Vampire Journals or dear fanged diary?

Well the folks of Full Moon Pictures came back to Bucharest, Romania for yet another vampire picture.  Ted Nicolaou , writer/director of the Subspecies quadrilogy , brings Vampire Journals to light.   Timeline based it occurs after Subspecies 4: Bloodstorm.   The vampire of that series Radu Vladislas has met his final end and his made vampire Ash is our head nuisance.   The story revolves around two vampires.  One is racked with guilt of being one of the undead and seeks to dispatch them with a blade in the form of decapitation.  The other is an amoral soulless creature that delights at playing with his food and instilling fear prior to feeding.  Guess it is a bit like adding Coke to your Jack.  No clue.   Zachary (David Gunn) lives with the unending life span that has brought him nothing but blood and torment.  Ash (Jonathon Morris) is a master vampire that owns a night club and assists in presenting it around the world.  Both creatures of the night fall for the same beautiful pianist named Sofia (Kirsten Cerre).  

Ah, the music spoilers make.

What do you mean they call me the dandy vampire?!

Predictably their ideals and ways of life rub each other wrong but they continue this odd game of cat and mouse back and forth.    Ash points out his former life to Zachary and clearly is giving him a chance to belong among his flock so long as he does not poach the pianist.   And we all know how well competition goes with men over a woman.  Zachary is almost as whiny and bitter as Louise of Interview with a Vampire.  I mean this guy whimpers on and on.   Flashbacks are a bit of a theme with this guy as Ash in some far back time of the powdered wig era fed and drained Rebecca, the love of Zachary’s unlife.  He makes this pact to slay his fellow vampires wherever he finds them.    Once again I have to comment on the prop people.  Since the Subspecies, these folks bust ass on what little budget they have and produce a wicked broadsword named Laertes.  Maybe someone was a big Homer fan or possibly just a fan of Hamlet.  Who can truly say?

Hmm hot floaty chick.  Well I see no cause for alarm.

While I feel the story has been played out to death and not exactly what I would call an original idea I love the camera work and lighting.  The music score is amazing and frankly for as low a budget as Nicolaou always seems stuck with it, the film is impressive.  An ancient city with so much architecture to work into your story, the movie maintains a gothic feeling and the characters are true to the nature of the beast if you will.  My complaints were pretty simple actually.  The script seemed light.  You had a simple love triangle story arc that did not get the love it should have.  Felt like there should have been more.  The nudity follows a basis for the seduction or feeding so I didn’t feel like it was over the top but there is a far amount of it.  Not one for the kids.  Erotic vampire tale hey you got to expect this sort of thing to be happening.    Nicolaou also seems to like to let every film end on a down note.  Admittedly I did not see a happy fluffy bunny ending with a tale of vampires but dammit man through in a tender note now and again.  What I don’t get is why these clearly different storylines are even linked.  Clearly Nicaloau had a plan to do something more in depth with the 4^th Subspecies using a few of the characters from this flick and it just felt clunky and confusing.  

To sum it all up, this flick was a pleasant addition to the growing vampire sub-genre.  Our vampires didn’t twinkle, they had no emo angst nor did they whine and bitch too terribly. 

  

Insatiable? We’ll see.

The Insatiable

SPOILERS…Eh you know the drill.

Man o man I seem to be on a vampire kick this month.  This time I have a flick with some budget and meat on the bones.  No more time to waste, let’s delve into The Insatiable.   Writers/directors Cary Solomon and Chuck Konzelman (TNT and Earth Vs. the Spider) bring us this modern day macabre L.A. story of an everyday guy (Sean Patrick Flannery of The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones, The Boondock Saints 1 and 2) who works selling flange pipes and is the super for his building .  His local stop at a convenience store and he offers to get a homeless guy; Sammy (Jimmy Gonzales of Four Christmases and Beewax) something to eat.  The convenience store clerk Ronnie (Brad Rowe of Shelter and National Treasure: Book of Secrets ) is swarmy to a couple of preppy kids buying porno mags with the typical hiding purchases.  Harry and Ronnie chatter for a bit and Harry is on his way out to feed the unfortunate fellow on the street.  He then encounters a gorgeous vivacious redheaded vampire (Charlotte Ayanna of Training Day and The Thirst) feeding that very same homeless man.  Startled as he is, his vampire rends Sammy’s head off and leaps 30 feet straight up and through a window without breaking stride.  Harry hyperventilates, passes out but manages to call the cops afterwards.

 Naturally the lead detective treats him like he is jotting down a drunk’s UFO sighting.  Harry slighted by this reaction and terrified of what he saw, of course he goes to work the next day to get crap from his co-workers; Javier (Jon Huertas of Castle and NCIS) and Chet (Josh Hopkins of Swingtown and Private Practice) about the vampiress.   Follow-up questions with lead detective Michael Roper (Boyd Kestner of The General’s Daughter and Hannibal) seems tedious and awkward.  Harry is shown crime scene photos and he is sickened by it. Detective Roper classifies Harry as a nut that saw what he couldn’t possibly have seen, and tells him to take a hike.   Meeting up with Ronnie at the convenience store, Harry notices a neck wound on Ronnie and points out how wiped he appears.  Ronnie tells Harry how his new girlfriend is just running him ragged from sex.  Hmm sounds better than watching this movie any day but I digress. 

 Obsessed with the vampire; Harry surfs the web trying to get a handle on female vampires.  God only knows how many porn sites came up he had to delete out of and discovers they originate from the demon succubus; in that they feed on a man’s life force in the act of sex and slowly drain them of will and strength.  Harry tries to sleep only having a ridiculous bedtime montage of the past events to he heads over to Ronnie’s place to look in on him.  To his shock and horror Ronnie to has met his fate by the vampiress.   The cops are uninterested in what he has to say, so Harry takes it upon himself to deal out justice Peter Cushing style…..okay he actually contacts a web operator that has a few vampire pages.   Harry deals with a backed up garbage disposal of his neighbor Cindi. (Amanda Noret of Veronica Mars and Bunny Whipped)   Just pointing out that she is drooling over Young Indy here and he is too damn bashful to do anything about it.  Smack upside head!

Destiny or a clogged toilet lends a hand and Harry meets a man that is more than just a resident.  Stuck in a wheelchair but wields a decent sawed off boomstick is Strickland (Michael Biehn of Terminator, Aliens and The Rock) who explains to Harry the heightened senses of a vampire.  If they get your scent they can track you anywhere and given his last scene with her I am sure she got pheromones and urine.   Strickland cross-references the known attacks over the last two months and narrows down a grid pattern that is her hunting grounds.  Yes once again we have technology, geography and obsession to hunt and kill vampires.  A trifle cliché but it is Michael Biehn so I excuse him.   Harry hits a hardware store for some tools of the trade.  Pry bar for boarded up doors.  Wire cutters for chain link fences and a decent sized sledgehammer and railroad spikes for staking.  Guess the old lop the head off and everything is gravy concept is key here.   Trailing her to the lair, the vamp wakes only to plead for her life and doofus Balbo lets her live.   Strickland reams him over the phone and Harry devises a plan to deal with her his way.   Using his contacts at work and a handy welding manual; Harry creates the very first Vampire cage.  The same steel used for bank vaults and is damn certain she cannot get out of there.  Excellent time for a spear through the chest but now she is locked away he hasn’t a fricking clue what to do next.  JACKASS!   Stake her, lop the head off and chuck the body to the sun after soaking both head and body in holy water.   Well that was just my opinion. 

 Begging Harry to be free; Tatiana tells him she needs blood every night or she will waste away horribly.  Not wanting a life on his hands, Harry offers her rabbits and other such creatures like a take-out order, but eventually that is not enough for her appetite.  He starts developing a rapport with Tatiana and she can sense he is a lonely sad man who has never really known love.     Too tempted by our vampiress the lines of morality get crossed and Harry starts feeding Tatiana people including jackass co-worker Javier.  Eh can’t say I blame Harry on that one.  Hell I would have fed that guy to a wood chipper let alone a vampire.   The cops find Harry’s prints on discarded bags of trash containing victims and Harry gives himself to Tatiana.     The moral of the story is to kill the pretty thing before it gets in your head.