I’m always happy to watch vampire films that depart from the norms…as long as they’re good. Let’s see what you can expect from Blood and Stone, Dreamland, and Mimesis: Nosferatu.
BLOOD AND STONE (2020)
If you ever wanted to learn how much the lives of vampires are as dysfunctional and boring as those of mortals, this dragged out film is for you. But be warned…it’s no What We Do the Shadows.
A Jason Momoa type hunk hangs around bars getting guys drunk so he can drink their blood and get drunk himself. Yep, he’s a big vampaholic. And he spends the whole movie brushing his long, mussed hair from his face, the way guys with long hair do because they think it’s sexy.
He has a couple of female vamp friends. One is trying to have a relationship with a mortal and struggles not to give into her bloodlust.
The other is totally blasé and is actually the most entertaining one in the bunch with her laid-back, devil may care attitude.
And that’s it. Really. This move is two hours long and nothing happens. It’s like Reality Bites for depressed vampires with no goals or direction in their undead lives.
DREAMLAND (2019)
I almost ran screaming from this one when I saw it was from those who tortured us with the agonizing movie Pontypool, but the promise of Henry Rollins and Juliette Lewis kept me watching.
The film had me for 45 minutes. Stephen McHattie plays a double role as a hit man and the jazz player whose finger he is hired to cut off. Trippy stuff.
His boss is Henry Rollins, who is selling children into sex slavery, including a fourteen-year old girl to a vampire that plans to marry her.
The vampire’s diva-esque sister, played fabulously by Juliette Lewis, is planning the wedding.
Juliette has one great scene. Henry has one great scene…same great scene the vampire has. The rest of the movie turns very boring until everyone ends up at the wedding, which leads to a gun fight…in a “vampire” movie. Therefore, I can’t exactly recommend this as a horror movie. It’s more like, I don’t know, a dark comedy fantasy?
MIMESIS: NOSFERATU (2018)
I’m a fan of director Douglas Schulz’s film Mimesis: Night of the Living Dead, so I was psyched to see his take on Nosferatu.
Despite being forced to tune out the fact that he cast crazy conservative Kristy Swanson in the opener (I guess if you can’t afford Sarah Michelle Gellar for your vamp film cameo…), it’s a great setup scene of a mother going into the bedroom of her son, who takes his obsession with Nosferatu to the extreme.
The film focuses on a school drama club that is set to do a stage adaptation of the original silent film. Annoyingly, the drama teacher takes a jab at glittery vampires. It’s a tired joke and people seriously just have to let go of the fact that Twilight exists. That series hasn’t in any way hindered my appreciation of vampire horror movies.
Anyway, the film turns oddly into a battle of the cliques, as the drama kids are bullied by and then take revenge on a bunch of assholes at school.
There are some gruesome scenes here, and generally I liked the concept, but honestly, none of it makes much sense. Basically, everyone takes their love of Nosferatu too far, so there are Nosferatus running around all over the place before all is said and done. This essentially a commentary on kids in modern society cloaked in a faux vampire theme.
