Director: Ted Nicolaou
Year: 2023
Country: Romania/USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Vampire
Plot:
Having been denied his background, a Crusader for the Church is confronted by the vampire that birthed him which sets him off on a journey with several fledglings he’s turned into vampires like him, bringing them on a quest for vengeance that leaves numerous bodies in their wake to put everything surrounding them to rest.
Review:
There’s quite a lot to really like with this one. One of the better efforts here is the stellar setup that features a strong storyline to get this going. The main setup here of the vampire child being taken and turned into a soldier for the Church, which brings him into contact with the supposed vampire who spawned him and the doubt that carries in what he does, all comes off incredibly well here. The change that occurs as he goes from the no-nonsense slayer to someone who can take pity on the vampire woman and her son with the way he takes them on despite knowing full well what’s going to happen so that the devious nature of his fate isn’t a surprise, due to this fantastic setup.
The outcome of all this is the film’s entertaining and brutal scenes offering the descent into vampirism. There’s plenty to like here involving his initial turn and series of encounters on the outskirts of the community, which soon puts him into the sphere of the family members he turns to. This is the best part of the film, where it becomes a fantastic series of training setups of his bloodthirsty teachings that are essentially scenes of them out hunting, seducing, and feeding on victims, which feeds their desire to leave him with their knowledge to do their own thing. This type of subservient romance leads into the action-packed finale that has quite a lot of brutal confrontations and shocking twists that give this one a lot to like.
This one does have some minor issues that hold it back. One of the main factors with this one is the seemingly random storyline here that makes this one feel somewhat scattered and disorganized in how allegiances keep shifting. Far too often, the scene shifts focus, or the upper hand is dictated merely because someone does something unexpected to supposedly shift their allegiance to a new figurehead in the moment, so it can come off as padding to keep this one going. Another issue here is a rather bizarre sense of franchise retconning that does oddly come off better than the original storyline it replaces, but there is a need to switch it up when it could’ve been fine without it, yet that’s a personal opinion rather than a subjective one.
Overview: ****/5
A solid overall entry in the franchise, there’s not much to dislike here even if some of the flaws might be upsetting for long-time fans. Those who are intrigued by this one, are fans of the series or the creative crew will have a lot to like here while only those who aren’t fans of the series or style should heed caution.
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