Director: Jeremiah Kipp
Year: 2019
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Vampire
Plot:
After a disastrous one-night stand, a woman awakes to find herself turned into a vampire and forced to live under the rules established by an organization to keep them from being exposed, but when her feelings about the situation threaten everyone around her she tries to deal with the truth about being a vampire.
Review:
This was a rather interesting if flawed indie vampire effort. Among the more impressive features with this one is the overall setup of the vampire society that brings the two together throughout the film. As there’s a full-on introduction scene that lays out the rules and regulations of the society including what specific powers are real and made-up, the amount of work accomplished here to give us an idea of what they’re actually capable of. That carries on into the training session where we get to see how they hunt and what their powers can do by working on the skills to be needed for survival which comes into play as we see how useful those skills become later on in the film.
Given how much importance is placed on these skills, the end result of those tutorials results in some impressive action scenes. The montages about her previous activities feeding on the previous victims are brutal and sloppy befitting the lack of training, while the alleyway encounter and the series of vampires that arrive in her life manage to make for a much more fruitful setup of the later brutal found in the party massacre between them and their victims. Seeing the barbaric cruelty they have over their food and how they come together for their feasting, it creates a lot of fun for the most part and generates a lot of fun with the indie-styled goer and bloodshed on display. Coupled with the fine sleaze and nudity here, there’s quite a lot to like here that holds this one up.
This one does manage to have a few issues. One of its bigger issues is the overlong running time which is quite unnecessary. The whole concept of the film going through the various conversations that take place here, from the two meeting up and going over the pitfalls of their situation to the history of how each one turned or the numerous discussions about what’s real and what’s been incorrectly injected into vampire lore based on the movies, are all well-done-enough at establishing the general setup of the film yet highlight the dreary pace on display. That goes along hand-in-hand with the flashbacks and montages of her past victims that take up a large part of the first half, making for a wholly exaggerated running time that doesn’t need to be as long as it is.
The other issue is the decidedly unappealing main relationship that supposedly runs the entire film. The two are barely together as instead it’s either the male vampire teaching her how to be one of them or the other pacifist like her who spend the majority of the time together training her how to be, and it highlights the fact that the main relationship between the two doesn’t work. Her reluctance and hesitation at joining them are counterbalanced by the glee and joy at killing others, especially in the party where they finally come together but it doesn’t feel earned since the two haven’t been together, don’t train each other how to behave and really are at odds with each other the entire film which makes for a rather odd main couple. As well as the wholly obvious low-budget setup, these here are what hold this down.
Overview: ***/5
Quite a bit of fun for the most part while still featuring some flaws overall, there's so much to like here that makes for a great time here as long as you're a fan of this indie style on display. Those who appreciate the universe created that this is a part of or the overall genre of this one will have a lot to like here, while most others might find the flaws too much to handle on display.
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