Director: Dan Lantz
Year: 2024
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Vampire
Plot:
After being forced out of her job, a woman is tasked with preparing a special tryout meal for a mysterious boss that soon turns out to be a vampire coven that requires her to be the chef for the leader and her clientele, and while trying to wrestle with working for vampires must try to keep herself safe.
Review:
This one has quite a lot to like about it. One of the finer aspects on display is the highly intriguing setup at the core of this one that provides a great insight into the coven over time. Getting a chance to see the life she has at the very start, scarred and working in a low-paying, abusive restaurant with a boss that mistreats her, and to compare that with the induction into the secret lifestyle of the vampire and the different lifestyle she leads following that makes for a great start to this one. The means through which she gets involved, where it initially appears to be a form of monetary payment only to find the company and attention enough to compensate for the fact that she's working for vampires able to kill her in a momentary glance. The parallels to a crime family are well-told here where the longer she stays invested and under their control, it takes a toll on her to the point of questioning how far she'll go to accept the situation and cope with everything going on around her in a world filled with this much chaos and bloodshed.
As this goes on and she gets more of a chance to get to know everyone in the coven, there's a solid bit to enjoy here with the experience showing her how to be more confident and capable at what she does. With the first half continually showing how she comes to grow more accepted in the community the longer she works for them and eventually grows to that much more comfortable that she's able to take the kind of action she does towards the end that causes everything to take place at the rate it does. Some of this does come off with the kind of whiplash effect involving her motivations as some of it comes off with her intentions to remain involved in the society structure as is while other times seeming like she's intent on ending everything so it can feel a bit scattershot at points. As well, the focus on keeping the girl alive while introducing her to the coven means that there's not much in the way of action that takes place so it can be a bit of a struggle to get going, but beyond that, there's not much holding this one back.
Overview: ****/5
An incredibly effective indie vampire effort, this one manages to get a lot to like about it and only a few minor drawbacks which keeps this one quite better than expected overall. Those who are intrigued by the concept or appreciate this style of indie effort will have the most to like here while only those turned off by these issues should heed caution.
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