Director: Steve Lawson
Year: 2021
Country: United Kingdom
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Vampire
Plot:
After a bizarre series of encounters, a man growing increasingly more concerned for his fiancée’s health calls in a former rival for her affections to solve what’s wrong with her, which leads them to a special vampire hunter to treat the condition, revealing a deadly situation may be coming soon.
Review:
This was a fairly enjoyable take on the familiar vampire story. Among its more likable aspects is how this tries to offer up the kind of familiar grounding for the way it veers off into a different avenue. Going for the section of the story where the Count’s night-time visits to the one girl start to turn into a series of bizarre health issues that no one can explain until the one proponent of the supernatural arrives to help clarify matters, this shortcut through the material allows for a nice series of deductions to be made about what’s going on so being dropped into the middle of things as it does isn’t as jarring or distracting. It all comes along as expected, but this still allows for the kind of hints at the relationship between the two of them while also providing a great touch with the traditional relationships changed just slightly enough so that there’s a hint of jealousy and suppressed rage between her and the assistant that provides for a familiar yet intriguing setup.
The other enjoyable factor to this one is the rather intriguing low-budget style vampire action. The initial sequences show the masked figure entering her room and proceeding to drain her, while the floating mist surrounding the room offers up more of a solid hint at what the culprit is, which is a fairly atmospheric concept featuring the idea of what’s going on quite nicely. Later vampiric sequences showing the gradual reveal of the condition and her worsening physical weakness create some solid scenes, and the various attacks where the disbelief about the situation comes together with the use of the classic story to provide enough storyline connections to offer up the kind of cheesy vampire action expected here, where her being turned and set loose is a nice touch. While slightly more low-key than normal, this finale is a rather solid setup that again moves into familiar territory, dealing with the series of encounters featured here, giving this some solid enough positives to be worthwhile.
There are some slight drawbacks to be had with this that hold it down. The biggest factor with this one is the film’s focus on trying to build up this type of personal rivalry between the fiancée and his assistant that fills up the first half, which is somewhat problematic. Being an alteration of the source material to try to do something different with the way the story unfolds this time around, this storyline has an odd build to it, with the infusion in the storyline being done more out of trying to spice up the storyline than anything else. With other characters and their relationships changed slightly to the point of trying to introduce some extra tension into this to replace the skipped-over sections, this adds a dimension to the film that might not be appreciated by all looking for more faithful adaptations to the story. As well, this also highlights the last issue where the low budget comes into play, where it never has the chance for enough action to sell the pacing here, which does come off as somewhat sluggish and low-key, which, combined, lowers this one overall.
Overview: ***/5
An overall solid take on the vampire mythos, this one is quite better than expected and manages to overcome a lot of the issues that are present within it. Those who are fans of this particular style of indie effort, appreciate new takes on the material, or are fans of the creative crew will have a lot to like here, while most others out there should heed caution.
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