Short Film: Habit (1981)

Larry Fessenden’s Habit is a favourite vampire film and I knew that he had based it on a previous short. The Blu-Ray of the feature, in the Larry Fessenden Collection, features the short as an extra.

A note about the release date. IMDb suggests 1982 and the date on the Blu-Ray box also says this. However, there is an errata sticker with the Blu-Ray that then corrects the date to 1981. The Official Site says 1981, but conflates the run-time with the feature. The date is, therefore, contested but I have settled for the corrected date as per the Blu-Ray.

Larry Fessenden as Sam

The short isn’t a great quality recording, clearly from a video transfer but offers a unique look into the genesis of the fabulous feature. It begins with Anna (Anne Phelan, though IMDb says Meredith Snaider who was Anna in the feature) and Sam (Larry Fessenden) coming into shot, chatting about the party they have left, he is drunk. This mirrors their meeting in the film, though we don’t see the party itself.

more Sam

The film then follows the two, she a vampire who feeds upon her new lover. The scenes are familiar, they will make their way into the feature in one way or another, but with superior cinematography and much more consistent acting. This feels like the student film that it was, so may not appeal to the casual viewer, but for the student of the film it is an essential little short, giving an insight into how the concept developed.

The imdb page is here. 

The Larry Fessenden Collection can be found at Amazon US and Amazon UK (be aware it is region A).

Jakob’s Wife – Blu-Ray Review

Director: Travis Stevens

Release date: 2021

Contains spoilers

As you’ll see if you look at my original review of Jakob’s Wife I rated it rather highly – indeed the film went straight into my all time Top 100 Vampire films and, for me, is definitely a contender for the best vampire flick of 2021. With it getting a UK Blu-Ray release it seemed a perfect time to revisit the film and have a look at the Blu-Ray contents.

Barbara Crampton as Anne

Of course, when revisiting a film that I rated so highly there is a degree of trepidation – will the film stand up to a subsequent watch and I’m pleased to report this did, and I stand by the original score. The film itself focuses on Anne (Barbara Crampton, God of Vampires, Replace & the Sisterhood) and her husband Jakob (Larry Fessenden) and it is their fantastic performances that carry the film.

Larry Fessenden as Jakob

Jakob is a preacher and Anne his wife, whose existence has become second fiddle to his, for instance with him habitually talking over her as though her opinion is meaningless, and we see her becoming increasingly dissatisfied with her lot in life. She almost has an affair with an old flame, Tom Lowe (Robert Rusler, Vamp), but backs away from the temptation after a kiss – but at that moment a vampire (Bonnie Aarons) enters the equation, killing Tom and biting Anne. The vampire, looking a lot like Orlock and referred to as the Master but gender-swapped, very much represents female emancipation from the patriarchy (particularly the Christian patriarchy in this case). The film uses the performances, a streak of dark comedy and a bucket full of gore to entertain.

Bonnie Aarons as the Master

The Blu-Ray looks beautiful and vibrantly captures the use of colour scheme and lighting that Travis Stevens deliberately used as he plotted Anne’s move from timid preacher’s wife to independent woman (vampire) who demands that her husband treat her as an equal. The Blu-Ray extras are a set of deleted scenes and a “making of feature”. The deleted scenes are fully realised, rather than rushes, and I think pretty much deleted for pacing/run time reasons. The one that might have added to the film is the search for the presumed missing first victim, Amelia (Nyisha Bell), and only because it offered a sense of time passing that was missing in the film’s cut. The making of is not really a making of but, rather, a very short set of cast interviews with Barbara Crampton, Larry Fessenden, Bonnie Aarons and Robert Rusler. It is nice to have some form of extras but these are very much "extras-lite" and a real making of, or perhaps a director’s commentary, would have been more welcome – that said the film is a must see and a necessary part of a vampire genre fan’s collection (see the original review for film score). The UK Blu-Ray is slated for a January 10th 2022 release.

The imdb page is here.

On Blu-Ray @ Amazon US

On Blu-Ray @ Amazon UK

Jakob’s Wife – review

Director: Travis Stevens

Release date: 2021

Contains spoilers

When I first noticed Jakob’s Wife, and watched the trailer I found myself immediately excited. The trailer looked great and it starred Larry Fessenden whose output both as actor and director I love. Of course, it is often a mistake getting excited for a film, you raise those expectations past a point that the film can reach and end up more disappointed than you would have been going in cold.

I’m happy to report, not this time. If anything this rose above those expectations and was such great fun – a character study, a social commentary, a black comedy with the added joy of some very gory moments. Fessenden was fantastic but his performance was eclipsed, in some respects, but also complemented by the stellar performance by the star of the film Barbara Crampton (God of Vampires, Replace & the Sisterhood).

Jakob preaches

It starts with a church, we hear a squeaking and see two rats outside in the carpark. Inside Jakob (Larry Fessenden), who is the pastor, gives a sermon about how husbands should love their wives but his own wife, Anne (Barbara Crampton), looks less than happy. As people leave, they speak to Jakob, including a young woman, Amelia (Nyisha Bell). She is asked why she is there on her own, she admits her mother has started drinking again and Jakob offers to go to their home.

Nyisha Bell as Amelia

The camera follows Amelia on her long trek home. She gets to a sparsely populated area, ironically where she lives, when she hears a noise. Scared she looks around and then visibly jumps when she notices the rats at her feet. She heads to home but a whisper in the dark says her name. She stops, looks around as something descends slowly behind her… The next day the local sheriff, Mike (Jay DeVon Johnson), comes to see Jakob and Anne – Amelia is missing, but, of course, they cannot shed light on her disappearance.

not domestic bliss

Later that day Jakob’s brother, Bob (Mark Kelly, Angel), and his wife, Carol (Sarah Lind, Blade the Series), have dinner with Jakob and Anne. The conversation gravitates to the missing girl – after some stereotyped guessing of what may have happened, the viewpoints steeped in patriarchy. Anne, in response, states that good people just don’t leave their families. Once their guests have left, we see Jakob cleaning his teeth and then snoring in bed and rolling into her – Anne, for her part, seems aggravated by her husband. In the morning she mentions that a Mill-renovation proposal she was involved in has been accepted and they have a locally born designer coming to help – Tom Lowe (Robert Rusler, Vamp). Jakob makes a point in saying that Tom is her old flame.

in the mill

Anne meets Tom and they have a drink and reminisce and we hear aspects of Anne coming through that perhaps have been buried, her dreams and adventurousness. Tom admits he would not have guessed her marrying Jakob but she says that her mother died, just after Tom left the area, and Jakob, and the church, were there for her. They go out to the mill, clearly implied to have been the place of youthful trysts, and inside he kisses her. She hesitates and then kisses him back but a noise has them descending to the lower level. They find two crates and sit on them, they kiss again but she breaks away – she can’t do it to Jakob.

traumatised

The crate lid starts moving. They open it and there are a couple of rats. The other crate does the same and Tom opens it revealing a mass of rats that attack him, shredding his flesh. Anne backs away as something swoops down upon her… Jakob is phoning to track Anne down as it is late and she comes in, she is silhouetted on the stairs as she says she is going to bed so he doesn’t see that, under her clutched bag, her blouse is soaked in blood. In the bathroom, in a marvellous moment of acting, she is hysterical, hyperventilating – wounded and devastated we can feel her trauma.

Anne changes

So, we then follow Anne and her changes. We get some standard tropes – the wearing of a scarf to hide the bites, the loss of appetite, the being drawn to myoglobin in meat packaging and asking the butcher for blood (which she drinks and subsequently vomits graphically as animal blood is no good). This comes with increased strength, new teeth coming through (behind her front teeth as these are Nosferatu-styled fangs) and, whilst she does move around in daylight, her mouth is burned by the dentist’s UV teeth whitener. However, the bigger change is in her personality, she gains confidence and feels (as she puts it) alive.

Bonnie Aarons as the Master

Now I don't think it too much of a spoiler to reveal that the Master (Bonnie Aarons) is portrayed as Orlock gender-swapped. In this the vampire represents freedom and the vampirism is emancipation from the patriarchy – be that the Judeo-Christian patriarchy that Jakob represents or the wider forms of patriarchy in the form of authority figures such as the sheriff or familial figures such as Bob. Even Tom objectifies and projects his view of what she is onto her. The changes the vampirism brings shifts the dynamics of her marriage, something that Jakob rails against at first and the film is as much 'can he accept a marriage of equals' as 'can he save his wife'?

the Master attacks

Further lore that is worth noting includes the fact that whilst holding the bible seems to fail Jakob at one point, religious items are efficient – be that holy water, or a communion wafer that is placed onto the soil where a vampire has been buried and causes the ground to smoke. This is as much symbols of the patriarchy impacting the feminine as the standard good vs evil. The Master can control minds, a controlled human’s eyes misting over, and cause them to self-harm. Feeding turns (I say feeding rather than a bite as we see a turn after a throat is cut by nails, the head wrenched aside and the blood drunk as it spurts upwards) and a stake to the heart kills. I have mentioned the rats, which the Master can control, and she can also open up another’s sexuality – as she does when, from a distance, she causes Anne to become lost in sensuality.

Anne's new strength

There are some neat streaks of black comedy running through the film – checking on an elderly parishioner, finding her dead and stealing her body to harvest blood, and the subsequent interaction with a neighbourhood kid, are played for dark laughs. But that side does not overpower the character drama. The film does not shy away from blood either and we get a few very bloody attacks. Larry Fessenden offers simply one of the best performances I have seen him give but the show is stolen, very much, by Barbara Crampton who is magnificent. That having been said their performances also complement each other.

I really did like this one – 9 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

Habit (1995) – review

Director: Larry Fessenden

Release date: 1995

Contains spoilers

Habit is a remake of a 1980s film of the same name, by the same director. The brainchild of Larry Fessenden, who not only wrote and directed the films but also stars as lead character Sam. In some respects this movie may not find favour with certain viewers as it is character driven, rather than horror driven and some may find it slow. Personally I found myself drawn into the excellent characterisations and, generally, fantastic acting.

The film begins with Sam looking at some photos. He is in his recently deceased father’s apartment. He leaves to attend a Halloween party with his friends Nick (Aaron Beall) and Rae (Patricia Coleman). At the party he gets very drunk and meets Anna (Meredith Snaider). They leave together, but Sam has taken the wrong coat.

He turns to go back to the party and Anna tries to give him her number but he asks her to wait for him. The film does things subtly. We know it is Halloween and a hand is placed on Sam’s shoulder and we see long talon like nails that could be the hand of a costumed reveller. Sam turns and it is Anna but her hand is normal. Sam has not noticed but we have.

He retrieves his coat and bumps into Liza (Heather Woodbury). This is where I can illustrate the excellent dialogue and acting. They talk briefly and nothing is said concerning the fact that they are recently split up (which is covered later in the film) and yet we know; it is in the awkward dialogue and the mannerisms. This is what acting should be, things should not need to be spelt out if the acting is good enough.

Sam exits the party again, comment being made that he has left whilst he can see straight, but Anna has gone. He awakes on a subway train, where he has passed out and discovers he has been robbed by having his pocket cut. At home he goes to bed, not noticing that Anna had slipped him her number, which falls to the floor and then is knocked by the cat under the floorboards. He goes to work, in a bar/restaurant, and is talking to sound engineer Lenny. Kenny got lucky and ended up having sex with a girl on the poop deck of her boat.

Sam tries to search out Anna, but no-one knows her and Lenny, who is seeing his mysterious woman regularly, seems to get more and more ill. Eventually Lenny just vanishes and Sam, at a festival, bumps into Anna. They start a torrid affair that always seems to involve her biting him. His new relationship drives a wedge between Sam and Liza (who had separated rather than severing ties completely) and Sam seems to become more and more ill. Even when he works out what is happening no-one believes him.

The vampirism is done sparingly, until it builds into a crescendo at the film’s climax. The first thing we see is Anna kissing Sam and, it appears, sucking at his lip. When he awakes in the park alone, in the morning, his lip is cut. Every time they have sex she bites him and, later, Sam admits that he liked it, despite himself. Anna tells him she wants to take a little at a time as she likes him, it is only towards the end that Sam realises what she means.

Other subtle moments include Anna not wishing to enter the kitchen due to the stink. Sam assumes it is the litter tray but we get the hint that it is the garlic he is cooking. There is a moment in the Park where Anna points out a pack of dogs, and a connection with wolves is made. The dogs chase them and Anna stops. Holding out a hand, unseen by Sam, she causes them to end their chase.

Anna’s bites effect Sam profoundly. He not only becomes ill but his hearing seems sharper. At times she seems to talk to him when she is not there. On a trip to the country, when she is due to arrive the next day, a primal looking version of her visits him in his sleep and feeds, until a bell chimes. In the morning he has a wound on his abdomen. She is never seen during the day and never seen eating food.

We also get dream images. One sees Sam on a boat and we get many vampiric images through the sequence. Post the dream Sam finds the cat ripped apart, though there is a question as to whether Anna killed it or Sam did it himself – we never discover. The boat imagery also connects Anna to Lenny’s mysterious girl. Sam makes a connection but we are never explicitly told she was the same person.

The character of Sam is great as he is so fallibly human. He works in a low paid job as he has a nest egg left by his mother and so can concentrate on drinking. He is on a path of self destruction before Anna comes into his life, at one point he informs her, “Actually, I'm committing suicide on the installment plan.” It is stated that the split between him and Liza was due to his excessive drinking, there is a hint that he had a violent relationship with Rae in the past and he is scarred from when he used to cut himself. Fessenden’s performance (and script) makes the character totally believable.

Indeed most of the acting is good, though I felt Bealle’s performance as Nick was a little under par. That perhaps is unfair as the majority of his scenes were with Fessenden who was just so good.

The film does leave aspects unanswered but this seems deliberate and plays with our expectations. For example, a friend of Sam’s father, Mr Lyons (Lon Waterford), leaves a message for Sam as he wants to speak to him about Anna. Lyons could well have become a Van Helsing type character but Sam doesn’t return the call. The film might leave things unanswered but, in the same respects, they are never major plot points and sometimes it answers these things subtly.

I should warn you that the film is gritty and downbeat and the ending follows the same pattern – a refreshing change.

I really enjoyed Habit and it just goes to show that with a great script and performance a film does not have to be big budget to be really good. To a degree it makes me want to see the original and then I think that perhaps it is best just to see this later version, as this is so good. 8.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon US

On DVD @ Amazon UK

The Transfiguration – review

Director: Michael O'Shea

Release date: 2016

Contains spoilers

There has been a small buzz around the Transfiguration but, to be candidly honest, not so much of a buzz as I might have expected having seen the film. A drama, perhaps, more than a horror it walks a line close to arthouse without stepping fully into that arena and is incredibly self-knowing.

It does not feature a vampire – as in the supernatural creature – but rather a person convincing themselves that they are a vampire and searching with the media vampire genre for answers that it, as a genre, doesn’t contain. It lacks the ambiguity of the magnificent Martin but owes much to the movie – and openly says so.

the victim

It starts with a slurping noise coming from a bathroom stall. A man at a urinal hears it, looks under the stall and sees two sets of feet and comes to a conclusion. However, in the stall a young teen, Milo (Eric Ruffin), is suckling at the man’s open neck. When he is done he takes the money from the man’s wallet and has blood on his mouth. On the train home Milo writes in a book and at home he marks a circled spot on a calendar – his feeding routine. He watches a nature show (he likes to see animal death it appears) and keeps a bag of stolen money hidden behind VHS tapes of vampire films (incongruously he has a recording on VHS of Dracula Untold, a film from way past the VHS era and, of course, he would be able to get the digital file on his computer).

Eric Ruffin as Milo

So Milo is our vampire and I don’t really want to get too much into the story as the film is more a character study. We do see him vomit (after eating cereal but it is clearly the earlier ingested blood he brings up). We see him with a school psychologist, where he is asked about hurting animals, and admits he thinks about it – indicating he was previously caught doing just that. He is clearly the target of bullies at school – interestingly they call him “little bitch”. Later in the film he mentions how good (though not realistic) Let the Right One In is. The phrasing reminds one more of Let Me In as the bullies in the Swedish film use the term “little piggy” but the bullies in the US version use “Little girl” – “little bitch” seems a more pejorative but still gender specific attack. The gangbangers near his apartment call him Freak.

Chloe Levine as Sophie

He shares the apartment with his brother Lewis (Aaron Moten), their father having died of a disease and their mother being a suicide (it sounds like Lewis was in the forces and returned to take care of his brother but had previously run with the gangbangers). It is the suicide that shapes Milo as a vampire – remembering that in folklore suicide can create the vampire, in this case the suicide rests in her grave and it is Milo, who found the body, tasted blood from her slit wrist and can now (as a vampire) not die by suicide himself – it’s a rule. Into his world comes a girl (her race a repeated dialogue point) called Sophie (Chloe Levine, Innocence) and her arrival feels like a mirror image of Let the Right One In/Let Me In – female human moves into the realm of a male vampire. She self harms by cutting, and he does try to taste her blood when he finds her doing that, something she calls gross… but sweet.

Larry Fessenden in cameo

The genre points are thick and fast and for a film that is set in New York it didn’t have that specific New York feel that many other films do (for instance Nadja or Habit). Rather the photography feels more tonally like Martin – which was shot in Pittsburgh, and Milo lists Martin amongst his favourite vampire films. That said the great Larry Fessenden, director and star of Habit, makes a cameo appearance within the film.

video collection

The pace feels similar to that of Martin, as well, though as the film is more self-knowing so is the primary character; in many respects Milo is who Martin would have been if the latter had been more self-composed. Eric Ruffin is stoic as Milo but imbues the character with pathos, intelligence and offers a great sense of timing. Chloe Levine counterpoints with a character that is more obviously damaged, vulnerable and yet sweetly innocent (whilst worryingly worldly in some ways). Director Michael O'Shea actually puts a genuinely shocking moment into the end sequence, which underlines Milo’s own self-awareness. A necessary film for the vampire fan’s collection. 8 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Vamp or Not? Jug Face

Also known as The Pit, Jug Face was directed by Chad Crawford Kinkle and released in 2013. The film was mentioned by Simon bacon in Becoming Vampire who said “a patch of land seems to draw the life-force out of all who come near it and as such acts as a vampiric object” (pg 88).

It is the pit itself that is the focal point for this, hence the alternative name, but is it actually vampiric? Well, let us see.

The opening credits pictorially give us the history of this backwoods area and the community that lives there. We see the people diseased, a blood sacrifice into the pit and then the diseased bathing in the pit – so there is an inference of bathing in blood. What we find is a community that worships the pit (or more accurately something, a spirit perhaps, that lives within the local environs, perhaps even within the pit.)

Sean Bridgers as Dawai

The entity (it is referred to as a thing that awakens and so I will continue to refer to it as such) has a chosen person it communicates with. Dawai (Sean Bridgers) is this potter – an individual who is placed into a trance by the entity, during which his eyes are milky and unseeing, and who then creates a pot jug, with the face of the one the pit has chosen. Dawaii is therefore much like a familiar who is directly communicated with but on a psychic level.

Lauren Ashley Carter as Ada

The main character is Ada (Lauren Ashley Carter) a teenage girl who, when we first meet her, is with a young man called Jessaby (Daniel Manche, I Sell the Dead). She ignores his pleading for sex by the pit but takes him some distance away for the act. When she gets home she is informed that she is to be joined to another youth, Bodey (Mathieu Whitman). We soon discover that Jessaby is Ada’s brother and thus their intercourse in incestuous. Incest has often been seen as a gateway to vampirism – indeed the back story of the fake vampire in Mark of the vampire was one of incest and suicide, until it was deemed too shocking and was relegated to the cutting room floor.

the pit

Ada knows that her purity will be tested, as a pre-requisite to the joining, and she paints blood into the gusset of her knickers in order to suggest that she is on her period. She also looks into Dawai’s kiln and realises that the jug head in the kiln has her likeness, so she takes it and buries it, knowing that it means she is to be sacrificed. There is a celebration of the joining’s announcement in the evening, with Jessaby keen to ensure that Ada doesn’t put her impurity onto him.

Larry Fessenden as Sustin

When she accompanies her father, Sustin (Larry Fessenden, Stake Land, Stake Land 2, Habit & also I Sell the Dead), into town, where he makes money selling moonshine, she asks him whether the pit has ever taken a baby and he says it has. Whilst in the chemists she steals a pregnancy test – which back home shows positive. However by hiding the jug she has broken the community’s covenant with the entity.

having a vision

Ada starts having visions, and these prove to be her seeing through the entity as it awakens and attacks community members to punish her (and the community) for the break of the covenant. When this occurs her eyes become milky. The victims are either taken at the pit or dragged there and we never see what it is. Ada also starts to see a spectral boy (Alex Maizus). He is one of “the Shunned” and it is revealed that those killed by the pit (rather than being sacrificed to it) are forced to spectrally walk the woods for eternity – so, in its own way, the pit creates undead of its victims.

Sacrifice

It transpires that Dawai had made a jug that he hadn’t shown anyone, as it was a baby and no one was with child (that he was aware of) and so thought it a mistake. As mentioned he makes the jugs in a trance and when he comes around he feels strange, but has no memory of the process or the jug itself. Thus he doesn’t know that the second one was of Ada. He tries to pull a face from his subconscious and makes one of Bodey. Thinking it is what the pit wants, Bodey is sacrificed; his throat slit over the pit into which he bleeds out. Of course, it isn’t the sacrifice the pit wants and the reprisal kills continue.

remains in the pit

The one to die, after the sacrifice, is ill and has been taken to the pit for healing. So the pit/entity not only desires and demands blood (and specific blood at that) but can also heal. The healing process involves getting into the pit and immersing oneself in the waters – which, of course suggests a bathing in blood. We have no reason to not believe that the healing would normally have occurred. I won’t spoil the story further as we have all the elements needed to judge the film.

the shunned

So we have an entity, I’d guess – after all it can leave the pit – perhaps a spirit or if it is a creature we don’t see it. I might go as far as to suggest it is an avatar of the spirit of the land. It demands a blood sacrifice and actively chooses the one it wants (unlike the shunned, the chosen ones are said to then walk with it). If it fails to get the chosen one, it destructively punishes those who have a covenant with it and those killed, rather than are sacrificed (ie made holy), become undead and walk the woods (normally invisibly, perhaps they can allow themselves to be seen or perhaps those who are between the two worlds can see them – Ada is in such a place having been chosen). It is her transgression, it would seem, that has led to her being chosen – the fact that she is carrying a baby conceived through incest.

Ok, it is unusual, but I think Simon is right and there is a vampiric element to this. Whether consciously included by Kinkle, who wrote as well as directed the film, I don’t know – but it’s definitely there.

The imdb page is here.

Vamp or Not? Zombie Honeymoon

This was a 2004 David Gebroe directed piece that was recommended for ‘Vamp or Not?’ by my friend Nick. It has Larry Fessenden as one of the executive producers, which boded well as Fessenden has been involved, in one way or another, with some great genre pieces including Habit, I Sell the Dead and Stake Land.

It begins with a wedding; Denise (Tracy Coogan) and Danny (Graham Sibley) have just got married and we first see them running to their car, leaving the guests still in the church. They are an unconventional couple, highlighted by her red wedding dress and the surf board on the roof rack. The honeymoon – set to actually be a month – is being spent in Uncle Brian’s New Jersey house, she gives him a little head on the drive and carried him across the threshold. They are looking to move to Portugal eventually.

vomiting blood

They hit the beach, Danny surfing and Denise sun bathing and then, as he rests up by her, she sketches (we discover that she is an illustrator by trade). Then their idyllic time comes to a crashing halt as she spots a man coming out of the ocean. It is clear there is something very wrong with him as he falls atop of Danny and vomits a blackened quantity of blood over his face and into his mouth before falling dead.

a happier moment

Danny is rushed to hospital but his heart has stopped. They try to resuscitate him but he does not respond. His heart has not been beating for ten minutes and they declare him dead when he opens his eyes and sits up and states that he feels fine. So, so far we have had a zombie, the zombie has reached the end of its life span by vomiting blood onto another (spreads via blood), the victim has died and then resuscitates (later the term living dead is used with regards Danny) but rather than be the mindless undead he is fully compos mentis.

Tracey Coogan as Denise

That night they make love, though he is rougher than normal and bites her. The next day Denise is upset, perhaps his close call put things into perspective but she is concerned that they will become complacent and not follow their dreams. To answer this they call up their employers and quit and let their apartment go… they intend to move to Portugal and call up best friends Nikki (Phil Catalano) and Buddy (David M. Wallace) to come over and say farewell. Local cop, officer Carp (Neal Jones), comes by. They have not yet identified the attacker but they wonder if Danny saw where his roommate in the hospital, an older gentleman called Jack Birch (Phil Catalano), went as he seemed to have vanished.

caught and contrite

Denise has gone out to buy ingredients for a candlelit dinner but when she gets back she discovers Danny in the shower with… a local (unhealthy) jogger (Steve Szymanski), who he is eating. She runs out of the house but he, blood-soaked as he is, pleads with her and, eventually, she come back. She smokes (having quit 7 months before) and it is her reactions that make the film. Tracy Coogan makes the character believable and she is in equal parts in love, terrified, angry, guilty, defensive and an array of other emotions that give the film a depth it just wouldn’t have had otherwise.

spewing excess

So lore stuff to determine whether he is a vampire or a zombie. Well, the newlyweds go for a meal with Nikki and Buddy. Danny, plays with his food (he was a vegetarian) until taking some of Buddy’s steak (and eating the meat rare). When Buddy points out a woman that looks like an ex, he can’t remember the woman Buddy refers to though Danny was seeing her for two years. This post death dementia gets worse and worse, though he doesn’t become as mindless as your average zombie until the end and we’ll look at that in more depth soon. He does vomit up victims, but that seems more due to excess than the vomiting at the end of the life cycle.

a nod to Zombie Flesheaters?

He attacks several people through the film, eating them, but none of them turn. Thus a bite doesn’t do it, it is only the vomiting of blood at the end of the life-cycle that causes infection. When Nikki reads his palm (she is a fortune teller by trade) he seems, at first, to have a deep, long life line. Then she realises something (it seems as though she is going to say that he is still dead) but her words cut off as she has a vision of him rotted and decayed. The look, I think, was a nod to the film Zombie Flesheaters (we see a T-Shirt from the film during this film). He does look worse and worse, but not as bad as her vision.

a nod to Living Dead Girl

At the end we see him kill by sticking two fingers into a neck, this was reminiscent of the Living Dead Girl, I think purposefully so, though the wounds also look like a typical vampire bite would. In this scene he clearly only drinks the blood, rather than eats the flesh, though the rest of the film has flesh eating aplenty. He does seem to loose sentience but then we see him shed a tear, this perhaps more shows a man ill and 'locked in' than anything else and is rather poignant. At the end he grabs Denise (who has had a couple of near misses already) and is clearly going to vomit blood on her as he is at the end of his life cycle. He remembers her and overcomes instinct to turn his head away and spares her, showing a degree of sentience even at the end. After he dies he seems less decayed than when the living dead, I don't know whether this was a fault in film-making or deliberate, to be honest.

Danny towards the end

Overall, despite the sentience, the living-dead-girl-esque blood drinking scene and the fact that it is through blood that these creatures are created I don’t think this is vamp. It is not your typical zombie either. It is certainly one that deserves the label zompire and it has much in it that is of genre interest. It is also rather good, despite the fact that I thought it would be a low budget shocker before I watched it. Not Vamp.

The imdb page is here.