Shadowland

This is an interesting independent vampire movie that exchanges the gratuities of most modern vamp movies with a softly nuanced character-based story about a woman, staked as a newly-made vampire several centuries ago, who is accidentally awakened (via the old removal-of-the-stake-from-her-heart gag) in modern times, where she tries to find her old love while evading both police and a clerical vampire hunter seeking her demise – and continuing to deal with the tragic reality that she has been made a vampire. It's a very sympathetic story (without descending into saccharine TWILIGHT territory) that proffers an appealing side to the vampire movie, exchanging thoughtful insight instead of spectacle and carnage. Filmed in St Louis with local talent, the filmmakers tried to make a PG vampire movie that would be suitable for families (that opening staking scene evidently earned them their R-rating), and focuses on character interaction while telling an interesting story largely from the vampire lady's perspective. In the lead role, actress Caitlin McIntosh, who is strikingly beautiful to the point of distraction, plays Laura with expressiveness and sympathy. The other cast members are adequate if indistinctive. The film's low budget is wisely used to its best advantage by director Wyatt Weed in his first feature-length movie; production quality is quite good with limited use of very good CGI to render some of the environments (such as flashbacks to yesteryear) and to make vampire movements ultra-fast; props must go to young makeup artist Rachel Rieckenberg who does an amazing job with limited means to create convincing and creatures, wounds, and the like. Patrick Savage and Holeg Spies (having together scored THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE (FIRST SEQUENCE) and American MANIAC prior to this) provide a serviceable score that supports the duality of the film's heroine as both innocent victim and unwilling monster.