Director: Anthony Catanese
Year: 2020
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: Teenage Bloodsuckin’ Bumbos
Genre: Vampire
Plot:
Trying to remain hidden from society, a trio of teenage vampires in a dangerous part of New Jersey befriend a picked-upon and troubled girl to be a part of their crew, but after turning she grows dissatisfied with their lifestyle and tries to break free before the vampire hunter on their trail can catch up to them.
Review:
Overall, this was a pretty decent vampire effort. One of the better aspects of this one is the fact that the need for joining into their society is handled really well and becomes quite important in the storyline. With the contrast between their lifestyles, showing the vampires as the rebellious, care-free party animals who live by their own rules without needing anyone or anything else beyond their need for blood and a place to stay, there’s a fun disconnect between them which is played to its fullest. Seeing this compared to the go-nowhere, dead-end white-trash life of hers with a slutty, drunk mother who’s complaining about everything or friends who are on the wrong side of skeevy, it’s entirely believable that a release and potential escape would be thrilling and highly intriguing. That makes it a little easier as well for her to ignore the red-flags that something’s not right with them as the need for getting away would triumph anything else from her past.
That setup turns into a lot of fun with the usual vampire antics at play within here. Their carefree lifestyle causes some fun with the way they torment and play with the bratty girls at the slumber party, the ritual to turn her into one of them or the stellar montage of the group taking advantage of the drunken and unaware conquests which are where all the great horror scenes present here come from. There’s a lot to like with the way there’s a nice escalation of encounters here with all the missing bodies causing some to notice and the resulting investigations provide the true vampire attacks as they take out the biker gang-members trying to figure out what’s going on. With the finale getting a boost due to the rampant bloodletting and fighting that goes to show off their powers far better than anything else they did beforehand, this turns into a rather fun time and manages to hold this one up for the most part.
This one did have a few flaws. One of the biggest issues here is the wholly cliche setup featuring the girl coming from white-trash background who yearns to be free of her upbringing by falling in with the wrong crowd. This is cliched beyond all reason, isn’t that shocking or creative and makes this feel repetitive of so many genre and non-genre efforts that have utilized a similar setup. As well, there’s also the overwhelming low-budget tone and feel here that tends to wreak havoc throughout here, from the laughably constrained sets, jarring plot-shifts that don’t offer any kind of coherent throughput at the expense of creating a striking visual or just cheap gags and props which are quite obvious. In the wrong mind frame, there’s a real chance these can be really off-putting with the fake quality allowing for an opportunity to become cheap, comical and distressing. These are what hold this one down the most.
Overview: **.5/5
A fun, low-budget vampire effort that has a lot to like but has some flaws to it as well, this one works more often than not which is what makes this a decently watchable if not that important effort. Give it a look if you’re a fan of these types of low-budget genre efforts or just curious about vampires in general and willing to watch anything in the style, while those that don’t appreciate this style of film at all should heed caution here.
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