast Bernice, leaving Roy, along with the girls, spattered in her gore. Dracula turns his attention to the family but the spaceship fails and a reflection of light catching Roy’s cross causes the vampire to flee, turning into a bat.

Oliver Georgiou as Wayne

Ten years later and, a now grown, Mary is walking to school, something is in the field by her but she is distracted when a car with some guys stop by her. The majority are being sexual to her – though there is a warning about her murderous father. It seems that the townsfolk believe Roy killed Bernice, though he was acquitted. No one believes about the UFO. One of the guys, Wayne (Oliver Georgiou), is pissed with the attitude of the others and makes them drive off. They don’t see the zombie come of the field and rip Mary’s throat out – or the others that then rip her to shreds. I say zombie but they have fangs…

stake

Essentially, Dracula is going to invade Earth. His son, Dylan (Robert Kemeny) – a secret human-o-phile – created a serum that prevents their reaction to the cross (although these space vampires do not know it as a cross and refer to it as a t symbol). The side effect is that those bitten by a vaccinated vampire will turn, develop fangs but they (and their brains) rot. In other words, zombie vampires (or zompires, we would say). Like a vampire they must have the heart destroyed, not the rotting brain. There is, however, another apotropaic in the film, which the audience works out long before the characters – tobacco. It scares them off and makes vampire technology fritz out (hence the foul up at the beginning). It seems that it works fresh but tobacco smoke seems more effective.

the vampire high council

So, there is a vampire high council – not impressed with Dracula’s efforts. Unnamed in film they are credited as Vampira (Judith O'Dea, Night of the Living Dead), Nosferatu (David Liebe Hart) and Coppola's Dracula (Martin Ouellette). There is a cracking mirror bit with Dylan dressed as a soldier with a massive fake beard and only being spotted through the mirror – and it’s a moment where we can see a reflection of clothes (and fake beard) but not the vampire. There is turning into bats, as mentioned, but at one point Dracula turns into a bat to get into a mini bat-winged UFO.

clothes reflect

High silliness abounds with some genuine NSFW jokes - Lloyd Kaufman for instance appears as a character credited as town masturbator and his antics, when described, are consistently followed up with the line, “did he finish?” But the real reason this works is the absolute commitment to the aesthetic. The designs – be it the sci-fi elements or the fifties elements are bob on. There is no attempt to hide the wires. Because that fits the aesthetic. This was way more fun than I thought it would be. 6 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon US

On DVD @ Amazon UK

Blood Vengeance – review

Author: EH Drake

First Published: 2025

Contains spoilers

The blurb: The Blood Herring Chronicles end here.

Gabe and Lily are trapped, held captive by the very justice they once served. But with the vampire lord, Elias, unleashing his army on Portland, a city collapsing into ruin, they can't afford to wait. The only way to save humanity is to break free. The only way to fight is to risk everything.

Two renegades. One impossible war. Can they stand against a rising tide of blood and ruin?

The review: The third in the series (my reviews are here for Book 1 and Book 2) and the city of Portland has gone to Hell, with the terrorist vampire Elias periodically releasing his child vampire warriors and hordes of the starved – people turned and then starved until they loose all sense and becoming zompire like ravening hordes.

The protagonists, Lily and Gabe are both under arrest – him by human authorities and under house arrest as he is tried, his case reliant on convincing a judge and jury that he was turned against his will and that, as such, he should not warrant extermination. She with the vampire’s Royal Court, suspected of being in league with Elias – not helped by the fact that he was her husband and his right hand henchman is none other than her brother.

This gears itself nicely as an action facing volume, safe in the knowledge that the protagonist characters have been neatly rounded in the preceding volumes. Both characters end up in and out of custody – Gabe is a bit of a boy scout and Elias relies on him handing himself back in as there is an expectation that he’ll lose his case to aid his cause. Lily becomes convinced there is a traitor in the court. The book roles along at a pace – switching between Lily and Gabe’s POV as per the other volumes – climaxing in a vampiric assault on a prison. A fast, punchy end to the series. 7.5 out of 10.

In Paperback @ Amazon US

In Paperback @ Amazon UK

Dead Creatures – review

Director: Andrew Parkinson

Release date: 2001

Contains spoilers

We are very much in contested territory for this film. A gritty British low budget horror, I can see why people would call this a zombie film, indeed a couple of the film credits mention zombies, and perhaps cannibalism. However, the creatures of the title are compos mentis, infected flesh eaters (and blood drinkers – we see a reaction to blood, at the very least) so I am declaring zompire.

It starts at a door to an industrial unit. In it a man is strapped to a chair. We then get views of tower blocks, placing this in that modern British gothic exemplified by hoody horror. An image of urban decay. In a flat, whilst a radio speaks about incompetent doctors, we see a woman, Ali (Lindsay Clarke), sat in the corner of a room smoking a cigarette, blankets round her, she looks like she is decaying. There is a shot of a cattle bolt and then a man, Reece (Brendan Gregory), sat in a bloodied white coat. Two women, Jo (Beverley Wilson) and Ann (Antonia Beamish), leave the tower block, with suitcases and a wheelchair in which they push Ali. It appears they are moving.

left arm gone

The three women we’ve met are all infected – though by what is uncertain. As the title suggests, they might be dead – when we meet a newly infected later coldness is described as part of the turning process and the wound that is the point of infection doesn’t seem to ever heal but no longer hurts. Indeed, we see a body left, where an arm has been removed, who subsequently awakens and attacks someone; this is a trope from both the zombie and vampire camps of the victim rising and immediately attacking.

deterioration

Once infected they develop an overwhelming need to eat human flesh. If they deny the need then they become violent and (one guesses as we don’t really see it) feral. If they eat enough they can stave off the decay – which is less decay and more open weeping flesh that looks pretty darn unhealthy. We see Ali at the advance stage (with associative cognitive decline) but we also see one at the earlier stages with several open wounds. We see a male infected peeing against a wall and they pee blood. The infection is low key, in that the world is going on around them as though nothing has happened. However, they suggest a shadowy government conspiracy and infected people being vanished if found.

Brendan Gregory as Reece

Reece is a zombie hunter (or, from our viewpoint zompire hunter); not associated with the government conspiracy, he seems to be searching for a specific infected (his daughter). He kidnaps infected and questions them, starving them to get them to speak and then killing them. He does this with the cattle bolt through the brain – whether this is necessary is unclear but it obviously calls back to the standard, Romero, shoot them in the head. He releases one captive – presumably because he wasn’t actually infected.

Ann and Jo

Also in the film is Sian (Anna Swift) a young college girl who decides to go on the wrong date with Christian (Bart Ruspoli) and is bitten for her trouble and subsequently found (in A&E) by Jo, and taken in. Through her we see the start of the infection for an individual. This, all in all, might prove to some to be a tough watch. There is little story and the dialogue of the women is around life in general (or more precisely, their lives, which have been suspended as they step out of normal society into their twilight existence). However, I was rather taken by them. The infection can be read as sexual (Sian is infected on a date, Ann hunts by prostituting herself and does indulge in random pickups for sexual gratification) but is passed through the violence of a bite.

With budget but, in places, rather effective SFX, this is not cheery and celebrates its dourness, but I was taken by the characters' extraordinary ordinariness. 4 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon US

On DVD @ Amazon UK

Vampire Clown – review

Director: Paul Andrich

Release date: 20225

Contains spoilers

This is a Canadian production and merges the vampire and clown genres, not unheard of but not overdone. It is, however, on a budget and that is telling in some of the filming. Though, I have to say, the photography had a nice solid feel to it, though the lighting did little , unfortunately.

It starts with a car and a woman parking and going to her home. We see the legs of an observer… we see clown pants. She gets in her house, using a keypad, but, after she enters, we see someone following and replicating the code. In the house she hears a toilet flush but it turns out to be her husband, Tom (Todd Picklyk), home early. She leaves him to watch the game but is attacked, he hears her scream and is attacked next.

in Tom's car

Matt (Tyhr Trubiak) is taking the trash out and heading out on his bicycle. He hears a car horn and spots Tom’s car but is shocked to see it being driven by a clown (note sunlight is not an issue in this). He is startled by another neighbour, Pete (Warren Bard), and asks him if he saw Tom just then and wonders why he might be in a clown outfit. It doesn’t seem normal for accountant Tom. Unable to solve the mystery Matt cycles to see his therapist.

Tyhr Trubiak as Matt

Matt seems ok with his life but is worried that he has underachieved and whether this could be an issue for his girlfriend Sarah (Amy Couldwell). However, there is a vampire clown in town and the next to be got by it are Pete and his wife Karen (Debra Ross) and it is Matt who finds them (when he goes to drop a parcel off). He is somewhat disturbed by the cockamamie theory the cops (Allan Turner & Paul O'Donnell) come up with and perturbed that they don’t take their face masks off – Matt wonders if there is a new pandemic he’s not heard of. Of course, they wear masks as they’ve been turned and they’re hiding the perma-fangs.

feeding proboscis

Matt begins to believe there is a conspiracy but can’t work out exactly what – and to make matters worse Sarah’s ex-boyfriend Kevin (Joshua Sarna) has just got out of jail and is back in town. However, as the film goes on it is only really Kevin who believes him. Indeed, Matt is concentrating on the clown, but it is Kevin who works out vampires are involved. So, vampire victims are either dead, turned or turned into a more unaware zombie-like variant. The clown vampire has some form of tube or proboscis it feeds through but we only see a small detail of it and not where it emerges from (due, I assume, to budget). Other standard lore either doesn’t work or the jury is out.

fangs

And budget is the issue overall… also there wasn’t the lighting to offer as much atmosphere that would have worked in the films favour – it all seems the lighting on offer at the location. The fangs are all a tad fake looking, the blood is sparse and attacks are off screen or detail lite. That said the primaries are good, especially Trubiak, who projects likable well. The reason for the clown outfit is never offered (there are a couple of bandied around theories) and essentially this is a “take over the town” scenario. This was, however, watchable 4 out of 10 seems fair.

The imdb page is here.

Azrael – review

Director: E.L. Katz

Release date: 2024

Contains spoilers

In a post-apocalyptic setting, Azrael is a film that has attracted some mixed reviews and was one I hadn’t got around to – but when I did, I was both impressed and realised there were vampiric monsters in it that might be read as vampires, perhaps zompires. Credited as the “burnt” on IMDb (for they are burnt) the film itself doesn’t tell us as the film is, for the most part, silent – with a touch of untranslated Esperanto at one particular point in the film.

after the Rapture

Set years after the Rapture has happened, within woods. There are little oddities throughout, but it aims mostly at a sect or cult where they have taken a vow of silence to the furthest degree by cutting the voice boxes (leaving scars in a cross shape on the throat). We first meet Azrael (Samara Weaving) – interestingly, of course, named for the Angel of Death. She is making a bracelet of twigs and berries.

Azrael and Kenan

She sees a campfire burning and goes to it, urgently putting it out and hitting Kenan (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Dracula) for doing something that can draw attention. She quickly forgives him and gives him the bracelet. Whistles in the trees indicate they are being hunted and they run, separated but both quickly captured. The hunters are from the silent cult and, it is implied (given their scars), Azrael and Kenan had run away and so are apostate.

sacrifice

We see Azrael taken deeper into the woods and strapped to a chair. One of her captors, Josefine (Katariina Unt), pulls Azrael’s trouser leg up and slashes her flesh with a blade and the wind seems to pick up through the trees. The three cultists stand away, backs turned and begin to make ritualistic heavy breaths as a creature approaches. This is one of the burnt, spindly creatures, flesh charred and moving almost zombie-like.

attacking the cultist

Azrael struggles and manages to break the arm of the chair, pulling away a shard of wood still strapped to her arm. One of the cultists has looked back and sees this and so goes to intervene and Azrael manages to stab him in the neck. The burnt can be rather nippy and agile and it grabs the cultist, ripping into the wound and lapping blood. Azrael manages to unbuckle herself from the chair and get away. When the other cultists eventually turn the burnt is dragging the corpse of their compatriot into the trees.

truck

So, Azrael binds her wound (the burnt can smell blood it seems, attracted to it like sharks) and heads to the cultist camp to try and rescue Kenan and we get a back and forth of being captured and escaping with a dose of the revenge flick, which is the majority of the film. I mentioned oddities. This includes automobiles. The cult have a couple of beat up cars that they used when capturing the pair. Later Azrael is almost knocked down by a truck driven by a man who speaks Esperanto and which exudes bright illumination. One might question where the fuel is coming from (and indeed where the Esperanto man is from and where he is going to).

Vic Carmen Sonne as Miriam

The cult have a heavily pregnant priestess, Miriam (Vic Carmen Sonne), who seems to listen to the murmur of wind through a hole in their wooden church’s wall. As for the burnt – the wind connects them and Miriam (in that it picks up when Azrael is cut, and it seems indicative of some higher power) and at one point Azrael has some of Miriam’s blood on her and a burnt backs away from her. What they are – dammed souls following the rapture, demons, vampires or zombies – is not answered, but Azrael manages to hang one so they can be killed. Of course, the burnts' look gives a feel of a vampire that’s been in the sun (though there doesn’t seem to be an issue with daylight) but it is their attraction to blood – one licking it from a surface – that makes them vampiric enough for me.

one of the burnt

This film excels in tension, the back and forth to the camp and the handy positioning of people in the vast woods, so that the story moves on, might seem contrived but, when taken in the context of the denouement of the film (which I won’t spoil) actually reads more fated or even supernaturally manipulated. For a film with virtually no dialogue – from what I can ascertain the Esperanto is mostly general concern – it manages to tell a lot of story but, of course, leaves much to the imagination and interpretation of the viewer. 6 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Blu-Ray @ Amazon US

On Blu-Ray @ Amazon UK

Feral – review

Director – Mark Young

Release date: 2017

Contains spoilers

You’d be forgiven for wondering whether Feral is a vampire film or not, after all the blurb on the DVD calls the creatures in this “rabid, rampaging cannibal zombie(s)”. One might be forgiven for suggesting zompires, but, in actual fact, they seem more akin to the vampires found in films such as Stake Land and Redwood.

The set up is really simple and the characters thin but it makes for an entertaining watch. The opening sees a woman, bloody and tied down whilst a man, face unseen but later revealed as Talbot (Lew Temple), sits by with a gun. She awakens and, despite being tied, starts twisting and snarling. Gunshot…

camping

Six friends (mostly) are trekking through the forest. There are couples Matt (George Finn) and Brienne (Renee Olstead), and Jesse (Brock Kelly) and Gina (Landry Allbright) – all know each other and are med students, along with Alice (Scout Taylor-Compton, Pearblossom, Captive & Bury the Bride) who has brought new girlfriend Jules (Olivia Luccardi). We get some character building around Alice including her bible belt father (and fear of coming out to him) and her learning to hunt as a child. As for the others virtually none – bar Jesse used to be with Alice and he wants her, despite being with Gina, because he can’t have her and refuses to accept her queer sexuality. They don’t even build stereotypes for the characters, to be honest.

Matt attacked

Anyway. First night camping and Matt proposes to Brienne, goes for a pee and is attacked by something. She goes to find him and sees a squat figure over him, eating from the stomach that has been ripped open. It attacks… the others hear her scream and find her on the floor, alive but bitten – Matt is dead. In the morning they meet a loner called Talbot (he of the opening) who takes them to his cabin. Matt’s body is gone (we’ve seen the dead man sit up).

turned

From then on it is a survival horror. A bite or scratch turns and it involves a virus that devastates the body, killing the host and then animating it. It causes the teeth to fall out and be replaced by sharp ones, the eyes to go a cloudy yellow, sharp nails to grow and the hair to fall out. Talbot calls them the rabid ones – and they are dormant during the day. Brain trauma kills them and they show little in the way of sentience. But for me, the physiological changes and the day dormancy push them into the vampire space.

Scout Taylor-Compton as Alice

Despite the lack of characterization the film works. Scout Taylor-Compton gives a solid performance as the only rounded character, the lack of trust in and duplicity of the Talbot character causes more peril than had they been working together properly. There is the splitting up trope aplenty. But this is a competent little flick for me because it did manage to build a tension – though it won’t set the world on fire. 5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon US

On DVD @ Amazon UK

Blood Renegade – review

Author: E.H. Drake

Release date: 2024

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: How does one deal with life after death when death doesn’t seem any different… except the need for blood? As Gabe struggles with his new reality, Lily avoids all her responsibilities to him. But soon, their newest investigation makes confrontation inevitable. They are forced to run from human authorities and the vampire Court, all to protect a new comrade. Can the two resolve their differences and come together for the common good?

The review: This is the sequel to Blood Herring and the second of the trilogy. We meet Lily and Gabe again but Gabe has undergone changes – Lily turned him at the end of the last book as he was dying, despite his fairly anti-vampire viewpoint. Now his ex-partner is leading the Portland Vampire Police Bureaus, Lily seems to be avoiding him and he is having intensive control training. Lily is tying up lose ends in the Cheri Coke case (cocaine mixed with vampire blood) for the Vampire Court and she really has been avoiding seeing Gabe as she doesn’t know how to face the man she turned. There may also be problems, as yet unseen, as there was silver in her bloodstream when she turned him and that might have caused damage in the process.

However, when they end up meeting again she rashly decides to take him on an assignment and, when they find a vampire child, against her better judgement he becomes embroiled when they go on the run, trying to protect the child from the Court who exterminate such ‘abominations’. Olive, the child, is one of many such child vampires, they discover created as child soldiers and infiltrators by Elias – leader of the vampires who want to rule humanity. He, we discover, has more of an interest in Lily than will prove healthy for her.

There isn’t much in the way of additional lore from the first book but we do get a confirmation that the vampire creation myth includes the story of Lilith, who is the progenitor of their race. We also get the creation of more zombie like vampires (remembering that in this destroying the brain is key to killing vampires) through starvation until all reason has gone (starvation will eventually kill them) and the use of these zompires as shock troops. The writing is as crisp as the first, the book becoming a tad less police procedural and a little more action. This is a good addition to the series. 7.5 out of 10.

On Kindle @ Amazon US

On Kindle @ Amazon UK

Use of Tropes: Among the Living (2022)

Directed by Rob Worsey, this 2022 UK flick is a zombie, or perhaps infected, movie. I would tend towards the former because, whilst the creatures are victims of a pandemic their very pale skin and black eyes give a more supernatural feel. They seem staggering (except when hunting) and seem to be able to last without food (this is in the countryside so without the population density of towns). However, either explanation works well.

There are very few of the creatures that we see, to be fair, and the film concentrates on the survivors and the brother and young sister pair of Harry (Dean Michael Gregory) and Lily (Melissa Worsey) in particular. Harry was, before the apocalypse, an accountant and the pair are fairly hapless. They are making their way across country, trying to find their father and the film is punctuated with Lily narrating her thoughts as she tells them to their absent mother (Emma Wise).

in the garage

So why am I looking at this? Well, the creatures are rarely seen but the pair are always on guard from getting cuts as it is particularly blood that attracts them. They seem to be able to smell it from a great distance and if blood is spilt it is not long before the animalistic cries of one of the creatures can be heard. For instance, Lily cuts her side in a garage area and, despite quickly patching the cut with duct tape, there is the blood on the piece of metal that cut her. An infected crawls out from a space beneath the floor and is straight to the spill, literally licking the blood up.

after the blood

The creature seems, at first, unaware of the two and when it does turn its attention to them, as they make their way out, a torch shone in its face wards it away. Whilst we do see them out in the day it does seem that bright light is an anathema. So it is the drive for blood – which is almost akin to the Will Smith version of I am Legend, the difference between the two being that the earlier film is based on a vampire novel, whereas this does feel like a zombie text with additional tropes that seem to have been borrowed from the vampire megatext.

living dead girl

Beyond the blood and the (not entirely satisfactorily explained) light aversion there is little else. The creatures are not necessarily too bright. At one point Harry and Lily are camped in a tent and a survivor (Emily Rose Holt) tries to get in, seeking shelter. They refuse her entry and she tries to escape into the night as a creature is nearby. The creature gets to the tent and moves around it but, as neither is bleeding and they remain quiet, it soon moves on. We see the odd attack but not in enough detail to tell whether they are interested in the blood only, or the flesh as well.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Honourable Mentions: Corrective Measures

This is a Tubi original film that was directed by Sean Patrick O'Reilly and came out in 2022, and shows a level of ambition for the free streaming platform, especially as it stars Bruce Willis and Michael Rooker (Creepshow: Drug Traffic). Sadly Willis has an aphasia diagnosis and is retiring from movies but, whilst not the greatest film or role, this is not as terrible a film as it might have been, especially compared to some other end of career films. In fact, whilst his role is fairly sedentary, there is a sense of calm dignity around his performance. Rooker, on the other hand, chews the scenery wonderfully.

Bruce Willis as the Lobe

The film is set in a future after “the pulse” an event that has caused radiation sickness for some and super-powered individuals to emerge. The majority of the film is set in a prison for super villains, who wear leg devices and are fed material that both dampen their powers. The guards are brutal, the overseer – played by Rooker – is amoral and Willis plays the Lobe, a super-villain with mind control and telekinetic powers. The Overseer is approaching retirement and wants the Lobe’s stash of ill-gotten billions and the Lobe might just have an escape plan.

Zed the Zompyre

So, the reason for the mention is an inmate known as Zed the Zompyre (Chris Devitt) – the included 'Y' is the spelling from the credits. With a bat-like look, Zed is a background character only. However in the prison riot at the end of the film we do see him munching on a severed leg (with the powers dampener still attached to it). As fleeting a visitation as it may have been, both his appearance and his name would always have been enough for the honourable mention.

on the news

I do also need to mention, however, an end credit sequence that has a segment from news programme PulseWatch (a show we see peppering the film). They report that Zed had escaped during the riot (he’s the one prisoner unaccounted for, they believe). They warn people that he is the carrier of a highly infectious “super virus” and a zompyre… It is a neat little ending for Zed and adds that extra layer of interest.

The imdb page is here.

Reign of Chaos – review

Director: Rebecca Matthews

Release date: 2022

Contains spoilers

Give director Rebecca Matthews her due, she and her partners in crime are pumping out the low budget films (Matthews has, at time of writing, 51 producer credits since 2016 and 15 director credits since 2019). I have looked at a couple of them before… Hellkat was flawed but was also interesting, and Bats was pretty poor. I’ve also watched a couple of flicks that weren’t suitable subject-wise for this blog. I get that they are low budget affairs (and the filmmakers have done much more than I could ever do) but in Reign of Chaos we have a new low to come out of Proportion Productions.

Mark Sears as Chaos

We start with a narration talking about Chaos (Mark Sears) wanting to take over the world and releasing a plague upon mankind… Ok this wraps everything into Greek myth and suggests that he was opposed by the Gods (the descendants of Nike are the ones who can stop him). Its just… what’s he been doing for a few thousand years? That’s never answered.

a joiner

So the Guardian, Rhodri (Peter Cosgrove), leads three sisters into battle against Chaos and they get their arses kicked. Only one sister, Alina (Rita Di Tuccio), survives. So it’s off to find more girls then… Which he does in the form of Lindsay (Georgia Wood) and Nicole (Rebecca Finch). Now, bear in mind the ‘plague’ is essentially a zombie thing with those bitten becoming Joiners (now it might have been more interesting if the bite made them experts in woodwork but I assume it is because they’ve joined Chaos).

Peter Cosgrove as Rhodri

So Rhodri finds Lindsay who’s just fighting a guy who offered to trade food for sex in an underpass. The fact that she then goes off with Rhodri essentially without question and leaves the food is hinkey to say the least. As for Nicole, we first see her scavenging food and losing it to a desperate woman – mostly because she gets a psychic flash, when they touch, showing how the woman will die. Following that she goes home to suburbia, where electricity is apparently still on and dad (Mike Kelson) is ill (she gets a flash of his death) and mum (Kate Milner Evans) is worried about starving (but not about the fact that the house hasn’t been barricaded).

Rhodri and Nicole

She is found by Rhodri during her next trip looking for food, who helps her out with a Joiner. We don’t see the killing stab hit home – but it looks to be around the heart. Later he mentions always taking a head or heart shot with Joiners. She is a little more resistant than Lindsay was to the idea of going off with him, but not that resistant and soon follows him to a hotel – for the purpose of making a brew it would seem. Then she takes him home to meet mum – having discovered she is adopted and mum always knew she was special… Off then to meet the other two Nike descendants and enter the world’s worst training montage. So why is this a vampire film?

the heroes

Well, the Joiners are a bit zompire, I guess, due to the fact that heart shots kill – though they are mostly standard, mindless zombies. Rather, it is because of chaos. He bathes in the blood of the Nike descendants and from doing so is gaining power (and will soon ascend to be a God). This makes him a vampiric entity of some sort. He also suggests that his minions will drink the blood and, whilst the Joiners are minions, I think he meant his sentient sons.

catsuits of the apocalypse

So the post-apocalyptic world doesn’t seem too post-apocalyptic (we do get a scene of buildings ablaze in London but I suspect they are burning through embarrassment at the bad fire cgi). Apparently, as nothing looks too grimy, the heroes still have access to washing machines, the Joiners must repel dirt off their clothes and Rhodri has a stock of latex catsuits that he can fit to random women he meets. The fight choreography is weak, the acting not great – melodrama is the order of the day, with Rhodri channelling his best pirate into his accent, and there is a supporting role that is one of the most wooden performances I’ve seen for some time. Still, there was an effort made, at least. 1.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Vamp or Not? Don't Wake the Dead

This was a 2008 flick by Andreas Schnaas, who is known for his low budget, splatter filled madcap horrors. It was Leila who suggested to me that I could look at it as a ‘Vamp or Not?’ and pointed out its similarity to the Blind Dead films. Now if you haven’t seen the four original Blind Dead films they are a must (mostly, the third film does let the series down) for any fan of horror exploitation cinema and, in fact, I noted the vampire tropes that cropped up in the first two films. The idea that it might be along the lines of the Blind Dead was a deal maker.

Templar rises

That connection (though the term Blind Dead is not mentioned) is seen straight off the bat when we are told of Knights Templar in a Germania castle who are killed but lay a curse. Every 66 years, for one night, these Knights will rise and take their revenge and the only two things that can stop them are the morning sun and the Sword of Mecca.

calm before the storm

So, the film follows a couple of women shopping, they eventually stop for a drink and are met by a third and hurried to the coach that will take them all to Schloss Karnstein (so a connection to Carmilla) where they are helping a friend decorate/restore the Castle interior. A Motorbike sets off at the same time and in the same direction.

Lana and the portrait

Meanwhile, the friend, Lana (Sonja Kerskes), is trying to remove or cover the portrait of a Nazi officer, though creepy butler, Janowitz (Wolfgang Wobeto), argues that it is part of the castle’s history so should remain (and we cut to scenes of Nazi soldiers fighting against the Knights Templar and losing). Lana phones her friends in the (real) band Gang Loco who are meant to be coming to the castle also. Meanwhile the bike has tried to get the coach of ladies to turn back.

leader of the dead

So the bike rider is a (leather coat wearing, habit-less) monk called Vincent (Ralph Fellows) who does a blood ritual at the castle to awaken the Knights (and some Nazi zombies now on the Templars' side). Why? So he can destroy them, but the film doesn’t really explain why a blood ritual is needed when the curse is meant to awaken them anyway. Unfortunately, right at the beginning he manages to break the blade of the sword of Mecca. The dead kill the band members out on the road (and they reappear later, turned and playing a track at an undead party in the castle) and they lay siege to the castle looking to kill the women within.

fangs

Other potential vampire connections are a direct connection to Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires as Vincent suggests he hunted them (he is also a user of the flying guillotine and suggests that Wang Yu trained him in a reference to Jimmy Wang Yu and his film Master of the Flying Guillotine). The dead turn their victims ritualistically and one, in flashback, has fangs. Some seem shuffling and zombified but others seem sentient. We see one rip a victim’s heart out and then drink the blood from it. Vincent tells us that sunrise will melt the flesh off the deads’ bones (though when we see a newly turned in the sun’s rays the creature more explodes) but in response to the sunlight statement he is asked ‘like a vampire?’ and he responds that vampires and zombies are pretty much the same.

zombie girl

Therefore, I think it is clear that the filmmakers were just throwing the kitchen sink in. The vampire connections were deliberate (hence the seven golden vampires, which in turn is intertextually related to Dracula, and Carmilla references) but these are definitely more a hybrid, perhaps more correctly termed as zompires. The Blind Dead side is as much aesthetic as anything. This is definitely of genre interest, whether it is of casual viewer interest is really down to whether you want a take your brain out, gore film which wears its exploitation heritage on its sleeve.

The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon UK