It could have been a blast, but rather than delivering dykes and death, Life Blood takes itself too seriously and turns out to be a pretty standard vampire flick. However, I didn’t hate it, mostly because Sophie Monk (The Hills Run Red) rox as a hot lesbian vampire bitch.
The film opens on New Year’s Eve,1969. Great year (I was born). Sophie and her hot girlfriend, played by Anya Lahiri (The Scar Crow), are at a party. We get plenty of scenes of these lipstick babes making out as they jam to Donovan’s “Mellow Yellow.” Meanwhile, Scout Taylor-Compton, who appears just briefly to fill her scream queen quota, is being sexually assaulted by some guy. Sophie’s butch comes out and she stops that shit big time.
After, as the Sophie and Anya drive home, a female from the sky comes down to them on a deserted road and announces that she’s the creator of the world. Oh…my…Goddess. She credits Anya for being a pure spirit and informs her it will be her job to live forever as a vampire and feed only on bad people to clean up the world. Turns out Sophie isn’t so pure, but Anya begs Goddess to spare her. They seal the deal with a kiss, of course. How’s that for a pro-female, pro-gay movie? God is a lesbian who anoints a mortal lesbian to save humanity!
Next, Anya and Sophie hatch out of something on the side of the road, and Anya makes a point to mention that it’s 40 years later. What? Goddess didn’t want her to start ridding the world of evil for 4 decades? Okay. Just go with it. To keep with the holiday horror theme, it’s New Year’s Eve. Anya is still all goody-goody lesbian and understands her job, but Sophie is a feisty, hungry Vixen vamp. So she chows down as soon as they come across a hot male hitchhiker being picked up by a chubby older man with a prissy voice (claims he’s married, though). I was just as confused as the hot hitchhiker when Sophie ops to eat the other guy.
Sophie and Anya end up at a convenience store on New Year’s Day, terrorizing the clerk, played by former child star Patrick Renna. Meanwhile, we meet the local sheriff (veteran actor Charles Napier), an absurdly chauvinistic dude who says things to his female deputy like, “You should be in a kitchen, where women belong.” Seriously, he really says that. Someone forgot to tell the writer it’s no longer supposed to be 1969.
Anyway, the lesbians are stuck in the convenience store until nightfall. The movie has a From Dusk Till Dawn vibe simply because there are lots of dust clouds out on the road, and there’s some surfer rock. But sadly, there’s no cool vamp makeup. We get just two hot lesbian vamps who look like they come from this generation, even though they are supposed to have been asleep since 1969. They also happen to cast a reflection, so the film doesn’t totally stick to (goddess lesbian) vampire lore.
Eventually, Sophie gets a gun. That’s right. This lesbian vampire SHOOTS most of her victims. I know, it’s probably a metaphor for her butch lesbian penis envy. Good vamp Anya know she must take Sophie down. What could have been a cool battle (if the movie was putting any effort into making things exciting) turns into a one-hit kill. This climax left me flaccid, and not because it’s a lesbian catfight.
My favorite part of Life Blood, aside from Sophie’s campy diva dialogue, is when Patrick Renna screams to a customer that enters the store, “I think she’s a vampire! RUN!” If only the movie had been consistently this unintentionally funny.
For a full list of New Year’s horror flix, check out my holiday horror page.
