Night of the Caregiver – review

Director: Joe Cornet

Release date: 2023

Contains spoilers

A low budget horror film with a limited cast, Night of the Caregiver has a demonic entity at its heart but definitely aims for a vampiric aspect. There is a reveal to be spoilt in this review as I explain why it’s a vampire film but, to be fair, it wasn’t a shock when it happened and the viewer is in on it (without being explicitly told what’s going on) long before the primary protagonist knows.

Joe Cornet as Eckhart

Juliet Rowe (Natalie Denise Sperl, Succubus: Hell-bent) is a caregiver who has taken an additional, one-time job on, on top of her job as a hospice nurse. However, we first see her during said moonlighting job, sleeping and then woken as a demonic hand brushes her and then see her panicking in the night. Following this we cut to 13-hours earlier and New York detective Eckhart (Joe Cornet), out of jurisdiction, visiting paranormal expert Dr King (Eric Roberts). Eckhart’s mother went missing years before and he has tied the disappearance into an LA urban legend.

Natalie Denise Sperl as Juliet

Juliet’s girlfriend, Pam (Anna Oris, Spooky+), is not impressed at losing their Friday night horror movie watch but concedes the point when Juliet points out that they need the money. She arrives at her client’s house, in the middle of nowhere, but no-one answers the door. It’s open and she enters, calling out, and finds the patient, Lillian Gresham (Eileen Dietz, the Last Slay Ride, Creepshow 3 & Monsterland), baking cookies. As they get to know each other we discover that Lillian has heart cancer but her vitals, taken by her normal caregiver, seem too good to be true, she refuses the taking of further vitals and she doesn’t take medication.

Juliet and Lillian

Nevertheless, and despite it being all sorts of strange, Juliet settles her down for the night and starts to experience ‘events’ – the phone sometimes doesn’t work, lights flicker on and off, Lillian vanishes and reappears and she sees a demonic entity. Putting things down to tiredness, at first, she gets more and more spooked until, eventually, she realises that Lillian is the source of her trouble (which is, of course, the reveal I mentioned). She genuinely did have heart cancer and it was untreatable but she invoked a demon, named Ayish.

Ayish revealed

The demon made a deal with her. She was infused with an alter ego – the demon sharing her body and giving her its powers. To maintain her life, she has to kill an innocent once every 13-years, before the night is over, and she chooses caregivers as they are good (and therefore innocent) people. She has to suck the victim’s blood as part of the deal and so it is this extended life (she started this some 65-years before), with blood drinking, that makes this a vampire film. It should also be mentioned that failing to fulfil her part of the pack means the demonic infusion will be burnt out with the morning sun.

attacking Eckhart

The film isn’t a bad little horror watch. The twist was palpably obvious, unfortunately, and the detective was virtually pointless except for the end intervention – which they could have had with the girlfriend (she offered to come over when called and Juliet was freaking out and then, as contact was lost, she could have driven over and served the same function as the detective – and it would have made more sense). Sperl did a fair turn at the victimised caregiver and Eileen Dietz was the professional you would expect, toying with her victim. The exposition was crowbarred in. Not the greatest flick ever, but passes the time. 4.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

Painted in Blood – review

Director: Aaron Mirtes

Release date: 2022

Contains spoilers

I was torn as to whether to review this as a vampire film or honourably mention it. It isn’t a typical vampire film, by any stretch. The creature (Dylan A. Young) seems demonic almost but, at the same time, was reminiscent of Orlok (albeit an eyeless Orlok), there is a blood motif and the stealing of souls. There is a connection in the genre between vampirism and artists – be it the Vampire by Jan Naruda whose sketches died, or painting through a medium of blood as in the film Drawing Blood or even the vampirism causing the artist to tap into their inner genius as happened in Bliss.

It is also a budget film that absolutely rails against its humble origin with an intriguing, interesting story; offering a dark, atmospheric film and a mighty fine central performance that hands the viewer a satisfying, unusual filmic experience.

Deiondre Teagle as Malik

Malik (Deiondre Teagle) wakes in his studio, which is in the garage, and he is late. After his housemate, Carson (Brad Belemjian), runs some juvenile interference he manages to get ready and get to work but he is sacked for repeated tardiness. This leaves him financially impoverished as he barely sells his landscapes (an artform he specialises in because they are commercial). Carson mentions that a local community gallery is due to show a valuable painting and they may be looking for security – a job he has done in the past.

Deborah Seidel as Trisha

He goes there and the gallery curator, Trisha (Deborah Seidel), admits they could do with someone – they normally rely on cameras outside the building but this is a piece that was thought lost, is on tour and she managed to get it. It is called The Dead Speak Again, something said by the original artist before he killed himself. She gives Malik the job. That night he hears noises in the gallery (an old building and he was warned that it creaked) but the noises seem to come where the painting is stored. He hears a banging from its crate and opens it, becoming mesmerised and sitting in front of it.

the painting

Come the morning, Trisha gets there early to hang the painting and Malik just about gets the crate resealed so she doesn't know he had opened it. Once hung we see that the painting is dominated by a blackness that, when looking closer seems to be a demonic face. The painting haunts Malik, whose own work becomes influenced by it. Plus he hears a voice, mocking at first, and the creature seems to be able to leave the canvas and walk in our world. Soon Malik is its apprentice and his first lesson is that all painting should seem as though it is painted in his own blood – something he literally does. So we have the painting in blood but why have I gone down a vampiric line?

Malik's new style

The creature – be it in the canvas or, indeed, in its own place (a pocket dimension, it might be argued, where the view is of the universe) is the repository of, what Simon Bacon calls, undead memory. The creature brings out the inner genius of the artist it works with, through pain, to the point where it drives the artist to suicide and the suicide paints a canvas in the artist’s lifeblood, stealing their spirit and embedding it in a portrait that it hangs in its own place. So, through blood, it steals the soul (whether it then feeds itself on the soul or is nourished by the art is not explored) and captures the memory of the artist and their art forever, but represses it by taking it to its own place. Suicide is, of course, also something that the genre is associated with.

the gallery of artists

You might think this tenuous, I think this worked through that lens very well and, beyond anything else, it is a film that works well within its own budget with the creature seen in shadow most of the time. However, the reason the film works so very well is down, in great part, to Deiondre Teagle who offers a powerful performance as Malik. His tortured artistry is believable and his performance very natural and strong enough to bear the weight of the film. This is a great little indie 7.5 out of 10. The film has been reviewed from a provided screener.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Peacocks, Pedestals, and Prayers – review

Author: Dina Rae

First Published: 2021

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: A chain of advertising agencies, a new breed of humans, and a fallen angel to worship... Andel Talistokov is a fallen angel who uses advertising as a form of propaganda for Satan. His growing power emboldens him to break Hell's Commandments by soliciting worship from an ancient angel religion. He changes their rituals forever. Furious with his arrogance and betrayal, Satan commands Armaros to return to Hell after finding his replacement.

Eve Easterhouse, a recovering drug addict, steps out of prison shortly after her mother's fatal accident. She and her sister, Julia, unravel their mother's secretive past. Intrigued, they learn their bloodline is part of a celestial legacy.

The review: Dina Rae, who has been a Guest blogger on TMtV, sent me her novel for review. The book concerns itself with a Biblical source (although there is an aspect to this that I will have to address later) for the vampirism within it and features Fallen Angels, who are primarily vampiric but can pass the vampirism to human acolytes and father Nephilim – offspring of (fallen) angels and humans. This leads to an interesting take on the lore and, of course, it means that religious symbolism is a particularly potent part of warding from and destroying a (human) vampire. As for the fallen angels – they are a different beast altogether but they can be fought. The vampiric connection to animals in this is to birds and both human vampires and fallen can control them.

The part I wanted to address was the fact that, in the book, the leader of the fallen (Satan himself) is also called Malak Tawas and his symbol is a peacock. Melek Taûs is actually believed to be an angelic being and is central to the Yazidi religion. In this book the religion is drawn as Satanists but the religion in reality is not a Satanic religion and, for the Yazidi, Melek Taûs is not a fallen angel within their theology but the leader of archangels commanded by God to take care of this world. The demonisation of the theology of another religion by the Abrahamic religions is not unusual (see the demonisation of pagan deities by Christians) but in this case said demonisation (primarily, but not only, perpetrated by adherents of the Muslim faith) has led to religious persecution of the Yazidi. Personally, I wish the author had invented a Satanic sect but when reading the book please bear in mind that the religion portrayed is a fictional version (taken over by Western characters and twisted to their own goal) and the figure they worship is not Satan in the real-world equivalent.

So, having got that out of my system, let’s get back to the book itself. The writing, at the start of the book, displayed some idiosyncrasies in the turn of phrase used – though I recognised that was the author’s style. I quickly got used to the style and it was not distracting, rather it was the author’s voice. The primary characters are pretty well drawn – with Bell, the 6-year-old daughter of protagonist Julia, being particularly fun, with a balance struck in the drawing of the character between her age and the arcane knowledge she possesses, though the adults almost dismissed her inputs to their peril, which felt right also. The book has a moderate pace, with occasional flashes of action/horror, but picks up a terrific pace towards the finale. I liked the angelic lore interfacing with the vampire myth, as well as the fact that certainly the fallen angels were simply evil and irredeemable, and, with the caveat about the real-world Yazidi religion aside plus a warning that there are themes of rape and incest, it is a book I would recommend reading. 7 out of 10.

In Paperback @ Amazon US

In Paperback @ Amazon UK

Short Film: Lisa

Lisa was a short film directed by Jacob Pinger and was on week 2 of the 2021 Killer Valley Horror Film Festival. Whilst the entity within the film might be identified as one of a couple of things, there certainly is blood drinking and I think it deserves a place here at TMtV.

So, it starts with Mandy (Ava Acres, Hotel Transylvania 2, Adventure Time: Stakes & American Horror Story: Hotel) who is recording a video for social media from her new home. She hears raised voices between mom (Stephanie Burden) and dad (Keith Edie), and mom comes in and tells her off for recording on moving in day.

with the book

As the story develops it transpires that mom had an affair and it was discovered when Mandy walked in on her mid-coitus with her lover. This has precipitated a move of States as a way of trying to fix things but it is clear there is no love lost between parents. Mandy has found an old book, which she intends to “arts and crafts” into a jewellery box, admitting to camera that she is unaware of what the book is about, or even what language it is in. She reads a line out… we all know where that is likely to go.

haunted

She thinks something bites her, but when dad looks there is no blood or marks, Her dreams are disturbed and she, through research, discovers that the previous occupants of the house included a teen girl, Lisa (Isabella Acres), who was into the occult and who killed herself. It seems that Lisa is back but there are a few interpretations… The reading from the book brings Evil Dead to mind but the similarity stops there and Lisa does not act like a deadite.

feeding

It might be that Lisa is a demon, however, in the previous girl’s form and summoned by the passage from the book. Equally, as we have the bite, of course, and we have her sucking the blood from a cut Mandy is encouraged to make on her arm, Lisa may be a vampiric ghost and we do have the oft used connection between suicide and vampirism. However, as the bite couldn’t be seen after the fact (and as mom suggests she is a teen ‘attention seeking’) one could read this as not supernatural at all, with Lisa being a projected aspect of Mandy’s psyche as she moves from happy vlogger to withdrawn and self-harming, as a way of coping with her parents’ marital problems and the ‘punishment’ of being moved from her friends due to her catching her mother’s indiscretions.

The imdb page is here.

Blood Demon Rising – review

Director: Harry Tchinski

Release date: 2012

Contains spoilers

For a low budget film to use as much CGI as Blood Demon Rising (AKA Grimises Rising) uses is very brave but just a tad foolhardy. The unreality it adds could have been avoided by using some physical props in small ticket items. The set/backdrop CGI looks a tad odd and out of place. However I can understand why it was used.

The film starts with a broken weather vane atop the tower of a castle/gothic pile. All this is done in cgi and doesn’t look half bad to be fair. Within the building we meet a group of Satanists. The leader, James (Norman Newkirk), has a book and the occult sigil on the front is in CGI that visually slides on the cover and would have looked better if they had printed the sigil out and glued it on.

satanic ritual

There is aim to perform a sacrifice and one of the Satanists rings a CGI bell – which again looks odd. The rite is designed to release the demon Grimises (Stephen Lestat), which breaks from a statue and bites the sacrifice. However she is no virgin and the demon is poisoned. James locks the doors off as the demon attacks the congregation, buying itself time in the mortal realm. The demon’s cgi tongue again looks odd. The demon wants two Christian girls and James vows to get them.

Simone Leorin as Father Samuel

Father Samuel (Simone Leorin) is a Jesuit priest called to meet his superior to be told that there is a suspected rising. He is given a dagger (the Judas Dagger, forged from Judas’ silver pieces) that is the one thing that can kill the Grimises Demon – which was the one who possessed Judas. It is said to be a blood demon, a vampire demon. So the demon is our vampire but he also creates more traditional vampires.

crazy kids

James’ plan was to open up a haunt in the castle. Many of his exhibits are real tortured people (not recognised as such by the punters) and it offers a feeding ground for the demon. Four crazy kids from the local Christian college go to the haunt. They are Dave (Jareth Hixon), Shawn (Logan Littlefield), Joanna (Ronee Collins) and Vicky (Chelsey Tillich). The girls go in first and the boys are stopped. They can only enter two at a time (and the girls have now been separated off). As the boys look for the girls, the girls are captured by James and the boys end up outside and dateless.

Stephen Lestat as Grimises

James visits the demon who is taking a blood bath with his two female vampire minions. He picks a sore on his chest and produces two demon worms. James is instructed to put them on the bellies of the two girls and it will make them susceptible to the demon’s seed (indeed it would seem the worms are that seed). This is done and Joanna (the virgin) becomes pregnant with a baby that will be the demon’s host (as his demonic body is falling apart due to the bodged rite). Vicky was not a virgin and she is dying until Grimises gives her his blood and turns her.

curing vampirism

The two lads break in to the haunt to find their girls and Father Samuel is also going in. The two guys are verging on comic relief and Logan Littlefield as Shawn is encouraged to offer cheeky looks to camera and gets some lines that work rather well (the quip "bad Vicky", as the erstwhile girlfriend of Dave tries to bite him, might not look that special in type but is delivered with good comedic timing in film). A special papal coin can cure vampirism.

vampire

The film isn’t the greatest but it isn’t bad. One of the issues is probably them throwing too much into the mix but the CGI can also be off-putting and some of it is truly awful (a cgi diner location, complete with badly constructed CGI truck, just looked terrible). The filmmakers could have still used CGI but made some wiser decisions or merged physical props and cgi less and relied more on CGI to get a more graphic novel feel. As I said at the head it was a brave move but low budget filmmaking is never going to have access to flawless cgi that a bigger budget effort can boast. 4 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Classic Literature: Smarra or the Demons of the Night

The story Smarra, originally Smarra ou les Démons de la nuit, was an 1821 story by Charles Nodier and, whilst not a vampire story per se, it certainly has a vampiric element. Nodier, of course, is firmly at the Gaelic wellspring of the media vampire. He adapted Polidori’s the Vampyre into an 1820 play and, in Roxana Stuart’s Stage Blood we read that “Nodier assured [Alexandre Dumas, père] that in “Illyra” (Spalatro) he had seen a vampire with his own eyes, an old man whose corpse came back to the house of his sons, asking for food and drink.” (pg 134)

Smarra is a dense piece of prose; rich, poetic, evocative and, due to that, somewhat confusing, though understanding that it is based around (loosely) the Golden Ass helps. It follows the young man Lorenzo as he sleeps by his beloved Lisidis. He dreams of Lucius riding through a forest towards Larissa. Desperate for sleep Lucius seems to slip into a dream world himself, where his thoughts are haunted by his friend Polemon, who saved Lucius but died in battle. As the narrative pushes deeper we hear of the torments suffered by Polemon himself.

The Demons of the Night are those very tormented dreams and, whilst Nodier was versed in vampires we must remember that the genre was in its infancy. So when describing Polemon and saying that “his neck bore the mark of blood, the triangular scar of an iron lance” we must remember that this was reminiscent of the attack on Socrates in the Golden Ass, which is to do with bloodletting, assassination and witchcraft (as we shall soon see). However, I do not believe this was meant to be indicative of the vampire – that would be a modern conceit.

However, as I said, there is a vampiric element and that is regarding the entity Smarra. The woman Méroé unleashes Smarra: “She presses the hidden spring, to reveal a golden casket containing a colourless and formless monster, which thrashes and howls and leaps and falls back crouching on the enchantress’ breast.” It should be noted that Meroe is a character from the Golden Ass. In that she is a witch and she, with Panthia, attack Socrates and “thrust her sword up to the hilt into the left part of his neck, and received the blood that gushed out with a small bladder, that no drop thereof fell beside” As well as this they remove his heart and then stop the wound with a sponge. Socrates lives until the sponge becomes wet and falls out of the wound. Nodier’s Méroé is a beauty who uses Smarra to mete out an ongoing punishment.

The vampiric element is seen when we read of Smarra, “like some deformed and gleeful dwarf, his fingers armed with nails of a metal finer than steel, which penetrate the flesh without rending it, and suck the blood from it like the insidiously pumping leech”. With this (and the connection to nightmares, as Smarra visits troubled nights upon the victim) we get a vampiric demon of sorts and an interesting, classically inspired piece of prose.

Demon – review

Director: Mark Duffield

Release date: 2012

Contains spoilers

When is a vampire film not a vampire film? Perhaps when the V word is not used, when there is a direct statement of identity – demon… incubus… these are both used. However the incubus myth is related to the succubus myth (obviously) and, as we know, the succubus myth and vampire myth have much in the way of crossover.

This would perhaps lead us to explore a film under “Vamp or Not?” but, to be honest, this film so readily uses vampire tropes that it wasn’t worth framing this article in that sense. It is – whether the film recognises it itself – a vampire film. It is also a low budget period piece, with some very clever tricks to capture that period within the budget. At heart, however, it is a tragic love story, a gothic romance that still has some gore but is not a horror film.

Andrew Mullan as Lorcan

So we begin with a voiceover offering the baseline mythology. It talks of the incubus, of its nightly visitations to women and how it would return to devour the soul of the infant born of those visits. However should the infant live then it would be cursed and should it love or be loved the child of the incubus would transform into a demon itself. I should mention the soundtrack at this point, lush orchestral scoring was reminiscent in part to the soundtracks utilised by classic Hammer.

Clare Langford as Amy

Through the credits we see bloody scenes from a hospital and a man, Lorcan (Andrew Mullan), arriving. The nurse at the desk is Nurse Amy Harper (Clare Langford) but before he can ask for help his bags are brought in and the Matron (Jackie Haliday) takes control having Amy show Lorcan to Dr Edward (Tom Hall) whilst his bags are taken to his room (involving a slyly romantic-comedic moment with Amy and Lorcan on the stairs and his hat). When he meets Edward we discover that Lorcan’s uncle had written to the doctor some 6 months before but died in the intervening period. Lorcan was brought up by his uncle (in Ireland) and it is hoped that Edward’s revolutionary work with blood transfusions can help the young man. He passes Edward some papers his Uncle had wanted to pass on but they are in a language the doctor doesn’t recognise and illustrated with demonic forms.

dream of sunlight

The relationship between Amy and Lorcan quickly blossoms. When in his room together, we see a sequence where they kiss. It is a daydream rather than reality and the film is deliberately obtuse over whose daydream it is, hers or his. We see a moment, on waking, where sunlight streaming through the window causes Lorcan’s arms to bleed profusely. He awakens and discovers that, whilst a dream the sun is indeed having such an effect on his skin. We also notice that he has lost his moustache.

outside the church

Following this Amy comes to his room and he has blocked the window with his coat. She moves this but the sun has gone in. She accidentally cuts her finger and he sucks at the blood – then passes out. He is sent to the general ward but soon claims to be feeling better. He and Amy go for a walk and she takes him to a nearby church. He leaves rather abruptly, saying that the air is stifling. A reaction to holy icons and hallowed ground is understandable – given his demonic heritage, but also fits with general vampire tropes. It is interesting that the filmmakers decided to make it oppressive only, and not more dramatic.

Christopher Ettridge as Darkwood

Also involved in looking to diagnose Lorcan and then provide a cure is Edward’s mentor Professor Darkwood (Christopher Ettridge). He announces porphyria as he enters the room. Of course the folkloric link between vampirism and porphyria has been debunked thoroughly, however the media link once established is always there. Darkwood mentions that transfusions are not so much a new technique but safer – and blood types are mentioned. This might guide us towards dating the film. On the hospital general ward there is a picture of Queen Victoria – she died in January 1901, so it would seem that this is in a late Victorian period. Blood types were first discovered in 1901 (with the discovery of Hemagglutination occurring in 1900), so one must guess the film to be set in 1900/1901.

reaching the heights of love

It seems that Lorcan has an unknown blood type but it transfuses with other types without a problem. Soon he is taking blood through ingestion as well as transfusion and Amy actively helps him with this. Following them making love – which involves some levitation and sprouting of wings, as well as him biting Amy – he fully transforms. He loses body hair, his ear take on a pointed shape, he can develop talons and sharp teeth with prominent front fangs. All in all he looks very much like Nosferatu (especially when in his suit with top hat, not that Orlock wore a top hat). It is suggested that he is a carrier of a virulent plague – again much like Orlock – indeed the big difference between the two is in the wings. That said, wings had been a part of the vampire genre going back into the 19th century – famously Alexandre Dumas, père gave Ruthven wings in his 1851 play the Return of Lord Ruthven.

in the sun

Darkwood has the manuscripts translated and gives us the stages of Lorcan’s transformation (though Lorcan was drinking blood earlier than the order given) and also gives us the killing method, which is only listed as sunlight. I did like the way that the sunlight made the incubus bleed to death, though fire was also involved. There was a use of hypnosis, from the doctors to hypnotise the victim to confirm what was happening.

bite marks

The acting was very good, especially from the two main parties who were understated rather than over the top, adding a subtlety to the proceedings. I was also rather taken with Andrew Cunningham in his role of Rook – a hospital worker with a criminal streak. Even more impressive was the clever way Mark Duffield used sets. Never at any point where we jolted from the idea that we were in late Victorian London and a trip around the sights cemented that feel and gave the illusion of a much bigger collection of sets than there actually were. Judicious camera angles were used to show London without allowing the modern in.

fanged

If I had a complaint it is in the fact that I felt that the film dragged a little bit towards the end. Given the fact that the film aimed for a gothic romance feel more than horror it didn’t need to hurry the pace, per se, but it perhaps could have shaved a tad away from the final act. A minor complaint, however, for a film about a demon that really was about a vampire and, I’d say, one of genus Nosferatu as much as being an incubus. 6.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Manborg – review

Director: Steven Kostanski

Release date: 2011

Contains spoilers


I received a text from my friend Leila suggesting Manborg as a ‘Vamp or Not?’ – I disagree as, from the beginning, there is no doubt that this is a vampire flick (albeit of the blood demon variety).

What is more difficult is how to review and score it. You see it is rubbish, absolutely low budget, cheap green-screen bonk. Yet it knows it, revels in it even.

Draculon has fangs

We begin on Earth during the Hell Wars, when the forces of Hell invaded our realm. We see a group of soldiers fighting armies of demons; two of the soldiers are brothers. The soldiers are killed one after the other until one brother is left with the corpse of the other. His mourning is cut short as he is grabbed by the leader of the demon army – Count Draculon (Adam Brooks). He bites the soldier’s neck and sucks his blood – declaring that it tastes better with hope.

converted to manborg

The body is dragged away by a person unseen and “worked on” through the credits turning the soldier into a cyborg, who will later name himself Manborg (Matthew Kennedy)). At the end of the credits Manborg awakens and bursts out of a crate. He finds himself in a future world where the Demons are in control. He comes across a group of demons attacking a man, known only as #1 Man (Ludwig Lee and voiced by Kyle Hebert). They fight together but end up captured – dragged off to the gladiator arena (which is said to have been set up to provide the demons with blood).

Meredith Sweeney as Mina

There are four key characters in the arena pits; #1 Man, Manborg and brother and sister Justice (Conor Sweeney) and Mina (Meredith Sweeney). It is these characters who will rise up against Draculon. We also meet the human Dr Scorpius (also Adam Brooks) who works with the demons but also was the scientist who accidentally opened the gateway to Hell and then secretly made Manborg to free mankind. There is a demon character called The Baron (Jeremy Gillespie) who is a comedy character as he is in love with Mina but can’t express himself to her.

#1 Man poses

In the main that mentioned comedy element didn’t work well, however the comedy born out of how bad the film is does work and is deliberate. It doesn’t make the film good but it makes it enjoyable in a B-movie way. Think such retro feel films as Hobo With a Shotgun or even Planet Terror. The film looks like an old video game, in many respects, with #1 Man (primarily) looking like he just walked out of a Mortal Kombat type game (the dubbing is deliberately bad).

Adam Brooks as Draculon

Character development is nil, with the characters being friendly or antagonistic as a scene demands rather than as the character would be. The acting is poor in some respects with a definitively pantomime air – but, again, I think this was purposeful. This, all in all, really is a film to watch with friends and beverages – it isn’t high art or even summer blockbuster. It walks a line developed in 80s cheap end film-making and engages us with a nod, a wink and a tongue wedged so far into its cheek the flesh has split. That said, as a film it only really deserves 3.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Eight Immortals – review

Director: Hung Min Chen*

Release date: 1971*

*Note, the IMDb page, details of date and director are based on the supposition that the Fusian DVD release is of the film "Ba xian du hai sao yao mo". If I have mixed films up with another then please leave a comment.

Contains spoilers

The eight immortals are a group of legendary Xian, transcendent heroes of Chinese mythology. Revered by Taoists they have become very much a part of pop culture as well. As such the film opens in a modern day scene, with street storytellers rousing a crowd to come and listen to their tale that is illustrated with painted tiles.

Lu Tung-Pin

The story they tell is that which we see. Set within the Tang dynasty, following a period of peace and prosperity, a rebellion is led by An-Lu-Shan. With that scene set the film spends time exploring the eight immortals (either singularly or in groups) and the impact they have on mortal lives (some of whom feature in the main story. It shows them using their powers to help the helpless, those in danger and overcome adversity.

drinking blood

The story then moves to the adventure proper and the region, where most of the individual stories took place, has been invaded and taken over by Red Demon – who is described as a ravenous blood sucker. So this is our vampire, a blood demon who we see sucking the blood out of victims in his dungeon. One victim he spares is a woman called Pai Mou-Tan as he desires her sexually. In the very first story we saw her as a reluctant courtesan in love with her childhood sweetheart Tu Teh-Fang. The immortal Lu Tung-Pin tricked the brothel owners so that she and her love could be together.

demon pig

Pai Mou-Tan is saved from the Red Demon by the jealousy of his wife and the fact that Pai Mou-Tan can massage well (a skill the Demon's wife is in need of) and ends up as a handmaid and in a position, along with a wine seller and fellow prisoner, to help both the immortals and Tu Teh-Fang who has become leader of the rebels. Unfortunately I must spoil the ending – but you should have guessed that good triumphs – by saying that, once defeated, Red Demon takes his original form – that of a pig.

Pai Mou-Tan

The film is slightly disjointed due to the jumping between stories but, of course, is designed that way. There is a whole level of morality tale in some of the stories and a fondness of song (apparently). That said it is a fun Taiwanese movie and the subtitles (in both English and Mandarin and hard-coded) are readable for the most part (only in one scene did a couple of lines become indistinct). It was also nice to see Chinese mythology being used. The DVD is labelled as digitally remastered, however the print is patchy in places but still watchable and the quality of the story distracts from this once the viewer is sucked in. 6.5 out of 10.

The *imdb page is here.

Angel – seasons 1- 5 – review

Director: Various

First Aired: 1999-2004

Contains spoilers

The internet can be a hostile place, mainly down to the fact that people are offered a voice and can use that voice anonymously and without responsibility. I say this because some time ago I developed a case of the trolls (or, more probably, troll in the singular). Hiding behind a mask of anonymity this person attacked me for my reviews of the series Forever Knight (go check the comments, if you like, on season 2 and season 3). Now I will defend this person’s right to disagree with me but the person made some fundamental errors.

Angel, beloved of pin-sized brains?

Firstly he (his gender assumed on the basis of how he addressed me) supposed I was female (calling me a “dumb broad” and a “bitch”), secondly he attacked my spelling (there are going to be both spelling and grammatical errors on the blog but I suspect the troll was American, it wouldn’t be the first time an American commentator has failed to realise that there are internationally two primary forms of English spelling), tied in with this was the troll’s inability to spin a coherent sentence together at times and lastly he told me to “go back to watching Angel for that's all your pin sized brain can grasp”.

hang around, review coming

The last bit was amusing as I had not reviewed the Angel series at that point. I will now and explain to my more coherent readers exactly why it has taken so long. Essentially it is because I prefer to watch and review, rather than think back on a series not watched for years. We had the Angel series on VHS but recently it appeared cheaply as a five season DVD box-set and so it was purchased, duly watched and now is being reviewed.

an Orlock-a-like

Angel (David Boreanaz, Macabre Pair of Shorts), of course, was the titular character of the series and had first appeared as a recurring character in the series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Angel had been the evil vampire Angelus who, having fed upon a gypsy girl, was cursed to have a soul, feels guilt and is trying to make up for his past. He began this by helping Buffy but they fell in love and he experienced a moment of perfect happiness that stripped his soul away again. In the other series he was re-ensouled, killed (by Buffy) and then restored to his undeath existence. His subsequent split from Buffy saw this series begin. Essentially he becomes a champion, helping the helpless.

Gunn and Fred

Other characters from Buffy appear and disappear in guest appearances, but some have a more permanent appearance including Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter, Lost Boys: the Thirst), Wesley (Alexis Denisof) and, having made a cameo in a season 1 episode, a reformed (and also vampire with a soul) Spike (James Marsters, Smallville: Thirst). Other main good-guy characters were half-demon, and conduit to the powers-that-be, Doyle (Glenn Quinn) who was in season 1 only, musical empath Lorne (Andy Hallett), science-nerd and survivor of a Hell dimension Fred (Amy Acker) and street-wise vampire slayer Gunn (J. August Richards).

Charisma Carpenter as Cordelia

Whilst the primary “big bad” changed season on season the constant factor was evil law firm (aren’t they all) Wolfram and Hart, the senior partners of which were demons in another dimension. They were aware of a prophecy that stated the vampire with a soul was a major player in the apocalypse, though whether that was for good and evil was unknown. Of course the appearance of Spike skewed that somewhat. The machinations of Wolfram and Hart on Earth were represented (early on) by two young lawyers, Lindsey (Christian Kane) and Lilah (Stephanie Romanov).

Blood Demon form

The vampire lore had been established in Buffy but we did get visual confirmation (on at least two occasions) that the turning process involved an exchange of blood. The vampires were soulless and incorporated blood demons into their makeup. When Angel travels to the Hell dimension Pylea he finds that the laws of meta-physics have changed. The sun does not cause him to combust but when he “vamps out” he doesn’t just develop a vampire face but turns fully into a blood demon. This then is the vampire’s true form. Angel’s sire Darla (Julie Benz) is returned from the dead and she and Angel conceive a child. This is impossible for two vampires and she has to stake herself to give birth.

James Marsters as Spike

The series started in a way that seemed (on re-watch) rather cheap, in season 1 at least, but the effects did improve. Each season had a moment of meandering from time to time but overall each season became gradually stronger and stronger. On my original viewing the final season felt weaker, mainly because the team took over Wolfram and Hart and the premise felt awkward. Having looked at the season again, I realised that I rather liked what they did with it. Indeed my favourite three moments in the series came from season 1 and season 5 respectively. In season 1 we see (a still evil) Spike watching Angel and his soliloquy (or commentary of Angel’s actions) shows just why Spike was such a popular character in both series.

Puppet Angel

The first season 5 highlight saw Angel cursed and turned into a puppet, complete with removable felt nose. This was a throw-away episode but showcases the comedy that the writers were able to inject into the series (and Buffy). It is also an example of vampiric puppet – a rare occurrence – and this puppet can morph into his vampire face. The second highlight from season 5 involved Numero Cinco (Danny Mora).

Numero Cinco

We had seen the luchador walking the corridors of Wolfram and Hart delivering mail but discover that he was a hero, one of a family of luchadores who fought evil. His brothers were killed by an Aztec demon and he gave up on being a hero but the demon has returned. It was great to see a nod to the Mexican wrestling movie. Of course Angelus had to reappear at some point in the full run of 5 seasons, indeed the threat of Angel losing his soul was a factor throughout the show. In many respects I felt that Angel was much darker than its parent show but perhaps didn’t generate the same level of chemistry between the leads.

It was worth, to me, sitting through the lot again. Some of the series has failed to age that well but, overall, it still has a lot to offer. Of course, according to the troll, that just proves that I have a pin-sized brain but I’m happy whilst he is sad and twisted, so that’s okay. 6.5 out of 10 for the five seasons in total.

The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon US

On DVD @ Amazon UK