Rating: C+
Dir: Peter Stylianou, Sean Cronin
Star: Ruaridh Aldington, Madalina Bellariu Ion, Angela Dixon, Craig Conway
The vampire as a metaphor for drug abuse has been done before, most famously in Abel Ferrara’s The Addiction. There’s a difference here, in that it’s the person being drained of blood who is the addict, rather than the drinker. Is that significant enough? Not sure, because it doesn’t feel like the film develops its ideas far enough. Quite often, I found myself thinking, “OK, so now what?”, and didn’t get a fully adequate answer. On the other hand, some of the other elements are interesting, and it feels like a long time since there has been a vampire film set so definitively in London. I think the last I saw might have been Tale of a Vampire?
The victim is Thomas (Aldington), a wannabe artist, living at home with him mum (Dixon). Well, he was, until getting kicked out to make room for her new boyfriend, John (Conway). Still, there is good news. He encounters the gorgeous Rhea (Ion, recently seen hiding behind a couch for much of Take Cover), who seems to be attracted to him, despite being well out of his league. Turns out she’s only interested in his body: more to the point, what’s flowing through his veins. But being drunk (in a HHGttG way) delivers to Thomas a drug-like high, and he becomes dependent on Rhea’s feeding, even as his health ebbs away with each mouthful she takes. Can he break free before he is drained entirely of life?
Thomas is fairly likeable, though I had to sympathize with the adults, frustrated by his refusal to contribute to the household. It’s the lengthy middle section where this feels like it struggles the most, entering a holding pattern instead of progressing the story. There’s a subplot about Rhea’s “partner” that goes nowhere much, and we are left in the dark for too long, as to what Thomas gets out of this toxic relationship. Not until an explicit heroin reference does this become clear. Thereafter, things are more effective, because we have a genuine conflict, between Thomas and Rhea, instead of… Thomas versus Thomas’s addictive personality? It becomes a battle as he struggles to escape her clutches, going through withdrawal and even psychiatric confinement (albeit not voluntarily).
Here is where the film finds its voice most effectively. He’s suspected of the murders she has committed, and the police, understandably, are not accepting his explanation: “If that’s an insanity plea, it’s got to be the worst one I’ve ever heard.” I’d visions of it drifting into The Hitcher territory, with Rhea busting Thomas out of jail for the LOLs. Perhaps sadly, we don’t go there – this is England, after all – but this section certainly works better. At least until the very end, where the movie tries to go big, when it might have been better off going home. Still a better love story than Twilight though.
The film is available on demand now.