Blood Relatives

Not for everyone. Gore hounds will hate it. Those who demand 100 million in special effects or big name celebrities. Those who insist every joke be obvious or have toilet humor or be about sex.

I was pleasantly surprised by this low budget indie. It has an off kilter sense of humor that quickly grows on you. That is, if you're willing to actually listen, pay attention, and don't demand explosions and piles of bodies or you get bored.

The writer deserves to be applauded. So do all the actors, and the principal ones have pretty good comedic timing.

In some ways this reminds me of the original short film for Things We Do In the Shadows.

IN A NUTSHELL: A vampire's loner lifestyle is thrown into disarray when a teenager shows up claiming to be his daughter, and she's got the fangs to prove it. On a road trip across America's blacktops, they decide how to sink their teeth into family life.

The movie is both written and directed by Noah Segan. But wait, he also stars in it! That always impresses me, especially for a first-time director! I'm curious to see what else he has to say.

THINGS I LIKED: This unconventional road-trip flick features two vampires played by Noah Segan and Victoria Moroles.

Yiddish words like Mensch, "oy vay", "putz", and "schlep" are used.

It looked like the scenes were actually filmed on location, rather than on a green screen, which is always refreshing.

There is some humor to make the movie more playful and fun.

We get to watch an ancient vampire transition into a dad.

Some moral territory is covered as the vampires discuss the rights and wrongs of vampire life.

The film makes a statement on how we all just want to belong and know where we came from.

The filming and lighting were good, especially considering so many scenes took place at night.

THINGS I DIDN'T LIKE: It's a slow burn with a "meh" payoff.

Not all of the humor lands.

Not that much really "happens" to propel the movie into more than just a road trip film.

Fans of horror will be disappointed that there isn't more action.

TIPS FOR PARENTS: Lots of blood and some gore Profanity, including F-bombs Crude language and conversations

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I mean, for a directorial debut it's not that bad. But to be honest, it's kinda boring. I'm not an expert at drama, so I can't really pinpoint what made it boring. Maybe the lack of music? Maybe the lack of background story on the main character, that made the audience having a hard time to care about him? I don't know. I'm not the right person to analyze a drama movie. But I do know that a good drama is the one which doesn't make you wanna fast forward through it. And I did got tempted a few times while watching this. I don't wanna be a jerk, so I'm giving it 5 stars. But I don't recommend this movie to anyone.

Absolutely horrible movie. From the very start you know this is going to be a horrible ride.

The acting is downright terrible and the script is so poorly written you'll feel sorry for the actors even tho they are just as bad as the script.

The main problem is it tries too hard to be cute-funny and falls flat nearly all the time. Plus it's rather wordy and the acting isnt really good enough to plow through it.

It's anything for a laff, but It all falls flat.

In the end, the movie becomes tiresome with it's "cutsie" dialog and poor acting. Actually it becomes tiresome way before the end of the movie.

D level garbage not worth watching.

This was very poorly written and directed, and surprisingly, just bland and boring, and not funny at all. The concept was interesting, but it missed the mark in every other department. The two leads had zero chemistry, I'm sure mostly due to writer, director and lead actor Noah Segan's failure to direct himself and Victoria Moroles properly. The only really convincing actor was C. L. Simpson as Sylvie. Moroles' and Segan's dialogue also felt forced and convoluted, with Segan's occasional high-pitched voice squealing becoming cringe. The story had nothing much out of its basic narrative to offer - nothing really suspenseful or thrilling, or that wasn't cliched and predictable. For a comedy, we never laughed once. A decent effort for actor Segan to newly dabble in filmmaking, but maybe he wore too many hats on this one.