Vampires

Last Night In Soho (2021)

I’ve been a fan of Edgar Wright from his earliest work on Spaced, the hilarious BBC sit-com from the tail-end of the previous century.

This foundational series teamed director Wright with writer/actor Simon Pegg, a partnership that flourished with ace collaborations like Shaun of the Dead (2004) and Hot Fuzz (2007).

Pegg is certainly the more visible of the two, appearing in high-profile film franchises based on TV shows from the 1960s, Star Trek and Mission Impossible.

In Last Night In Soho, Wright’s musically minded, bloody Valentine to swinging London, he affirms his true love (and understanding) of those riotous times through masterful manipulation of color, sound, and movement in telling the story of two girls from different eras whose lives overlap in Dreamland.

We open with Eloise (Thomasin McKenzie), a spirited lass from Cornwall with dreams of being a 60s-inspired fashion designer in London.

Upon landing in the big city, Eloise is treated rudely by her designing classmates to the point that she’s forced to abandon the dorms in favor of lodging with Mrs. Collins (Diana Rigg) a lovely old-lady landlord who doesn’t allow male guests after 8pm.

Soon after acquiring the new digs, Eloise begins a dream odyssey about the adventures of Sandy (Anya Taylor-Joy), a live-wire hip chick who captures the attention of everyone she meets during her meteoric ascent in London’s nightclub scene, circa 1965.

Coincidentally, it’s the very same historical period that Eloise obsesses about through her clothes and music. Cilla Black, Kinks, Chad & Jeremy, and Petula Clark can be heard plugging away on the phonograph, while her attempts at creating swing silhouettes and bubble dresses are clearly influenced by Mary Quant and other Carnaby Street regulars.

Eloise and Sandy overlap in these subconscious interludes: Sandy is portrayed by Taylor-Joy, but whenever an opportunity for a reflection appears, it’s McKenzie looking back at the action.

A lesser director would milk this device as a gimmick. Wright uses it to set the story to a fevered rhythm, as Sandy, a beautiful rising star, sees her ambition smashed to bits by horrible old men.

When not living her dream, Eloise styles herself as the beguiling Sandy, until the viewer loses her sense of identity in both the sleeping and waking worlds.

Last Night in Soho is a rise-and-fall fable that kicks off with a dazzling bang, and shifts gears into a sordid nightmare spiral that’s grim going indeed.

Wright’s poise and whirlwind finesse with the camera is thoroughly transportive, evoking both delirious highs and utter misery in strikingly composed scene after scene.

This is a bumpy ride, but Last Night In Soho is more than worth it. Instead of grousing about getting the rug yanked out from under, we should be thankful that an artist of Wright’s ability has fully materialized in our present day.

From (2022-23)

Back to the small screen for a moment, if I may.

Amazon Prime temptingly offers the opportunity to pig-out on obscure and overlooked horror television from every port of call imaginable. After a bit of grazing. I’d highly recommend From, a series filmed in Nova Scotia that’s captured the imagination of myself and Mrs. Sharky.

It should ring several bells if you’re a fan of Lost, The Walking Dead, and Wayward Pines, as a four-pack family unit drives its RV into one of those cursed communities that you can never leave.

To make matters worse, everybody has to be inside and locked down before darkness falls, because monsters (kind of like vampires, kind of like zombies) come out of the woods at night seeking to gain entry into the town’s various residences to murder and mutilate the town’s various residents.

The pale whispering ghouls surround a home, endlessly cajoling and compelling its occupants to throw open their doors so they can be properly displayed as part of a gruesome tableaux come the morning.

On the upside, houses are free, but you might have to clean up the viscera from the most recent undead onslaught.

Still a good deal, if you ask me. I bet it’s cheaper than Salem’s Lot.

Vehicles arrive from a disparate assortment of starting points, and after an interval of freaking out, travelers must decide whether they want to reside in the town itself, under the severe protection of Sheriff Boyd Stevens (Harold Perrineau), or find some floor space with the free-loving bohemians of Colony House, where the Sheriff’s brooding, model-handsome son Ellis (Corteon Moore) holds court.

The two camps represent humanity as ludicrously polarized despite a shared goal of not wanting to end up as chew toys for a mob of malevolent entities.

Series creator John Griffin does a stellar job of knitting hard horror elements into a character-driven show. The creatures that stalk the populace of this nameless community aren’t driven by a biological need to feed.

They’re just evil and cruel!

The cast of “castaways” on From range from complaining assholes to compassionate caretakers, including a tech bro, an amusement park engineer and his traumatized family, an unstable clergyman, a spooky waitress with voices in her head, and a crayon-coloring man child who’s been exiled in this particular limbo the longest.

As for the bigger picture, Boyd and company must solve the mystery of how they all got there and devise methods of escape from a location that isn’t on any map.

But as one character says bitterly, “We’re not on Gilligan’s Island. We can’t fix the radio with coconuts.”

From keeps enough intriguing subplots at play (e.g., where is the electricity coming from?) to reel in even the casual viewer. At present, there are only two seasons available.

I’ve seen the first one and I’m completely hooked.

The inevitable comparisons to Lost are well warranted. Executive producers Jack Bender and Jeff Pinkner both worked on that genre-defying show.

Perhaps they belong to the same universe? I’ll know more after my next season session.

Editor’s Note: The addictive theme song to From is a minor-key, dirge arrangement of “Que Sera Sera,” performed by the Pixies, that sounds like Lee Hazlewood.

One more reason to tune in.

Brides of Dracula (1960)

“Count Dracula, monarch of all vampires, is dead, but his disciples live on, to spread the cult and corrupt the world.”

Like the gloomy narrator indicates in his ominous introduction to Brides of Dracula, the marquee bloodsucker, played by Christopher Lee, managed to get himself skewered in a previous Hammer Films production, so this time around we get Baron Meinster (the dashing David Peel), certainly one of the first examples of vampire as pop star.

When Meinster materializes at the Transylvania Academy of Proper Young Ladies to visit Marianne (Yvonne Monlaur), the pretty new French teacher, the gathered gals go gaga over the dapper blonde Baron.

Check out the image above used to promote the film. It looks Heathcliff and Catherine off to a make-out sesh on the moors.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

By this point in the movie, Marianne has already freed Meinster from captivity by his daffy dowager mother the Baroness Meinster (Martita Hunt), who for years has kept vigil over her evil offspring, aided by Greta (Freda Jackson), her equally loony servant.

Earlier, the Baroness discovers Marianne stuck at the local pub, abandoned by her cowardly coachman (Michael Ripper). Lonely for educated company, the increasingly unstable noblewoman invites Marianne up to her castle, to sleep in one of her many guest bedrooms.

From her window, Marianne spies the young Baron wandering on his own balcony below. Throwing common sense to the wind, she instantly believes the beautiful man has been wrongfully incarcerated and helps him to escape.

Nice going, Marianne!

The newly liberated nosferatu is soon feasting on the hottest peasant woman in the village (Marie Deveraux), as well as Marianne’s jealous roommate Gina (Andree Melly).

Greta, once his captor, has decided to help out Meinster by digging up the dead girls and making them more presentable for their master.

Now that’s what I call Goth!

True, there is no Dracula on hand, but we do get Doctor Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) the Hall of Fame vampire slayer, operating at the top of his game. Cushing is typically excellent and erudite as the dedicated undead destroyer, who has a couple gnarly brawls with the new count on the block.

After getting a bite from Meinster, Van Helsing demonstrates uncanny resourcefulness, by treating his unholy hickey with a hot branding iron and some H20 blessed by the local priest.

Despite the absence of the iconic Christopher Lee, Brides of Dracula gallops along at a brisk clip, with impending danger reliably signaled by Malcolm Williamson’s anxious orchestration, that during moments of high drama seems on the verge of complete nervous collapse.

The veteran supporting cast is spot on. Freda Jackson is a howling mad domestic that nonetheless adapts to new duties with surprising confidence. And the enchanting Andree Melly glowingly epitomizes the movie’s tagline: “He turned innocent beauty into unspeakable horror!”

Even minor characters, like Dr. Tobler (Miles Malleson), the dipsomaniac local sawbones, are given sufficient space by director Terence Fisher to have small comic interludes that prove successful more often than not.

Speaking of comic interludes, there is some lame-ass bat puppetry happening here that might also inspire a few laughs. That should not deter anyone in the slightest.

Brides of Dracula is Hammer horror at its hottest, featuring a plethora of glaring bloodshot eyes, heaving bosoms, and a fair amount of fang action.

Required viewing in my estimation. See what all the fuss is about.

Day Shift (2022)

“This is like the third movie we’ve seen where vampires are also realtors,” Kaja observes.

“It’s an easy metaphor,” I admit.

Day Shift is set in sunny Los Angeles, as hard-working vampire hunter Bud Jablonski (Jamie Foxx) tries to earn a living snuffing out the undead and selling their teeth to oily pawnshop owner Troy (Peter Stormare).

There is a vampire hunter union, and Bud could make more money if he was a member. Alas, he’s been kicked out for not following the rules.

And wouldn’t you know it? He’s got a week to put together $10,000 for his daughter’s school tuition and braces, and his soon-to-be ex-wife wants to sell their house.

This situation provides the comic fulcrum and prompts Bud’s return to the union, where he is assigned a by-the-book partner named Seth, played by Dave Franco as a Rick Moranis-style retro nerd.

The villain in Day Shift is Audrey San Fernando (Karla Souza), an ambitious land baron who’s trying to buy up the valley she’s named after. She’s got a score to settle with Bud, who recently beheaded Audrey’s daughter during a house call.

Heck, let’s throw in Snoop Dogg dressed in full-on cowboy gear as Big John Elliott, a legendary slayer with a Clint Eastwood vibe.

Day Shift, directed by J.J. Perry and written by Tyler Tice and Shane Hatten, provides zippy spectacle with state-of-the-art vampire slaying methods (garlic grenades, silver beheading wire, wooden bullets), and the action is tightly choreographed and brutally executed.

The scene in which Bud teams up with the Nazarian Brothers, a pair of Eastern European tough boys, to clean out a nest of vampires is a real adrenaline popper. Martial arts, flying body parts, and tech toys make for successful stimulation.

Unfortunately, when the rumbles subside, we’re not left with much to occupy our attention.

It’s a minor complaint, but Bud’s family is about as one-dimensional as it gets. The sassy daughter (Zion Broadnax) and endlessly complaining wife (Meagan Goode) are standard plug and play characters.

There are loose ends left dangling all over the place, including a sunscreen that allows vampires to run around in the daylight for a short time. A significant discovery in Nosferatu society, but here it barely rates a mention.

And what’s up with Jamie Foxx’s name? When was the last time you met an African-American dude named Bud Jablonski?

If you’re inclined to forgive a few half-assed details, Day Shift delivers decent bang for the buck, but you’re not missing anything special.

Night Teeth (2021)

I wish they hadn’t called it Night Teeth. It’s not a very good title for such an entertaining and inventive film.

Broke student Benny Perez (Jorge Lendeborg, Jr.) just wants to earn a little extra cash driving for a car service. He borrows a sweet ride from his older brother Jay (Raul Castillo) and picks up mysterious beauties Zoe (Lucy Fry) and Blaire (Debby Ryan) for a night of club hopping around Los Angeles.

The ladies are able to read Benny like a book and quickly determine he’s a newbie at the chauffeur game, a source of much amusement. And as the night goes on, Benny becomes alternatingly aroused and alarmed by his odd passengers, particularly after one stop when they return with a satchel full of bloody cash.

Meanwhile, his brother Jay has to get his boys together because there are vampires in Boyle Heights, and that runs counter to a long-standing treaty.

There’s a full slate of subplots in Night Teeth, including sparks between young Benny and the somehow-still-kind-hearted Blaire. When they’re together the movie freely pivots into a star-crossed romance and the night seems full of new possibilities.

Mostly the story sticks close to the mob-style coup being staged by ambitious vampire Victor (Alfie Allen), who wants to go back to the old ways of old days, when humans were fair game, regardless of their address.

Night Teeth is also one of those vampire movies (like Near Dark) that doesn’t use the “V” word, which is why I found the title clumsy, like it was picked out of a hat.

Even so, there is all-you-can-eat action, laughs, guts, and unlikely romance to be feasted on in Night Teeth. Just as in Vampires Vs The Bronx, bloodsuckers are depicted as affluent white gangsters trying to gain wealth and power by displacing a hardworking minority, in this case, Latin Americans.

“Who still uses crossbows?” Benny wonders out loud while trying to stay alive during a gnarly fight between undead rebels and vampire hunters. Find out this and other exquisite tidbits in Night Teeth, winningly directed by Adam Randall, and sharply written by Brent Dillon.

These vampires definitely don’t suck.

Vampires vs The Bronx (2020)

And they’d have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for those meddling kids. It’s a long-standing tradition that the biggest threat to imminent world domination is nosy teenagers.

Writer-director and Saturday Night Live alum Oz Rodriguez has a blast with villainous bloodsuckers disguised as real estate developers in Vampires vs The Bronx, a fast-paced, family fang feature from Netflix.

All over The Bronx businesses are closing down or getting bought out by Murnau Properties, a real estate firm with a logo depicting Vlad The Impaler. Gotta say one thing for those vampires, they’re a subtle bunch.

The nerds that save the day are a charismatic crew. Miguel, better known as Lil Mayor (Jaden Michael) is the golden boy, a community organizer/hustler who wants nothing more than to save his beloved Bodega from the wrecking ball.

Along with his friends Luis (Gregory Diaz) and Tommy (Gerald Jones), Miguel stumbles onto a vampire-driven plot to gentrify the neighborhood, but finds that it’s hard to get people to believe your story when the newcomers are affluent white folks throwing money around.

Besides, who’s going to listen to some stupid kids?

Jordan Peele correctly identified Class War Horror as a hot topic, and Rodriguez makes the most of his turn at bat. Cleverly setting the threat of Caucasian expansion in a comic-horror milieu, Rodriguez leaves us with no hard ethical decisions to make. Real estate developers bad. Neighborhood scalawags good.

Now let’s all forget our differences and drive out the suckheads!

The cast is 100 percent delightful (including Method Man as a priest!), the action is frequent and not too messy. Naturally, there will be valuable lessons for everyone. It’s not every day we get a vampire adventure fit for all ages, so get it while it’s hot.

Blood Vessel (2019)

It’s a clever touch.

Blood Vessel is obviously a movie about vampires on board a ship, but the title also refers to the doomed crew’s containment effort to stop a terrible blood-borne infection from reaching port.

Nutshell: A veritable United Nations of lifeboat survivors from a torpedoed hospital ship are hopelessly adrift somewhere in the water during the waning days of World War II.

There’s two Australians (Nathan Phillips, Alyssa Sutherland), a whiny British spook (John Lloyd Fillingham), a taciturn Russian (Alex Cooke), and a pair of Americans: a useful black sailor (Lydell Jackson), and a surly Italian cook (Mark Diaco) from the mean streets of Central Casting.

The improbable company hops aboard a derelict German ship and spends about 45 minutes exploring its innards, discovering burned, mutilated sailors, priceless art treasures, and an anemic child (Ruby Isobell Hall).

I realize that seems like quite a bit of action, but when spread over the entirety of the running time (a tidy 93 minutes), the pace is almost geologic.

As written and directed by Australian special effects maestro Justin Dix, Blood Vessel is mostly stuff we’ve seen before, wrapping Nazis in occult robes for another spin around the block.

Despite a fondness for familiar tropes, Dix has some inspired moments. His depiction of an Old World vampire clan that does most of its damage from a distance by psychically manipulating the infected sailors, is a fresh idea.

The hands-off approach to slaughter however, somewhat dilutes the impact of these powerful undead beings, though the creature concept and monstrous makeup are on point.

It’s too bad the vampires don’t get more screen time. Instead we learn personal details about members of the doomed crew so that past tragedies can still inform the present—especially when bloodsuckers start messing with their heads.

And with all the bad accents flying around, we’re having enough trouble remembering the parade of nations on display. Fortunately, the Australian speaks German, and the Russian understands Romanian.

With a structural resemblance to Aliens, minus the tension, spendy effects, and brilliant cast, Blood Vessel is serviceable entertainment at best, which doesn’t mean there’s no fun to be had.

There’s just not enough to go around.

Vampire Clay (2017)

Art school kids in rural Japan fall victim to demonic sculpting material—film at 11.

Pack your plausibility away for Vampire Clay, an energized lump of J-Horror with decent practical effects that make for scenes of memorable chaos.

Nutshell: A handful of art students in a Japanese village attempt to escape poverty by demonstrating sufficient talent to attend a real school in Tokyo. Kaori (Ena Fujita), has already studied in Tokyo and her sculptures put her at the top of the class.

Things take a turn for the weird when Kaori finds a mysterious bag of clay that almost seems to come alive at her touch. Using it in her figurines releases the spirit of an evil sculptor whose blood has tainted the art supplies.

The newly sentient substance wreaks havoc on Kaori’s rivals, swallowing other students whole, and eventually coalescing into a creepy golem that looks like it was drawn by Paul Frank.

Orchestrated by writer-director Soichi Umezawa, Vampire Clay reveals subtler layers beyond the gross and gruesome, as the economic necessity of abandoning village life looms as a grim specter haunting every frame.

Apparently, competition for getting into multi-discipline programs at a decent Japanese college is extreme.

Seeing artists consumed by their work isn’t the freshest metaphor around, but it makes for first-rate spectacle.

From The Dark (2014)

It’s time to play Name That Creature!

Vampire? Ghoul? Revenant? Other?

A reasonably attractive couple experiences car trouble while touring the Irish countryside. This wouldn’t normally be a big deal, except their mishap coincides with the accidental resurrection of an undead dude by a clumsy sod farmer.

After holing up in the farmer’s house, Fay (Niamh Algar) takes charge of their situation, maintaining a level head under extreme duress. Mark (Stephen Cromwell) reverts to a whiny little piss pants.

Fay figures out the monster is extremely light averse and sensibly surrounds herself with headlights, lanterns, candles, lamps, lighters, and a cell phone, all while trying to keep her doofus husband conscious and motivated.

Writer-director Conor McMahon (Stitches) skillfully renders From The Dark in miniature, with only four characters in the whole movie, including the living dead one (Ged Murray). The events unfold in real time, with no atmospheric cutaways.

McMahon keeps the camera tightly focused on Fay’s anguished face, her head on a swivel trying to get a bead on a shrouded figure who’s at home in the darkness.

But what is it?

A vampire, probably, but at times behaves more like a slobbering ghoul, this creature doesn’t speak a word. He just comes and goes until the inevitable showdown right before dawn.

It’s a well-conceived monster, if a bit insubstantial at times.

There are pacing problems. From The Dark roars out of the gate like a cyclone and calms down considerably in the Second Act, as the couple sweats it out in captivity.

But that sweet, sweet tension is never far away, and Fay knows she’s in for a real street fight.

House of Frankenstein (1944)

Sticklers for truth in advertising could make an excellent case for renaming this tepid Universal horror entry House of Niemann, but by the waning days of World War II the lack of a sure-fire marquee name wouldn’t have put many butts in the seats.

Boris Karloff, the most iconic star in the Frankenstein cosmos, plays Dr. Niemann, an admirer of the original mad scientist who first charged-up the monster that bears his name.

Like his mentor, Niemann has a hunchback assistant (J. Carroll Naish) and enough ambition to raise the dead. After a fortunate spate of bad weather, he and his spine-damaged flunky escape from prison and waste no time in carjacking a couple of wagons owned by Lampini (George Zucco), an itinerant sideshow impresario.

The sideshow’s star attraction? Dracula’s skeleton, which seems to have a doorstop stuffed into its sternum. Once revived, John Carradine does his best, but lacks the physical presence to truly terrify. He also insists on wearing a ludicrous top hat, as if he was just stopping in for a nip of O Negative before dashing off to a Gilbert & Sullivan opera.

The titular creature (Glenn Strange, taking over Bela Lugosi, who just didn’t cut it in Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman) doesn’t even make an appearance till 45 minutes into the movie, and for the most part remains either frozen in ice or strapped to a table.

The hunchback falls in love with a gypsy dancer (Elena Verduga), who in turn has hot pants for part-time lycanthrope, Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr), thawed out while Niemann is searching the ruins of Frankenstein’s castle for the doctor’s Cliffs Notes on creation.

The three key monsters never interact, which is a rather disappointing turn of events, especially since we have to sit through several soggy scenes of Talbot and the hunchback whining about who’s life sucks worse.

This movie, as directed by horror veteran Erle C. Kenton (Ghost of Frankenstein, House of Dracula, Island of Lost Souls), is patchy and episodic with only perfunctory thrills. Hell, the Wolfman’s lone kill takes place offscreen, while Dracula’s attack on the burgermeister is performed as a shadow play! Pretty weak tea, if you ask me.

In the long-awaited finale, villagers arrive at the laboratory with torches and chase the monster and Niemann into a quicksand bog. Karloff’s panicked face sinking into the swamp is the last thing we see before the end credits, which is only fitting since he’s the biggest star on the block—and the chief reason to sit through a rather pedestrian film.

House of Frankenstein is no classic, but definitely rates a low-expectations look.