Tag Archives: vampire movies

Nightmares Film Festival

The Bloodsucker Proxy

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LandLord

Screens Saturday, October 18 at 2pm

by George Wolf

Remember the simple genius of 30 Days of Night? Vampires were roaming Alaska, in a town with no sunlight for a month! We all wondered why we didn’t think of that.

LandLord is built on a similarly clever foundation. Vampires have to be invited in, right?

Not if they own the property.

Go on.

Writer/director Remington Smith could have steered that premise toward a basic bite-fest, and it might have been good fun. But here he has something more ambitious in mind, with a patient, understated approach that makes sure the wounds go a little bit deeper.

A Black Bounty Hunter (a terrific Adama Abramson) cuts quite a figure as she travels alone, on foot and dealing only in cash. The bills she throws at the manager of a rundown apartment complex get her some keys with no questions asked, and plenty of time to surveil a man who carries a valuable briefcase.

But a chance meeting with a bullied youngster named Alex (Cohen Cooper) slowly draws the Bounty Hunter away from her mark, and toward Alex’s outrageous claims about a white vampire stalking the housing community.

The apartment setting coupled with the teenage perspective calls to mind 2016’s excellent The Transfiguration, while the prevailing subtext of a disposable population echoes Jorge Michael Grau’s masterful We Are What We Are. Still, Smith is able to make sure his own voice his heard.

LandLord is a story of survival. Getting out alive is going to take wits, courage, and a good friend watching your back. You’ve just got to know who the bloodsuckers are.

And some of them might even be vampires.

New In Theaters

Vampire Blues

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Abraham’s Boys

by Hope Madden

The problem with crafting a feature length film from a short story is that, often, the story’s too short. Filmmakers need to pad, and that can be tough because if the story needed more, likely the writer—certainly a writer as strong as Joe Hill—would have realized that.

But it can be done. Hill’s The Black Phone—an incredibly creepy short—benefitted from a number of changes as it leapt from page to screen. Director Scott Dickerson, who co-wrote the screenplay with regular collaborator C. Robert Cargill, added complexity and a strong B-story to enrich Hill’s original tale.

In adapting Hill’s short Abraham’s Boys, filmmaker Natasha Kermani (Lucky) keeps the core ideas intact but alters everything in the orbit of our three main characters: Dr. Abraham Van Helsing (Titus Welliver, solid), his oldest son Max (Brady Hepner), and young Rudy (Judah Mackey). The family lives, along with delicate mother Mina (Jocelin Donahue, Last Stop in Yuma County), in the as-yet isolated California desert.

Mina is but a distant memory in Hill’s writing, so her presence allows the film to round out the family dynamic. Kermani also adds railroad builders, which deepens the pool of potential victims, but also hints at Van Helsing’s paranoia when he and his family are not isolated from the rest of the world.

Why so paranoid? Like the short story, the film raises suspicions concerning Abraham’s reasoning and behavior.

Kermani’s film delivers on horror, bloody and emotional, in a way the short does not. Dreamy sequences bring depth to the inner conflict haunting Max, the film’s main focus. And none of Kermani’s additions subtract from the prickly family dynamic that was the soul of Hill’s tale.

Hepner, who had a small part in The Black Phone, struggles to carry Abraham’s Boys. It’s his arc that defines the story, but the performance is little more than a stiff spine and a pout.

The balance of the cast fares better, but bringing Mina into the story complicates what, in Hill’s tale, was a very simple premise. Her talk of having seen Dracula, of having his voice in her head, muddies the plot in ways Kermani never clarifies. The mixed message weakens the climax a bit, but thanks to the slow-boil atmosphere and Welliver’s brooding turn, all is not lost.

Outtakes

A Mission Not Worth Taking

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Resurrection Road

by Daniel Baldwin

Genre mash-ups are a tricky thing. A consistent tone is hard enough to maintain when one is working in one genre, but once you add any additional genres into the mix, the odds of things going off of the rails increase exponentially. More often than not, they tend to fall apart. After all, for every From Dusk Till Dawn or Sinners, you have a Cowboys & Aliens or an Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

Writer/director Ashley Cahill’s Resurrection Road is a genre mash-up, melding a Civil War men-on-a-mission tale with a heavy dose of supernatural horror. A squad of Black Union soldiers is tasked with a deadly clandestine mission to take out the heavy cannons at a nearby fort so that the army can safely approach it a few days later. It’s effectively a suicide mission and one that the men are blackmailed into accepting. One that would be impossible enough on its own in a standard war actioner but is now made even more impossible with the additional supernatural threat at work.

Malcolm Goodwin (iZombie, Reacher) is our lead and, as always, his presence alone elevates the material. His protagonist, Barrabas, is the most complex and interesting character in the film and Goodwin does everything in his power to carry Resurrection Road across the finish line. It’s not enough.

This isn’t the first time someone has attempted to craft a Civil War-era horror/action hybrid. Alex Turner’s Dead Birds attempted something similar a couple decades back. Making any sort of period piece on a low budget is a tall order, as one has to not only get the dialogue right, but also the production design. Resurrection Road unfortunately comes up short in both areas.

Fans of the ever-underrated Goodwin might still want to check this out, as he gives it his all. Folks who really enjoy period piece horror might also find something of interest here. Otherwise, it is a hard film to recommend. There’s always something to be admired in a project that’s reach exceeds its grasp, but in the end, this film just doesn’t measure up.

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Hellhound on My Tail

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Sinners

by Hope Madden

Ryan Coogler can direct the hell out of a movie, can’t he?

For Sinners, he reteams with longtime creative partner Michael B. Jordan to sing a song of a 1932 Mississippi juke joint. The Smokestack twins (Jordan) are back from Chicago, a truckload of ill-gotten liquor and a satchel full of cash along with them. They intend to open a club “for us, by us” and can hardly believe their eyes when three hillbillies come calling.

Jack O’Connell (an amazing actor in everything he’s done since Eden Lake) has a brogue and a banjo. He and his two friends would love to come on in, sing, dance, and spend some money, if only Smoke would invite them.

He does not.

The night becomes a standoff between those inside the club and those outside, but by the time Act 2 sets its fangs, Coogler and his terrific ensemble already have you invested in everyone inside.

The great Delroy Lindo effortlessly charms as bluesman Delta Slim. Wunmi Mosaku (His  House, Lovecraft Country) works with Coogler’s direction to turn the horror trope “supernatural expert” (the one person who can explain to the others what’s going on and how to stop it) into the film’s broken heart.

Newcomer Miles Caton shines as the young blues guitarist whose voice is so sweet it can conjure the devil.

The setting and period suit the film beautifully, giving Coogler room to play with ideas of religion and redemption, music and temptation, and everything else that offers hope to the powerless. Every character carries a rich history that you can feel.

Jordan impresses in dual roles, carving out unique but dependent characters. O’Connell delivers lines and lyrics with a lived-in magic, twisting together Coogler’s insightful ideas about how prayer and song are often tools of the oppressor.

It’s scary. It’s sexy. The action slaps. It’s funny when it needs to be, sad just as often. It looks and sounds incredible. And there’s a cameo from Buddy F. Guy, in case you needed a little authenticity.

When Ryan Coogler writes and directs a vampire movie, he gives you reason to believe there is yet new life for the old monster.

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You Know What I Vant

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The Vourdalak

by Hope Madden

There is nothing in this world that cannot be undone by obedience and patriarchy.

Also, I just watched the maddest film about vampires—Adrien Beau’s The Vourdalak, based on Tolstoy’s 19th century tale that inspired Mario Bava’s Black Sabbath. In Beau’s hands, a darkly comic sensibility wraps around themes of oppression—classism, sexism, homophobia—to charge the old vampire lore with something wizened and weary about who becomes victims and why.

Fancy pants Marquis Jacques Antoine Saturnin d’Urfé (Kacey Mottet Klein, the picture of entitled cowardice in his powdered wig and pointy shoes)—a nobleman from the court of the King of France—finds himself lost in a formidable wood somewhere out Serbia way. His host has been murdered by marauding Turks. His only hope is that the primitive family in this rustic little farmhouse can offer him aid.

But the Marquis has arrived at quite a moment. The patriarch is gone to fight the Turks. He said he would return within six days, but if he returned any later than that, the family was not to let him in the house because he would no longer be their father. The Marquis has arrived on Day 6.

Klein’s comic delivery meets deadpan reaction from Ariane Labed (The Lobster, Flux Gourmet) playing the host’s lovely if melancholic daughter, Sdenka. The performances create a fascinating pairing, Klein instinctively enriching his character arc with their onscreen chemistry.

Vassili Schneider injects the film with aching tenderness that gives the horror a powerful sadness, even though there’s no denying The Vourdalak’s comedic sensibility.

Beau’s film delivers stagy fun that’s utterly hypnotic, using dance, melodrama, even  puppets as well as more traditional genre imagery to spin a bizarre and captivating horror.

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Dancing in the Dark

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Abigail

by Hope Madden

Back in 2019, directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett had a blast locking a group of evildoers and one innocent inside a luxurious mansion for about 90 minutes of head exploding, weapon wielding, visceral mayhem.

The fun they had with Ready or Not was contagious. So catchy that you can certainly feel its influence in the filmmakers’ latest, the ballerina vampire tale Abigail.

The first big difference is that in this mansion, no one is innocent.

A team has been assembled for a kidnapping: grab a wealthy guy’s kid and hole up in some out-of-the-way safe house until the ransom comes. They nab little Abigail as she’s coming home from ballet lessons, easy enough, and now all they have to do is wait out the night until the cash comes through.

It’s an airtight movie set up, even if it leaves little breathing space for twists or surprises—assuming you’ve seen the trailer, or at least the poster, and are not shocked to learn that Abigail is a vampire.

Alisha Weir (Matilda: The Musical, Wicked Little Letters) strikes a fine balance as the centuries-old bloodsucker who suckers victims by playing a helpless preteen. She certainly makes ballet look sinister.

Gillett and Bettinelli-Olpin surround their wee star with a solid ensemble. This ragtag group of bloodbags (or criminals, as they’d probably prefer to be known) delivers some fun chemistry.

Dan Stevens (having a banner year!) is delightfully unpleasant as group leader Frank, while Melissa Barrera (Scream) carves out a compelling lead turn. Meanwhile, Kathryn Newton (Lisa Frankenstein, Freaky) and longtime “that guy” Kevin Durand deliver the comic notes.

Abigail offers quickly paced, sharply edited gore with enough banter to keep the characters interesting. It’s tough to know who to root for—these people did willingly kidnap a child, after all. The overall moral ambiguity of the film makes it less satisfying than Ready or Not and the lockstep plotting keeps it from sticking with you long after the credits roll.

It’s fun, though. And when it decides to finally get bloody, it may not leave a lasting impression, but it definitely makes a mess.

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In the Company of Women

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House of Darkness

by Hope Madden

Who hurt Neil LaBute?

Would it surprise you to find that the latest from the writer/director behind In the Company of Men and Your Friends and Neighbors (as well as the less impressive Wicker Man reboot and others) is a meditation on sexual dynamics, power and agency? That it’s brimming with psychosexual wordplay? That it’s bitter and a bit misguided?

How many times can we disassemble the mating ritual to judge and shame those involved?  

Sometimes LaBute does it well—so well that it’s tough not to look forward to whatever he releases. House of Darkness sees the filmmaker again exploring his favorite topic, this time within a horror context.

Justin Long riffs on his nice guy persona, his character Hap actually referring to himself at one point as “one of the good ones.” (Had Hap seen Promising Young Women, he might have had sense enough not to make such a claim.)

Hap’s been lured into the stately gothic manor of the lovely Mina, played with controlled ferocity by Kate Bosworth. Bosworth seems to relish the directness of her character. Mina’s disinterest in accommodating Hap’s insecurities is glorious—a reminder of how casually brutal LaBute’s work can be.

Perhaps because he started his career as a playwright, each of LaBute’s films rise or fall on dialog. House of Darkness is a chamber piece – it could easily be a stage play (though it’s likely a Covid production). Limited performers pepper scenes with double entendres in an awkward dance of “will we or won’t we” sexual politics.

The difference this time around is the genre trapping, a first for the filmmaker. The look is lush and effective, particularly the more fantastical sequences. Long — a genre veteran — delivers a bit of nuance, his Hap never entirely sympathetic but definitely hard to hate.

The story builds effectively enough. It’s just that nothing is ever in question. The genre tropes are more threadbare from use than LaBute’s banter-driven power game. Worse, the point rings hollow, like a disingenuous, cash-grab reversal of In the Company of Men.

New In Theaters, Shudder Premiere

The Bored and the Beautiful

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Dead & Beautiful

by Hope Madden

Oh, they’re so attractive. They’re so rich. In fact, the five souls at the center of writer/director David Verbeek’s Dead & Beautiful are so attractive and rich that they have to stick together because literally no one else on earth can understand where they come from.

Each has a family fortune in the billions, and every week one of the five takes a “turn” — they decide what the group will do for fun, and their buddies have to participate, no questions asked. But it’s so hard! They’ve done everything.

Verbeek makes his point early. These five people contribute nothing to the world. As the rich and beautiful, they are the alpha predators. And yet, their unfulfilled lives spin out of control after one “turn” may have inadvertently changed them into vampires.

Thus begins the psychological experiment. When you have no soul to begin with, you’ve essentially lived off the masses your whole life, is there really any difference between you and a vampire?

We find out in rain-slicked, neon-tinted urban late nights, following five impossibly thin and unreasonably attractive people through a whole lot of nothing.

Very, very little happens during this movie. Camaraderie and sexual tensions feel fake. Individual suffering rings false. The psychological game at the heart of the action is as bloodless as the film itself. This is a horror film in the loosest sense.

Dead and Beautiful would play more like a social satire if it didn’t emulate the same tedious, vacuous billionaire youth that it pretends to skewer.

A handful of funny moments help the time pass, mainly thanks to Philip Juan, whose character believes he mind-controlled his way into a pack of Wrigley’s spearmint gum. A frustrating number of scenes begin with great promise — well-framed, intriguingly populated possibilities for those alpha predators to prove their label. What’s frustrating is how blandly these scenes all end.

Verbeek lenses a gorgeous late-night cityscape — never sinister, never forbidding, just pretty and mainly empty. Like his film.  

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Undead American Summer

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Black As Night

by George Wolf

“That was the summer I got breasts and fought vampires.”

Yes, a lot is happening in Shawna’s life, but Black As Night never loses that matter-of-fact teenage perspective even as it broaches some plenty familiar horror terrain.

Shawna (Asjha Cooper) and her BFF Pedro (Fabrizio Guido) uncover a ring of vampires in their New Orleans precinct, and it’s going to take some help from the hunky Chris (Mason Beauchamp) and a privileged Twilight fan (Abbie Gayle) to track down the lead bloodsucker and take him out.

Black As Night is part of 2021’s “Welcome to the Blumhouse” collaboration with Amazon, and it continues last season’s focus on films by and about women and/or people of color.

Director Maritte Lee Go and writer Sherman Payne mix Candyman‘s themes of gentrification and disposable populations with the surface level adventures of Buffy and The Lost Boys for a vampire tale that is most noteworthy for its fresh cultural lens.

The message isn’t unique or particularly subtle, production values can be shaky and there’s a hearty helping of exposition shortcuts, but these kids have spunk. Cooper makes Shawna’s journey from insecure wallflower to confident vampire killer an endearing one, and Keith David is here to lend his always welcome gravitas.

And though it often feels like Black As Night is content to just jump on a crowded ride, it consistently finds small moments to call its own. Plus, large numbers of vampires to kill!

So, how was your summer?

New In Theaters, Slider

The Lady Is A Vamp

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Jakob’s Wife

by George Wolf

Her name is Anne Fedder. But Jakob’s Wife pretty much sums up the nearly invisible routine Anne (Barbara Crampton) is living.

Jakob Fedder (Larry Fessenden) is the well-known pastor of a small town church, and Anne is well known as his wife. Anne’s life seems to have only gotten smaller during her thirty-year marriage, and if pressed, she’d probably admit she wouldn’t mind a little shakeup.

A late-night meeting with old boyfriend Tom (Robert Rusler)? Intriguing, but his seduction skills got nuthin’ on The Master (Bonnie Aarrons, aka The Nun), who’s waiting on them both.

The next morning, Jakob gets the first clue that things will be changing.

“Did you make breakfast?” he asks.

Anne answers, “I’m not hungry.”

At least not for pancakes. After The Master’s touch, Anne is a brand new woman, sporting fresh hair and makeup, tight, low-cut dresses and provocative new appetites.

It’s no wonder this has been a passion project for Crampton (who’s also a producer), and she makes the extended feminist metaphor ring gloriously true.

Director/co-writer Travis Stevens (Girl on the Third Floor) wraps the bloodlusty tale in a fun retro vibe of ’80s low-budget practical, blood spurting gore, but it’s Crampton (and the chemistry with her fellow horror vet Fessenden) who truly elevates this beyond the standard vampire playbook.

To see a female character of this age experiencing a spiritual, philosophical and sexual awakening is alone refreshing, and Crampton (looking fantastic, by the way) makes Anne’s cautious embrace of her new ageless wonder an empowering – and even touching – journey.

Stevens revels in the B-movie underpinnings, stopping short of tackling any systemic issues inherent in a woman’s longtime restlessness. The focus stays intimate, and only on how Anne’s new freedom affects Jakob and their local community (which remains nameless, though filming was entirely in Mississippi).

But with Crampton and Fessenden so completely in their element, Jakob’s Wife is an irresistibly fun take on the bite of eternity. Here, it’s not about taking souls, it’s about empowering them. And once this lady is a vamp, we’re the lucky ones.