Taliesin meets the vampires

Director: Simon Mckeon

Release date: 2016

Contains spoilers

You might recall that I gave a mention, some time ago, to the Christmas at Draculas: Montage, essentially the (mostly) Black and white prelude to the full film. This then makes the start of this film.

The film was made available to me for review by Simon Mckeon but the director was very quick to stress that the film was made with no budget (according to IMDb an estimated €8000). Given this is a monster mash that might be telling but you can make a film on a budget and absolutely get away with it with the right hook.

opening sequence

So this is a comedy and, after the montage that shows Dracula (Conor Dwane) falling from Prince of Darkness to monster has-been because he saw into the very soul of Mina Harker (Mary Pappin), it is almost fitting that we start in what appears to be a comedy club with the Invisible Man (Dave McGuire) telling his story in an almost noir style. His story is actually Dracula’s story and the film concentrates greatly on Dracula and Igor (Michael O'Dowd).

Igor and the wolfman

Dracula has got wind of the fact that the Grim Reaper (Dave Coon) threw a Halloween bash and seems to have taken the mantle of Prince of Darkness. Having dismissed a few plans to get his title back, Dracula settles on throwing a Halloween party. He invites the Invisible Man, the Wolfman (Lochlainn McKenna), Dr Jekyll (Jerry O'Mullane), Medusa (Noelle Clarke), the Wicked Witch (Lorraine Comiskey) and Frankenstein’s Monster (Jonathan O'Dwyer). Each has issues, the Wolfman has an accent so thick that subtitles are needed – and his makeup is a hirsute pair of cheeks – and Jekyll is an alcoholic. Medusa’s snakes are dead, the witch is a drug addict and the Monster has been disowned by his maker due to his sexuality.

gun play

As the party goes along we get a visit from Lee Harvey Oswald (John Browne) and John Wilkes Booth (Art Kelleher), the Reaper is an uninvited guest and outside the zombie apocalypse has started. The budget means that Mckeon had his work cut out and the all-important hook, I mentioned, was most definitely Conor Dwane’s Dracula. With a Lugosi-esque accent he channelled the great man himself, and to a degree Martin Landau’s performance as Lugosi. Getting the obscenities flowing from his mouth was amusing in itself but it was the timing, the looks, the moments of pathos that made the film.

Vlad and Myra

Dwane kept the viewer focused even when makeup was inconsistent and there is something just so inherently funny about a Lugosi-esque Dracula complaining about Wagon Wheels (the marshmallow and biscuit sandwich snack, not a part of a conveyance). The battle between the Grim Reaper and Dracula was really rather cleverly done as well. I also have to mention, due to the genre connection, the scene that showed various evil souls in a bar in Hell featuring Vlad Ţepeş having a clandestine affair with Myra Hindley.

witch and Dracula

So, this lifted itself up above its budgetary issues (though, as a thought, if you add post-production rain the dry clothes in shot are a dead giveaway) and could find itself becoming a cherished cult classic. If budget flicks aren’t your thing you might struggle but I found it genuinely funny. 7 out of 10. The imdb page is here.

Director: Vinayan

Release date: 2013

Contains spoilers

Not to be confused with Dario Argento’s Dracula this Indian film is called 2012 (the year Argento’s was released) but was released in 2013. Both films have also had releases with “3D” in their titles. There was also Saint Dracula in 2012, a 3D film with an Indian director at the helm – but as flawed as this film might be it is infinitely better than that turkey.

So, what we have essentially is a reinvention of the Dracula story – with a definite Vlad Ţepeş connection and a locational change to India. However we do begin in Romania.

a rite in Bran Castle

Or more precisely at Bran Castle. This, of course, ignores the fact that the connection between Vlad III and Bran Castle is tenuous, to say the least, with little evidence that he stayed there. Indeed it is fair to suggest that the castle became associated with the Dracula story more for the look of the castle than any association with either the Novel (none) or the historic Vlad (little). However it is here we find Roy (Sudheer Sukumaran) honeymooning with his new wife Lucy. He is somewhat excited to be in Dracula’s castle.

manbat and Roy

They head back to the hotel and then he phones his swami and asks whether the techniques he has learnt in India to summon evil spirits will work in a foreign land – he is told yes. Sending Lucy off shopping he heads back to the castle and does a ritual which summons the spirit of Dracula. Dracula states that he has no physical form and must possess a newly dead body and then takes on manbat form and physically attacks Roy. As Lucy searches for her missing husband he is taken to a forest, killed and possessed – Dracula learning his knowledge and language in the process.

the... ahem... armour

He then finds Lucy in the bath (wearing a towel for modesty sake… whilst in the bath it appers), kills and turns her, and as far as their families in India are concerned they have been kidnapped by bandits and are missing presumed dead. There is a homeless looking man in India, who eats bugs, who calls Dracula Master (so Renfield then) and a young man called Raju helps a Doctor William D’Souza move into a house by shifting his boxes (of earth). D’Souza is Dracula and he sees a photo of Raju’s love Meena (Monal Gajjar) and has a flashback to her as his princess. Now this is a rip of Dracula (1992) (with different actors playing the previous incarnations) but the famous red armour of the earlier film has now morphed into some form of padded leisure suit.

dancing

Meena, incidentally, is the swami’s daughter and her sister, Thara, is also targeted by Dracula. Throw in a psychic investigator and some Romanian monks and that’s about it… Except for the dancing and singing – it’s an Indian film so there has to be dancing and singing… It is also interminably long. 45 minutes could have nicely been shaved off the running time that would have tightened the film up considerably and probably wouldn’t have injured the story (it might have improved it to be honest).

Sudheer Sukumaran as Dracula/Roy

The effects are generally poor – the manbat form of Dracula, for instance, looks absolutely fake and thus disturbs suspension of belief. The acting is poor – however Sudheer Sukumaran really seems to be enjoying playing the villain, though the performance is thick with melodrama. All that said there is a charm with this that, perhaps, a film like Saint Dracula lacked. Almost an innocence within the filmmaking that, perhaps, makes it more watchable than it would have been. But the length is the biggest issue and I can’t overlook that. 3.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Director: Filip Tegstedt

Release date: 2011

Contains spoilers

This Swedish film features a creature called a Mare. Now the experts all have different variants of the Mare. Melton says “closely related to the incubus was the mare (Old Teutonic)”. Bunson added more detail and said, “The mar a (mare) generally represented the active terror of the night (the nightmare), an incubus or succubus, and an oppressive or crushing weight during the sleeping hours.” Under Mara he associates it with the alp and says it has a taste for blood. Bane suggests that “The alp, when it attacks a horse, is usually referred to as a mare” and suggests the mara “is created when a child dies before it could be baptized”.

Mare's teeth

All these different takes have a broad consensus that it is a creature that acts somewhat like a succubus/incubus – in that generally it is seen as an energy vampire that comes upon the victim at night; rather than a sexual assault, however, the mare causes terror and sleep paralysis. The terror that comes in the night is, of course, the nightmare.

picnic

This film begins with a picnic. We see Krister (Thomas Hedengran, Frostbite), Eva (Tintin Anderzon) and their 10 year old daughter Sandra (Saga Viljeståhl). Krister walks into the forest a little way and makes a call, we hear him say he is with his family and say to the caller that he loves them. Sandra comes up behind and asks who is talking to, Eva is not far behind. Cut forward 9 years later and Sandra (Sandra Larsson) is at Eva’s funeral. Krister holds a baby, Linnéa, who is crying – he passes her to Sandra and leaves the church.

at the funeral

We discover, as the film goes on, that Krister and Eva split up and, some years later, got back together – Krister leaving his lover. Linnéa was born after their reconciliation. They had left Sandra babysitting when they went out for a night away. Krister told the police that their car was hit by a car driving on the wrong side of a bridge’s carriageway. Eva was killed and the driver of the other car then threw themselves over the side of the bridge. This has left a very broken home. Sandra was already dressing in a Goth/metal fashion and is with an older bloke known as Stiff (Dylan M. Johansson), she has little time for her dad, doesn’t want to go back to school and is generally rebelling.

face above him

Early on in the film we start hearing, as Krister sleeps, a noise – it becomes apparent it is grinding teeth. As the film progresses the mare (for that is what is making the noise) becomes more and more apparent. Krister wakes unable to move, at first feeling the presence in the room, later being sat upon and suffocated. He is even wounded by the mare – though when he shows the marks to a doctor they are barely visible.

Mare's exorcism

He is encouraged in the belief that he is being visited by a supernatural creature by Stiff – who believes in the supernatural and claims to have seen an elf when he was a child. It is he who suggests the visitor is a mare and describes them as a woman, back from the dead, who feeds on life essence and normally has red hair. This fits for Krister as he has already described a pale woman with red hair in a green coat to his counsellor, Sven (Peter Stormare, the Batman Vs Dracula, Dylan Dog: Dead of Night& the Brothers Grimm). Stiff tells him that a line of linseed at the door should keep the mare at bay and the two concoct an (unsuccessful) exorcism including a “mare cross” (a pentagram) and a sheet soaked in sweat as mares don’t like human sweat – to me counter-intuitive as they cause sweat when producing the night terrors.

Peter Stormare as Sven

Sven doesn’t believe in the mare, of course, worrying that Krister is developing paranoid schizophrenia and wants to refer him to a psychiatrist. Sandra is also less than impressed with the idea and dismissive of the concept, even when their relationship is improving. She finds a notebook full of scribbled names including her, Linnéa, Eva and someone called Marianne (Viktoria Sätter), which looks like it supports Sven’s theory.

Sandra Larsson as Sandra

The film kind of split me. The revealing of what happened – on the bridge and in Krister’s relationships is non-linear and shown in dreams. But the on-running family drama was slow and Sandra was at the same time a story lynch pin and an annoying character who seemed to whine endlessly (well she is a teen, I suppose). Krister ends up coming across as sympathetic when facing his daughter’s barrage of angst – despite the fact that we know he is controlling of his daughter and has a dark past. This probably was helped as the film moved forward and Krister was victimised more and more by the mare (or became more and more mentally ill – depending on which you believe) as Thomas Hedengran absolutely sold this to us.

physically marked

The horror moments (and they are moments) were vastly superior to the family drama, Filip Tegstedt working around budget by showing glimpses and details only, using darkness to obscure his monster and an excellent use of sound. The sound of grinding teeth puts the viewer on edge, but in the right way to accentuate the scene. This less is more attitude continued into the film and I don’t know whether expanding those sections would have helped? Perhaps just a better pacing and perhaps a little less angst was the key. 5.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Seize the Night was a 2015 short film that was directed by Emma Dark and… let’s get this out of the way (though the name doesn’t appear on the press kit at all) the film does owe a debt to the film Underworld and its subsequent franchise.

Now this is not a bad thing and, of course, a world where vampires and werewolves appear to be at odds is not unique to that franchise. But throw in a gun toting, black clad, brunette vampire killer (in this the heroine Eva (Emma Dark) was a killer for hire and is now just a killer) and we can see a homage.

Emma Dark as Eva

The film does very well at setting a scene where there are vampire covens and werewolf packs and they are known to humans. Indeed Eva was held in a cell by humans. It seems that humanity have developed a virus that can kill vampires, though there is limited antidote. Eva’s coven are after her and a werewolf called Tobias (Carey Thring) is searching for her. What does he want? Well you’ll have to watch the film to find out, which is now available to watch at vimeo (and embedded below).

It isn’t actually a full on story, more a showcase and a taster of what could be. And you know what, I’d love to see more. The imdb page is here.

Seize the Night from Emma Dark on Vimeo.

Director: Takashi Miike

Release date: 2015

Contains spoilers

Prolific director Takashi Miike is no stranger to the vampire genre his film Tennen shôjo Man next: Yokohama hyaku-ya was a vampire film and the film Izo had a vampire moment in it.

I was aware of this film for a while and had it on pre-order for the UK release. A pre-order that was pushed back, and back and back. But, hey, let’s not dwell on that the film is out and it is… well probably the best description I could come up with is bat-sh*t crazy.

back piece

It begins with a yakuza, Kamiura (Rirî Furankî), walking along a street when he is attacked. It turns into a battle through the streets and into a building with Kamiura seemingly unstoppable. Eventually he meets a boss figure who shoots him but that doesn’t stop him either and he kills the boss. We see him reach a woman who runs to him but he latches on to her neck. This is accompanied by a narration by Akira Kageyama (Hayato Ichihara). Kamiura becomes the boss of the area and Kageyama always wanted to be like him. When we first see Kageyama he is in a bath and Kamiura is nearby, we notice his impressive back piece tattoo including a bat.

a cup of blood

Kamiura’s rule is that civilians are not to be hurt. We see his men rescue a woman being brutally raped and Kageyama caring for her in hospital. The other Yakuza dislike Kageyama especially as he isn’t tattooed because he has sensitive skin. Kamiura has a secret area where chained rival yakuza are rehabilitated (through knitting and occasional tortuous methods) and the reason why will be revealed shortly. He also seems to have plans for Kageyama – and we see him take the protégé to the tea room above the yakuza rehabilitation area and even feed him blood to see if he can drink it.

Kageyama (off screen) attacks some rival yakuza for attacking a civilian and other members of their clan are sent to smooth the waters. Whilst they are away a priest (yushin Tei) with a coffin shaped backpack and a supposed geeky looking man who is a demon martial artist (Yayan Ruhian) come and make the boss an offer to rejoin their cartel. When he refuses they attack him, Kageyama being laid out during the action. The priest shoots Kamiura with a bizarre gun that fires an electrical burst, and then uses the same weapon to suction his blood out before the geek literally rips his head off. Kageyama sees that it was a betrayal by his own clan before passing out. He comes round and looks at the boss' severed head but the eyes open and it latches to his neck, turning Kageyama into a vampire yakuza and the boss’ tattoo transfers to his back.

vampire's tongue

So, the rules. The vampires in this do not bite so much as the teeth latch on as the tongue pierces the neck. They suck blood (and the kanji for suck appears briefly on the victim’s forehead). We are told that civilian blood is tasty and addictive and yakuza blood tastes bad and doesn’t nourish properly. This is why the boss was rehabilitating yakuza to offer him a reasonable beverage without attacking civilians. A civilian attacked will immediately turn into a yakuza vampire and attack other civilians turning them – one, a young boy, develops a small bat back tattoo when Kageyama purposefully turns him.

ready to fight

If it sounds strange so far, throw in a kappa and the most dangerous monster ever, which is a martial artist wearing a felt frog suit with eyes that can death stare a rival and cause them to turn into a living metronome. The ideas come thick and fast and so does the weirdness. Is there a point, or underlying message? I don’t really think so, I think it is just one hell of a strange trip. But that doesn’t make it bad. The film moves along with a slickness that keeps you hooked, thick with action, violence and general strangeness. I can honestly say I did enjoy it.

axe to the head

I should mention that the UK DVD has hardcoded subtitles and that the film will not appeal to you if you dislike absolute weirdness in your films. However if you do like weirdness, and you like Miike’s style and a bit of high octane martial arts riding a truly bizarre vehicle then you might just like this. I did feel that some of the ideas became lost – the priest character and kappa just seemed to fade out of the story and could have been used that little bit more. Nevertheless, 7 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Author: Perry Lake

First Published: 2015

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: All know Dracula as the king of the vampires. But how did this come to be? How did a man, a warlord of an obscure province, rise to rule the Night? DRACULA ARISEN answers that question, showing the origin of Dracula, beginning with the young Prince Vlad, detailing his rebellion against the Sultan, and his reanimation as a creature of the Night—only to find himself a slave to the wizard who drew him forth. After turning the tables on his would-be master, Vlad Dracula strikes out to build his Empire of the Night. These fifteen stories lead up to the climactic events of Bram Stoker’s novel, “Dracula”. And beyond. Forget wimpy, apologetic vampires, afraid to draw blood. DRACULA ARISEN makes vampires scary again!

The review: For reference, I have already reviewed Book 1 and Book 2 of Lake’s series. A pdf of the book was provided for review.

The first book had flaws – not to denigrate it too much and the depths of ideas and references was mind boggling, the second book felt more like the collection of short stories it was and held together better because of this. The author offered the volume much more focus. This third book again feels like it has more focus – following the way Vlad became a vampire and how his desecrated corpse was found and reborn into undeath through the actions of Faust. The book follows the turning of tables on Faust, making him a slave to the vampire Prince and then through to dovetail into the story laid out in Stoker’s Dracula.

There are quite a few stories within where the focus is not Dracula but rests on mortals and this was refreshing. I liked the Scholomance section (which could stand expanding but is a satisfactory section as stands), and the connection between the Vordenburgs (the family of vampire hunters we follow through this and previous volumes) and Van Helsing was interestingly done. The cod-medieval language is still there and is still distracting but, like volume 2, it is used in a more sparing way and it is a feature that the author and I will never agree on.

One piece of lore worth picking up on is that there are different bloodlines of vampire. Whilst (older) members of Dracula’s line can walk in sunlight (albeit sparingly) other bloodlines disappear at dawn and reappear in their graves. Vampires are corpses possessed by demons in this. A rather interesting concept was that a werewolf believes him/herself to become a wolf and, though they are still human when they are under the delusion of transforation, the illusion is shared by other humans observing them – the vampires just see a man as they are a supernatural creature.

This satisfactorily closes the trilogy and is probably the stronger volume. Dracula seems somewhat less all-powerful, which is great. He is, of course, dangerous but the power seemed more in line with that described by Stoker. 6.5 out of 10.

Of all the inventions of the comic 2000AD, I think that Judge Dredd was the most pervasive. Judge, Jury and Executioner, the Judges were the law in the post-apocalyptic Mega Cities and Joe Dredd was the epitome of the Judges.

Of course, we have seen a vampire aspect to the Dredd universe as he crossed over into the Devlin Waugh: Swimming in Blood volume. This, however, is the 8th volume of all the Dredd stories and contains the serial City of the Damned, which ran over late 1984 and early 1985. The writing team were John Wagner and Alan Grant, the artists involved were Steve Dillon, Ian Gibson, Ron Smith and Kim Raymond.

In 2107, amid terrible premonitions about 2120 from the Psi Judges, the first time machine, Proteus, is created. Judges Dredd and Anderson are sent as a two person crew into the future to see if the premonitions hold any water (one detail is already wrong as Owen Krysler, the Judge Child, is no more and he was meant to be the saviour of the city). They travel into the future and find a devastated city… so vampires…

Having first seen a citizen panic at the sight of them and kill himself in an acid pool the two Judges head for Hill Street, now known as Hell Street, and a Judge Sector House there. The Judges have all been transformed into vampires and prey on law breakers but will get anyone if their blood supplies are running low. Dredd and Anderson have to sneak into the Sector House to access the computers and discover what happened, but an old friend Judge Hershey is a vampire and wants them turned… or dead…

The vampires form the start of the story and appear towards the end. We also get a zombie or revenant version of Dredd (in this future he was killed by the story’s antagonist). But I don’t want to spoil too much. However the relatively small role they play and the fact that the story is just one in the volume means that the volume gets an Honourable Mention.

Director: Pinkan Utari

Release date: 2011

Contains spoilers

We have come across the Indonesian pocong, or shroud ghost, before. From Muslim lore the pocong shroud must have its ties released after 40 days following the death. If that does not happen then the soul becomes trapped in the body and hops out of the grave.

It isn’t a vampire type, it is more like a physical ghost. This film lands on our radar because there is a creature mash up and the film also includes a kyonsi. Now a Chinese hopping vampire and pocong mash up sounded brilliant to me, on paper at least. With both creatures portrayed as hopping it just seemed to work in my head. I wish it had worked on screen.

Santo

It begins with a character, Santo (and, no, he’s nothing like the wrestler), sneaking through what appeared to be a derelict building. I say appeared to be, because we later discover it is some sort of mausoleum. As he sneaks through we see a pocong and a kyonsi hopping. Santo gets to a coffin and opens it… and wakes up at home with the pocong floating above him, before it vanishes.

uninvited guests

Santo goes to his front door and we get three young people there; Bujang, Mertil and James. They have been sent from the village where Santo originally comes from, by his father and a teacher, to bring him home. His friend Asep later turns up as he is in a relationship with Mertil. Santo house-shares with two girls as well. He convinces Bujang and James to go to an old cemetery with him, due to the dream he has had.

the kuntilanak

He explains that a Chinese man was buried in the cemetery and his coffin has treasure in it. The absolutely wafer thin plot is that they take the monies from the coffin and are haunted by the kyonsi, the pocong (who had died trying to get the treasure) and it seems a kuntilanak might be around too. However the monsters do little but scare the cast – there are no attacks as such, indeed no vampiric behaviour at all, and little in the way of plot.

kyonsi

The film is a comedy. Bujang is a rhyming champion (I assume he was meant to be a rapper, maybe it was a poet) and offers rhymes with an affected grin at the end, which is meant to be funny. Of course the subtitles did the rhyming no justice at all, but the couplets weren’t funny either. I think, perhaps, there was a high level of missed cultural references but – even taking that into account – it wasn’t funny. The fact that the DVD’s English subs were obviously poor probably didn’t help.

holding breath

Gags about girls’ armpit hair, for instance, were at best puerile, rather misogynistic and mainly pointless – perhaps the Indonesian humour around this is culturally ingrained but it left me cold. We got a holding breath and fart gag – a 'go to' for comedies with kyonsi in – and quite a bit of physical humour around the hauntings. But all through I was just left colder and colder by the humour and left grasping for a plot that was gossamer thin.

Perhaps my Western sensibilities are doing this one a injustice – I hope so – but for me this was poor. 2 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Author: Rebecca Bradford

Release date: 2016

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: On the eve of her 18th birthday, Ashleigh Palmer is preparing to celebrate like any other 17 year old. With a close circle of good friends, a loving family and a sparkling academic record, her life seems enviable and above all: normal. Suddenly, her world is turned upside down as she realises that she may not be the typical young woman she thought she was. To the dismay of her family, her boyfriend Todd and her best friend Emma, she begins to change against her will. Her abilities go from top-standard to prodigal. Her strength, anger and lust know no bounds. Then the inhuman cravings begin - what is happening to her? Her mother holds the secret to her history which will change her life forever, but how and when will it reveal itself? How will she cope, and will she have to leave everyone she loves behind? A world which was once pure fantasy has become real...

The review is hosted at Vamped.

Director: Federico Curiel

Release date: 1967

Contains spoilers

Oh, you just have to love Mexican Horror Cinema. Even when it begs, steals and borrows, and even when it isn’t the best example, there are more often than not moments that make a vehicle worthwhile.

The Empire of Dracula would appear to be quite a rare example and I have to say that in its ‘begs, steal and borrow” way it did manage to pilfer aspects that were rather reminiscent of the Hammer film from just two years before, that being Dracula Prince of Darkness (DPoD) of course.

the castle

The credits tell us that this is based on the novel by Abraham Stoker as a sombre piano plays. However as we see the Grey Mansion (the exterior establishing shot, clearly a model, is a castle but the interior and courtyard shots suggest hacienda) and we discover a little background we are told that the vampire of our tale is the Baron Draculstein (Eric del Castillo).

staking Draculstein

After seeing a cloaked shadow and fangs we hear a scream. A portly gentleman (Víctor Alcocer) runs for his life, however he is wont to stumble and fall – meaning the Baron is able to follow him at a walk. He is caught and has to fight for his life. Eventually, in a room, he fights the vampire off and grabs a curtain. The vampire retreats and hides behind his cape in a corner – though viewers might recall that the ripping of a curtain to kill Dracula at the end of Horror of Dracula was shown at the head of DPoD. The man grabs a poker and stakes the vampire with it – he turns rapidly to a skeleton.

the family

Madam Brener (Rebeca Iturbide) has told the story to her son Luis (César del Campo) whilst she lies in her death bed. The portly gentleman was his father and he gave his life to rid the world of Draculstein and banish him from the Grey Mansion (which belongs to the Brener family). Round her bedside are Patricia (Lucha Villa), Luis’ wife, and Patricia’s sisters Diana (Ethel Carrillo) and the mute Lily (Robin Joyce). Luis wants her to rest but she insists in telling him that she knows Draculstein will be reborn at the next New Moon and Luis must return to the Grey Mansion, find the cross of oak and destroy him forever. Luis doesn’t believe a word of it and Mrs Brener dies.

Fernando Osés as Igor

It is the 1st of October and a couple are walking beneath the New Moon… ish… because it isn’t a New Moon, despite being referred to as such, it’s a Full Moon! The man says it symbolises love or death. They walk for a bit and then she starts to shiver, so he returns to their buggy to get a coat for her. A black coach with black horses comes out of the night and runs the man down. The woman returns, finds her lover crushed and then is grabbed by the carriage driver, Igor (Fernando Osés, Santo Vs Baron Brakola).

bleeding the victim

She is taken to a crypt and tied above a sarcophagus. Igor stabs her and her blood spills on the sarcophagus, causing it to open and revealing the bones of Draculstein, which then reform into the restored vampire. A couple of points struck me. Whilst the victim was a different sex and had been kidnapped from outside, this was reminiscent of resurrecting Dracula in DPoD – though nowhere near as impactful as Hammer’s scene. The other thing that struck me was why has the servant waited so long (Luis was a child when his father died and the vampire was staked, a goodly time has gone by)?

Robin Joyce as Lily

Anyway Luis returns to the Grey Mansion but their carriage breaks down. The black coach appears, without a driver, and the women get in, whilst Luis drives it. When they arrive there is food put out for them and their luggage manages to find its way to their rooms (again, lifting from DPoD). Housekeeper Maria denies having put the food out or moving the luggage and claims that Igor died a few months ago – actually her role in the film is confused as to whether she is helping the vampire or hindering him – she gives one character an apotropaic. Very soon Diana goes missing – no one seems too bothered, assuming she upped and left, though we know she has been vampirised – and the whole family are in danger.

a shadow of two swords

The vampires fear the sun and are warded/burnt by crosses. The oak cross doesn’t seem special, to look at, but is rather destructive. Draculstein is a bit of a big wuss, to be honest. At one point he fights Luis with swords and they cross, causing a cross shape shadow to fall over Luis’ face. This elicits a scream from the vampire and he legs it! Rather than garlic, mandrake has an apotropaic effect and there is a whole patch of it planted outside the Mansion. There is a nice mirror moment with the vampiric Diana appearing in the mirror and stepping through to Lily’s room.

emerging from the mirror

The story is weak, to be honest, however there are nice moments (such as the mirror just mentioned). Eric del Castillo does not make a very threatening vampire and the fact that they just walk after victims seems plodding rather than menacing. A little more clarity around the roles and motivations of the staff would have been nice and a slower build to the attack on the family would have built a tension that was sadly lacking. I saw it in Black and White, apparently there was a colour version also but black and white probably suited the film more.

However it is a nice Mexican rarity and has worthwhile moments amongst the pedestrian pace. 4 out of 10. The IMDb page is here.

Regular readers will know that we do like a Paul Naschy film here at TMtV, so when friend of the blog Ville contacted me and suggested I looked at this 1973 Carlos Aured directed movie starring the Spanish horror movie great I was a tad confused as to why I hadn’t already looked at it.

Checking it made it very clear that I had seen the film and, as Ville points out, it does feature María Silva as Elizabeth Báthory and that would normally guarantee a feature. All I can think is that her role was so very small in the film that I then overlooked posting – a terrible omission and one that is being rectified with this post.

Bathory's head

It begins with two knights facing off, one a Báthory and the other Irineus Daninsky (Paul Naschy). Irineus states that the magic that Báthory is known for will not aid him against Daninsky’s sword and this proves to be true. Watched in secret by Elizabeth and her companion, Daninsky fairly and squarely beats Báthory and then cuts off his head. Elizabeth heads back to the castle, though she knows that Daninsky will come for her.

Drinking blood

At the castle she indulges in a black magic rite that involves blood sacrifice and drinking of said blood. Just as she’s taking a gulp from the goblet one of her guards comes in, an arrow in his back, closely followed by Daninsky and his men. The companion escapes but Báthory and her handmaidens are captured and executed – they by hanging, her by being burnt at the stake. Before she dies she offers one of those convoluted curses to the effect that when one of Daninsky’s descendants draws blood from the firstborn of one of her descendants then that Daninsky and all his issue will be cursed.

The wolfman

That is the last we see of Báthory but when, centuries later, Waldemar Daninsky (also Paul Naschy) shoots at a wolf (with a silver cartridge his servant puts into the gun) but finds the body of a gypsy, he sets the curse into motion. The gypsies ensure that Waldemar is cursed to live the living death of the werewolf. However we don’t get the ghost or revenant of Báthory showing up and hence she has only a fleeting visitation in the film and this is the honourable mention of that visitation.

There

The Borgo Pass

is another aspect that genre fans will like, however, and that is the proximity of Daninsky’s estate, in this, to the Borgo Pass – highlighted only by a road sign to that effect. There is also a scene of the corpses of victims being treated and about to be cremated to prevent a possible return – but they don’t return and so whether this would have been as werewolves, vampires or zombies is not actually touched upon in any meaningful way. However, standard werewolf myth be that only survivors become werewolves in turn.

The imdb page is here.

Something a little unusual today. I have brought you, in the past, crowd-sourcing campaigns for films and books but this is the first time I think I have brought you playing cards.

Kirk Slater, who is behind the deck, had this to say: The Sisterhood of Blood is a custom designed deck of poker sized playing cards, printed by The Expert Playing Card Company (EPCC).

The theme of this deck is based on London vampires from the Victorian era. As with my previous project, The Coven, this deck also features an all female cast of court cards. Each of them have a different story to tell, but together they become The Sisterhood of Blood.

Each of the vampires have names and backstories that help to bring these beautiful monsters alive. Along side this, each of the groups follow a theme, the Jacks have just fed, the Queens revel in their malice and the Kings immortality is coming to a close.

If this sounds like something you'd like to get behind, the kickstarter page is here. As with all crowd-sourcing, backing is at your own risk.

It might seem silly to have a film with the name Dracula in the title as a ‘Vamp ot Not?’ but really this felt the best way to go for this Nikos Zervos directed 1983 slice of Greek surrealism and music. The film has the alternate title O Drakoulas ton Exarheion.

The film is a political and social satire, I'd guess, and the reason I say that I guess is because I am sure some of the commentary means more if you are aware of Greek culture. It also, for me, slams synthetic pop/pop culture and the tendency to push financial gain over art in the music industry.

Konstantinos Tzoumas as Victor

We begin with Victor Papadopoulos (Konstantinos Tzoumas) walking towards camera. He eventually comes to a tree branch that overhangs the stairs he is walking on and grabs (what is clearly meant to be) an insect from the foliage. He opens his hand, swats it with a newspaper and eats it. So, at this point, I was thinking Renfield.

Graveyard ciggie

He is picked up in a car driven by Aphrodite (Johnny Vavouras) and is in the car with Stoneheaden – who looks like a member of the Blues Brothers. As they drive Victor has Aphrodite put some Talking Heads on, though Stoneheaden appears not to like it. They arrive at a cemetery and start grave robbing (a right hand for the bass player, a head for the singer and 20 fingers for the guitarists says Victor). When I say they, Victor is listening to music and Stoneheaden is smoking, only Aphrodite digs. Suddenly there is a moaning sound, they’ve been rumbled and leg it.

Zombie activist

Zombies rise from the graves. They have a zombie union meeting and one zombie believes that they must take action against Victor. The entire thing is based on a left wing meeting but what we do hear is that Victor is robbing the graves of musicians to steal their body parts. The zombies decide to hold a protest concert at a festival. They go on the march, with placard held high. Some of the zombies are determined to eat the living.

Making a band

Meanwhile Victor gets home. He asks the maid, Ophelia, if his daughter Ioulieta (Isavella Mavraki) has gone to bed. Victor is creating a band. He places the bodies he has collected together in a vat and is making them listen to 48 hours of contemporary music as part of the process… So he is not Renfield, he is Victor Frankenstein? It would seem not. His daughter is sneaking around the lab as she is making a doll (which her father cannot find out about) and wants to know what he uses as a battery for his musical creations.

Musical interlude

Over dinner that evening we get a further clue as Victor is less than happy when Ophelia leaves a soup spoon over a knife forming a sign of a cross. We hear that he travelled from the Carpathians to move to Greece (and become a music mogul, it appears) and we see that he sleeps in a coffin. So, Victor is the Dracula of the title apparently. As it is things go wrong with the band (Music Brigade, an actual Greek band) as Stoneheaden plays something unsuitable in earshot and Ioulieta runs away with them. Victor sends Stoneheaden after them and we don’t see him again until the end and then he is simply watching their concert on TV.

Mermaid moment

The rest of the film has the band playing to a feminist collective that turns into an orgy with raiding police. Aggressive marketing in a supermarket. Stoneheaden going into disguise both as a meremaid and (at the feminist collective) an unconvincing woman. There is coffin sex and occasional zombie attacks and, of course, there is the benefit concert. It’s a heady, surreal cocktail of strangeness that will be off-putting to many and cult viewing to some. But is it Vamp?

Zombie attack

Truthfully there is nothing traditionally vampiric within the film. However, the character Victor is meant to be Dracula and Konstantinos Tzoumas has a presence that works well. If we take the vampire to be an agent of capitalism, though, a creature who takes the dead and uses it as cheap means to make a buck – exploiting culture and heritage for the sake of manufactured pseudo-art then Victor is a real vampire.

The imdb page is here.

Perhaps I should make a new series of articles entitled “distant cousins”? This 1955 movie, directed by, Francis D. Lyon is not a vampire film but it does have a lamia in it and there is a lot of interconnectedness between the lamia and the vampire. Many cite Keats' poem Lamia as a vampire poem (it isn’t).

I watched the film after discovering it was about a cult of Lamia and it was one of those 50s films (it double billed with Revenge of the Creature) that just had to be shared. The connection is loose, I grant you, but indulge me.

in the bazaar

A group of six GIs are doing the tourist thing around an Asian bazaar, just before shipping home at the end of the war. They spot a snake charmer, Daru (Leonard Strong), but reach him after he has finished his act and so they persuade him, for a fee, to have his picture taken holding the cobra. One of the GIs, Paul (Richard Long), recounts that he has heard stories of the lamian cult, Daru pricks up his ears.

Richard Long as Paul

Paul suggests that the rumour is that cult members can transform into a snake. Daru confirms this and says that he is a member of the cult but is also desperate for money. For $100 dollars he will sneak them into a ceremony that night. When one of them, Nick (James Dobson), suggests it would be a photo worth having he is lambasted by Daru who is strict that cameras cannot be taken into the ceremony. They arrange to meet later that evening.

Leonard Strong as Daru

The GIs get drunk waiting for Daru. During the conversation they have, Paul tries to convince them that shapeshifting may be possible mentioning that “the werewolf stories in Germany or the vampires in Transylvania” give such ideas credence. Daru takes them to the temple, gives them robes and, before they go in, reminds them to be careful – if they are caught the cult will kill them – sending a shapeshifting assassin if necessary.

They'll never notice!

So in they go and there is an interesting danced psychodrama about the first visitation of the snake goddess to save the lamian people. Nick seems to be missing but actually has got his camera out – remember, just after the Second World War, the camera has a giant old flash on it… but he’s drunk. Chaos ensues, there is a fight, Nick steals a cobra basket that one of the dancers emerged from and a high priest curses them all as Daru is killed.

The woman

They drive off suddenly realising that Nick isn’t with them. Up ahead they see a shape in the road and a woman running off. The woman escapes and the shape is Nick, next to the cobra basket. One has presence of mind to suck the venom out and they get him to the hospital. He responds well to anti-venom and treatment and is going to ship out with his buddies but a snake gets in his hospital room (and we see through the snakes point of view) and bites him again, killing him. The others are shipped home to New York.

Tom and Lisa

A few weeks later and Julie (Kathleen Hughes) who had been dating squad buddies and civilian roommates Paul and Tom (Marshall Thompson, Fiend Without a Face, It! The Terror from Beyond Space& First Man in Space) has chosen Paul. Tom is a little out of sorts but feels better when he goes to the rescue of new neighbour Lisa (Faith Domergue) – especially as he seems to fall for her straight off. Yet we see that animals respond negatively to her and their other friends from the squad start dying off.

In cobra form

So, Lisa is our lamian (c’mon that was hardly a spoiler) and she actually does transform from woman to snake. The transformation is shown in silhouette once and is shown from snake back to human once as well (it isn’t a great effect, to be fair, but they had a crack at it). In snake form she is the size of a normal cobra and she has her normal human intelligence. She does bite, but to administer venom rather than to feed.

Transformation

The film is actually really good fun. As I said at the head, it isn’t vampiric in any way but the close association of vampire and lamia makes this of genre interest.

The imdb page is here.

Director: Helmut Förnbacher

Release date: 1970

Contains spoilers

Also called The Amorous Adventures of a Young Postman, this was a German Sex Comedy. The version I saw had no overt sexual scenes and was clearly the cut version. It was dubbed into English and was a very poor vhs rip, therefore I apologise for the quality of the screenshots.

The alternative title is probably the more accurate of the two but before we get to meet the postman in question we meet two animated and very crap bats – Stan and Ollie, yes one was thin and the other fat and they comment on the film, not just over the credits but through the film where their animated selves flit onto screen from time to time.

Patrick Jordan as von der Wies

They tell us that the local Doctor Hartlieb von der Wies (Patrick Jordan, Lifeforce) runs a sex clinic and is a descendant of Count Dracula. Then we meet a postman – not the postman of the title but one named Verkäufer (Dieter Augustin). Through him we meet the various people in the town, including the sadistic lady dentist (Brigitte Skay), the gay guy, Wagner (Ralf Wolter, Dracula Blows his Cool), who is the butt of jokes regarding his sexuality and the old woman who believes she births garden gnomes. At its best it reaches the level of a low grade Benny Hill.

Dieter Augustin as Verkäufer

On his round he is interviewed by von der Wies regarding any amorous adventures he might have on his rounds, but he denies any such thing – it is against post office rules. There are also a group of kids who are plaguing the poor postman. They pelt him with snowballs, let the air out of his bike tyre and eventually leave a rope out to trip him – he breaks his leg. The post office send cover for him in the form of Peter Busch (Amadeus August) a young man clearly popular with the ladies – before too long he is servicing several on his round.

Amadeus August as Peter

When he is asked why he is a postman (or asked to leave the job) he tells a detail shifting story about the Bishop of Salzburg laying a duty on an ancestor that all the Busch male line will be postmen. When interviewed by von der Wies, who realises that he has lost half his female clients since the postman arrived, Busch suggests that this pact also bestows superhuman sexual potency. Von der Wies has some issues however, beyond losing clientele, he has developed fangs (which the dentist files down) and his niece, Sabrina (Eva Renzi), has fallen for Peter.

boomerang for assassinations

The Doctor tries to assassinate Peter several times, culminating in him adding poison to whiskey. He gives Peter the wrong whiskey and kills himself – before he dies he tells Peter to take over his practice and marry Sabrina. He does this (despite her warning him of vampirism in the family). He happily leaves the postal service, she happily pimps him to his clients but von der Weis does not lie quiet in his grave…

fangs and animated bat

Now it needs to be said, getting in and out of his grave night after night was easy enough – given no-one bothered to fill it. The lore used is very bog standard, warded by crosses and garlic, the vampire must hide from the sun and is killed by stake (cremation helps make sure). However this entire rising from the grave business is quite a way into the film. Before then we have virtually nothing vampiric – bar the panic over fangs, which are filed and not mentioned again pre-death.

staked

The jokes are at seaside postcard level for the main. One joke about a dog losing the war for Germany (the dog is called Adolph) fell flat and I imagine fell flat at the time of release. The jokes around Wagner show a homophobia that was telling of the date of filming. The film hasn’t really got a huge amount to recommend it, to be honest. 2 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Director: various

First aired: 1997*

Contains spoilers

*IMDb suggests that the first episode may have been released on home video in 1996, in Germany.

Lexx started out life as a 4 part mini-series. Set in a universe called the Light Universe. The universe is ruled by a tyrannical despot known as His Divine Shadow (Walter Borden) who passes his essence from host to host. Starting 2000 years before the main events of the series the viewer was shown Kai (Michael McManus), the last Brunnen-G warrior, dying as he attacked His Divine Shadow and thus seeming to break the prophecy that he would destroy His Divine Shadow. Cutting forward we see a world where heretics are trying to steal an organic ship, the Lexx (voiced by Tom Gallant), the most destructive force in the two universes (the other universe being the Dark Zone).

Xenia Seeberg as Xev

Into this was drawn Stanley H Tweedle (Brian Downey) a former heretic and now lowly security guard on the Cluster (the seat of His Divine Shadow) and Xev (Eva Habermann, in the mini-series), a wife punished for not performing her wifely duties by being transformed into a love slave but without the neural programming and with, accidentally, cluster lizard DNA. Kai is now a Divine Assassin – his dead body decarbonised and run on proto-blood, with no memories of his life. He gets his memories back and along with 790 (Jeffrey Hirschfield), a robot head with the love slave programming intended for Xev and thus obsessively in love with her, we have the primary cast/crew.

historical evidence

The second series was a space opera and had fairly standalone episodes with an over-riding story arc and Xenia Seeberg took over the role of Xev early in that series. The third series takes place in the Dark Zone entirely on two interlinked planets, Fire and Water, some 4000 years after the second series. The final series sees most of the action on Earth – in a broadcast contemporary setting. It is two episodes in season 4 that we are interested in. Namely, Walpurgis Night and Vlad. In the first of the two Kai has shown an interest – due to pictures he has seen of a mysterious figure and the recurrence of the symbol of the Divine Order in Earth art – in going to Transylvania.

Keith-Lee Castle as Renfield

What we get is an ode to classic horror movies especially those by Hammer. Xev, Kai and Stan encounter bats, a tavern with a creepy barman who is actually Joseph (Peter Guinness), last of the Van Helsings, and a trio of Goth girls. It is Walpurgis Night and the owner of the castle, Count Dracul (John Standing), always holds a feast for visitors. His servant Renfield (Keith-Lee Castle, Urban Gothic: Vampirology, Vampire Diary& Young Dracula) takes the Goth girls and the crew there – though Kai quickly slopes off on his own.

Vlad, aged

The episode ends up revealing that Count Dracul is an actor and insinuates that Renfield is the power behind the throne. In actual fact the three Goth girls are servants of the true “vampire”, Vlad (Minna Aaltonen) – which is the name of the second episode. The source of earthly vampire legends, she is kept functioning through the use of a cryo-pod, located at the heart of the castle. When we first see her she is old (played by Anna Cameron) but the girls have stolen Kai’s supply of proto-blood (the substance that animates Kai) and she quickly becomes young again.

Vlad showing fangs

It transpires that she is a Divine Executioner – a being created to destroy Divine Assassins gone rogue. She does have fangs and uses these to bite the living – this is not for the purpose of sucking blood but to inject them with an enzyme that makes them her slaves. She can fly, using a technology within her uniform, has an extending tongue (for no adequately explored reason) and has a tentacle appendage that she can use to suck proto-blood out of Divine Assassins. These are the primary two episodes she appears in, but she does appear a few more times in minor roles/visions.

zompire divine predecessor

I do want to mention one other episode, however. In the Season 2 episode Twilight we get a planet that was a necropolis for the hosts of His Divine Shadow once his essence had moved on. The Divine Predecessors’ brains were kept as advisors on the cluster (and then moved onto the Lexx) but the bodies were taken here. They are animated and rather zombie like – seeking to attack, bite and (I assume) eat the living. However there is a zompires element to this as they appear to be dormant through the day, have fangs and a bitten Xev seems to become one of them.

Vlad's tongue

I really like Lexx, it was one of the most imaginative series I think that has aired. The production values were low but that added a kind of a charm in the same way as original Dr Who’s (even) low(er) production values added a charm. The two principal vampire episodes were great fun – Keith-Lee Castle was a blast in the first one, as he always is. The primary cast were strong – as they always were – and the episodes are definitely worth tracking down. It is a shame that the region 1 DVD release has not been remastered in any way, leaving a fuzzy feel to things. 7 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Director: various

First aired: 2016

Contains spoilers

The YA series of books by Cassandra Clare has already been adapted into a film, and I looked at that here. It received an Honourable Mention because its vampire activity was minimal and quite low key.

One of the things this series (which was a Netflix Original in the UK) does bring to the party is a much larger role for the vampires and so the series gets a review – unfortunately for the series.

Jayce and Clary

The story is pretty much the same as the film – following ordinary art student Clary Fray (Katherine McNamara) who discovers when she turns 18 that she has always been special but her mother, Jocelyn (Maxim Roy), had a warlock called Magnus Bane (Harry Shum Jr.) block her memories. Clary’s parents were both Shadowhunters – essentially Nephilim, who carry the blood of angels and who are meant to protect humanity from demons. Her father, Valentine (Alan Van Sprang), was a rogue Shadowhunter who went against the Clave (the ruling body) and wanted to destroy all downworlders – vampires, werewolves etc.

Nephilim

Jocelyn stole the Mortal Cup – an angelic instrument that can create more Shadowhunters and took their daughter into hiding. As her perceptions of the shadow world grows Clary starts to see things her mundane friends (mainly Simon (Alberto Rosende)) can’t see. Her mother is placed in a magical sleep and stolen by her father and she meets three young Shadowhunters: Jace (Dominic Sherwood, Vampire Academy) and the brother and sister Alec (Matthew Daddario) and Isabelle (Emeraude Toubia).

David Castro as Raphael

The vampires play a larger part, as I mentioned, at first run by Camille (Kaitlyn Leeb) until she is usurped by Raphael (David Castro). Simon is turned in this series. It is here that the show runs in to the trouble that mars it – the characters. There is little in the way of character development and they just tend to spend the episodes whinging. So when Simon thinks he’s turning we get to see that his mother (Christina Cox, Blood Ties& Forever Knight) and sister (Holly Deveaux, Hemlock Grove& Lost Girl) are concerned about him – and suspect drugs. Once he is actually turned they are never mentioned again.

drinking blood

None of the characters get to be properly rounded, centred or developed. The show does do some interesting things – they make Isabelle a strong, female character, they have an accidental incest moment that is left unresolved and they have an openly gay (and bisexual) blossoming relationship with no fuss around it bar the question of marriage for power and the path of the heart. But for these great additions the series stumbles along with the characters, making choices both unbelievable and jarring as important issues are suddenly dropped and ignored, and the incessant whining is just too much.

The braver aspects earn this 3.5 out of 10– but it was nearly lower.

The imdb page is here.

Director: Godfrey Ho (listed as Bruce Lambert)

Release date: 1982

Contains spoilers

I’m not too sure what happened with this one, but I think I can guess. I saw a version on YouTube that was horribly dubbed and the director and cast were all given occidental names. These names are replicated on IMDb and I assume are those who dubbed the movie (if they aren’t just randomly made up names).

For Hong Kong movies I often check the Hong Kong Movie Database as well as IMDb. A search for Ninja the Violent Sorcerer actually leads to the Taiwanese film The Stunning Gambling directed by Chung Ching-Woon and says that Ninja is actually partially that film. I suspect that Godfrey Ho directed the supernatural parts featuring the ninja and kyonsi and cut them together with scenes from The Stunning Gambling. Like many such cut and paste movies, for instance Robo Vampire, this falls flat (though not as much as Robo Vampire).

an undead taoist

In a dark place, somewhere, what looks like an undead Taoist priest summons up two kyonsi. He sticks prayer scrolls to their heads and then sends them off. Another magician calls to the vampire world to shed its light of darkness. He puts a dot of blood on the heads of two corpses and retrieves two dice one from each corpse’s mouth. These are the North and South Gambling Kings and the dice will help a Mr Baker rule the gambling world.

Mr Myer

Mr Myer, the Gambling Master, walks in to his gambling den to find that Baker has come to challenge him. There is some dice fu (honestly, I don’t know what else to call it) between henchmen and then Baker’s moll blows darts into Myer’s man’s eyes. There is a card game arranged, a matter of life and death, but the undead Taoist seems to be magically manipulating the cards. Being a man of honour and having lost, Myers kills himself leaving his son Leslie an orphan.

fighting Ken

Leslie's uncle Roger is approached by Rose – the ghost of Leslie’s mother – who makes Roger swear vengeance on Baker. Luckily Roger is a ninja. He is training when a kyonsi attacks and so manages to vanish and reappear in his ninja suit. The kyonsi is actually his friend Ken, who had to dress up and test him on the orders of Rose! Ken is also a ninja and the two take it upon themselves to take on the supernatural element (with the help of a priest) whilst Leslie gets hold of James Weber, a one-time card shark and now a drunk, to take on Myers. Lost – I don’t really blame you.

kyonsi

The kyonsi are really rather tough and we get the sound of steel on steel as they block the ninja blades with their arms. There isn’t a lot more lore to offer you, in reality you’ll just be trying to map the plot out so it makes sense – and possibly watching for the joins. It is clear to me that the Stunning Gambling already existed and the additional scenes were built around it. Clearly, in the original language, the dialogue would have been very different in places.

Still it is mildly entertaining in a masochistic way 2 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Director: Damien Dante

Release date: 2015

Contains spoilers

I remember being disappointed when I watched the film Jezebeth, not least because I knew how hard director Damien Dante was working at promoting his movie but also because I could see what he was trying to do with the film. Ultimately I thought he failed, but at least I could see it.

Then I lost sight of the concept. I was aware that Jezebeth had managed to get itself on to Blu-Ray but as for the spin off films (and TV series) I lost track. That was until the sequel found itself on to UK Amazon Prime. Now, when I say sequel, I say it in the loosest possible sense. There is a different actress playing Jezebeth (Ana Santos) – indeed she would appear to be a whole different character, though my memory may have been faulty there – and there is little here that would tie it to the original, indeed there is little story full stop.

Gracie Serrano as Abigail

So we get countryside shots for the credits with an opening theme song that just felt wrong and went on, and on. The heavy metal that dominated the first film seemed to be left behind, rather this seemed AOR perhaps verging on lounge. The film then went into black and white for a nineteenth century prequel (that didn’t actually feel period). In it Jezebeth finds the body of a young girl called Abigail (Gracie Serrano). Jezebeth’s dialogue is quite thickly delivered as she accuses Billie Gunn (Reyna Rios) of killing the child and suggests she’ll gun her down. Jezebeth is surrounded by guns, however, and as the screen turns black we hear a shot.

fangs out

Modern day and Jezebeth bolts awake. Outside Abigail sits on a swing and we get the full play of a heavy metal track as the camera focuses on her swinging, occasionally moving to a shot of a dead bird, and then the house… It is a waste of screen time and the entire soundtrack in this is intrusive as it often causes the film to stop (to either ponder or watch a performance). Abigail appears in Jezebeth’s bedroom and Jezebeth believes it to be a dream, then sees the bite marks on the girl’s neck and then bites her herself.

vampire chat

Jezebeth shares the house with Cyanide (Jennifer Bartolini), a vampire like her, and Ian (Ian Serrano), an employee of her vampire father Jonah (Drake Mefestta, who was in the first Jezebeth). Mefestta sounded like he was dubbed through the film. There is a “sub plot” about Carl (Frank Warpeha) who has been newly revealed to be Jonah’s half-brother, which went nowhere as a plot device and was pointless but, generously, perhaps that was build up for another feature? Because of Abigail she knows where Billie Gunn and her gang are and wants to go kill her nemesis. A scene where the supposedly mute Abigail speaks to a child, who might have been real or a spirit was, again, plot pointless.

desperadoes

After we watch the band Grigori 3 for a performance of a track, the guitarist (Ray Wise) and vocalist (Gwen Bartolini) come over and drop a plug for an album. They then reveal themselves to be gun dealers but will only sell Jezebeth a gun if they can go along on the Billie Gunn hunt. A sidebar plot point, concerning a girl looking for Jezebeth, angsting off with the barman and showing up at the vampire house to offer herself for eating, was another plot pointless moment included before they go on their expedition. I kind of want to spoil that too, to reveal how plot light the whole film is, but will hold back…

snack time

Instead, well I've mentioned the rather thickly delivered dialogue of our lead, but also need to mention that there is hardly a stellar performance from any cast member. The dialogue is melodramatic, the delivery more so but with an amateurish delivery generally. Other than the theme tune, the music would have been ok if it hadn’t been incorporated in such an intrusive way. The photography was poor and came with a slight judder. All in all, whilst I could see what Dante was trying to do with the first film, this one left me bemused and wondering what the point was? 1.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Director: Genndy Tartakovsky

Release date: 2015

Contains spoilers

I rather enjoyed the first Hotel Transylvania. The humour struck me and it was a nice mix of kid friendly animation with a good old Monster Mash.

Thus I was rather looking forward to the sequel. The formula had been tried and tested but they went a little off-piste with it in this sequel. That’s not to say it was terrible, it wasn’t, but I think that the source of the last film’s humour was somewhat forgotten.

wedding

It begins with human Jonathan (Andy Samberg) and vampire Mavis (Selena Gomez) marrying at the Hotel. His human family are there but not all of Mavis’ family. Dracula (Adam Sandler) has not invited his father, Vlad (Mel Brooks, Dracula, Dead and Loving It), as the older vampire will never be able to accept Jonathan as he is an old school monster. Acceptance is a key theme in the film.

the birth

Then we have Mavis asking her father to go for a flight (as bats) one year later when she tells him that she is pregnant. There is now the question, will the baby be human or vampire – Dracula is quick to say it doesn’t matter but clearly wants the baby to be a vampire. Cut forward to the birth and we get Dracula in drag as a nurse in order that he can be at the birth. The baby is a boy, Dennis (Asher Blinkoff), with Jonathan’s shock of red curly hair. In one of the better gags, following the joke from the first film, the baby’s first words are “bleh, bleh, bleh”.

the hotel

As things develop Dracula becomes obsessed with Dennis’ fangs appearing (it happens around the fifth birthday). Mavis wants to move to California, where Jonathan grew up, so that the child can be around humans and be in less danger than she perceives at the castle (she does baby-safe the entire hotel). Jonathan actually wants to stay at the hotel – Dracula has him coordinating for human guests – and Dracula does not want them to go. He convinces Mavis to take a trip to see California, with Jonathan, whilst he looks after the baby and then takes a road trip through the depths of Transylvania as he tried to encourage the fangs of the 'late fanger' to drop.

the mummy

Everything comes to a head – after Mavis realises what he has done – at a fifth birthday party to which Mavis invites Vlad. Vlad's old friend, the manbat Bela (Rob Riggle), is violently anti-human and is nearby. The basic premise then is acceptance for what you are, along with a huge dose of older people can’t accept changes in outlooks along the lines of equality and diversity (clearly we can make a case for this acceptance to be about race or lgbt issues). We get the well-meaning parents who invite “mixed couples” over to make Jonathan and Mavis feel better. We also get a lot of, “it was better in my day”.

Bela and Vlad

That’s ok but it was the quick fire dialogue and visual gags that, for me, made the first one work so well and I felt that they had been lost to a degree – probably the best line came from Brooks declaring, when he found out that Dracula was running a hotel, “From Prince of Darkness to King of room service”. We run the cute kid in animation gauntlet, of course, but hearing him extol the virtues of the cool man in a cape – Batman – was great fun. The voice acting was, of course, spot on and the animation very good.

a manbat

I’m not saying this was bad, in any way, shape or form. Just that with more visual and quick fire (monster mash directed) dialogue gags this could have been better. So, not as good as the first but still a worthy way to spend an hour and a half (or just under, the credits are quite some length). 6 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Christmas at Draculas – review

Dracula 2012 – review

Marianne – review

Short Film: Seize the Night

Yakuza Apocalypse – review

Dracula Arisen: The Legend Of Dracula: Book 3 – review

Honourable Mention: Judge Dredd: the Complete Case Files 08

Pocong kesetanan! – review

Verge – review

The Empire of Dracula – review

Honourable Mention: Curse of the Devil

Crowd-sourcing: Vampire Playing Cards

Vamp or Not? Dracula of Exarcheia

Honourable Mention: Cult of the Cobra

Bite Me Darling – review

Lexx – review

Shadowhunters: The Mortal Instruments – season 1 – review

Ninja the Violent Sorcerer – review

Jezebeth 2: Hour of the Gun

Hotel Transylvania 2 – review