Director: Erik Bloomquist
Year: 2021
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Vampire
Plot:
After arriving at her radio station job, an on-the-outs DJ learns that her replacement will be sitting in on the shift with her and her time is up at the end of the program, but when a series of unfortunate events causes her to think she’s becoming a vampire things take a turn for the worst as her last show delves into chaos.
Review:
This was a pretty solid and enjoyable effort. Among it’s better elements is the fact that there’s quite a lot of fun to be had with how the changes take effect and overcome her. Since we’re not granted the opportunity to see the attack take place, that we’re given the aftermath and enough evidence to know what’s going on with the various hallucinations and visions featuring the unseen fanged performers bite into flesh or drip blood from their mouth which is shown to begin effecting her quite heavily. As they turn into the various deformed figures chasing after her around the studio or the barest hints that she’s turning with the subtle inclusions of vampire mythology being introduced against her, this setup comes off rather nicely.
That manages to work rather nicely into building up the action in the final half where it finally starts to come together. The outbursts of violence hurled at the rest of the staff for what she believes are hallucinations brought about by her condition brings about some impressive scenes as her wild, reckless behavior is fun to watch play out, from lashing out verbally at coworkers to intentionally maiming herself and setting up the confrontation with the vampiric creature running through the staff-members ripping them to pieces. This provides some solid gore effects and some nice amount of practical effects on the vampire make-up, all leading to some pretty enjoyable elements that hold this one up for the most part.
This one does have some rather big issues featured here. The main aspect that holds this one back is the wholly disjointed sense of what’s going on within the events at the station where it’s possible to lose track of whether the events happening is really happening or just a hallucination. Since the events of the freak-out coincide with the need for retribution from the station head as well as the potential outcome of the infection spreading to the other staff members, it takes a hallucinatory approach to reality that’s hard to grasp at first glance. Even the notion of mentioning it in the film itself doesn’t come together at all when it’s just mentioned briefly and never really expanded upon after the initial moment it's brought up.
The other issue to be had here is a highly disjointed storyline that feels wholly unique but unsatisfactory at the same time. The idea of holding off the grand climactic battle to the point of being a mere footnote in the films’ runtime feels really underwhelming as if the whole confrontation is merely continuing the disbelief between reality and her imagination. Then, a supposedly perfect ending point simply passes by as a brief glimpse that turns into a completely bizarre and unnecessary re-run of the events at the beginning of the film only with recast roles which makes this feel confusing more than anything else. It just screams as filler to make this seem like a feature-length idea but doesn’t come close instead, which really ends up holding this one back the most.
Overview: ***/5
While this one manages to work often enough to be a fun and enjoyable genre effort, a few issues come up that do stand out quite readily holds this one down for the most part especially if these issues are far more detrimental for viewers. Give this one a shot if you’re curious about the style or a fan of the creative crew involved, while those turned off by the flaws or not interested in what’s going on should heed caution here.
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