Rating: D-
Dir: David Stojan
Star: Valeria Hernandez, Angela Garza, David Stojan
I had a day off sick recently, and watched this from bed. It’s safe to say, I would rather have been at my job than enduring what ranks among the longest sixty minutes of my life. Within ten, I found myself watching a trailer for another movie on my phone. This is incoherent nonsense of the worst kind, summed up by the final image before the end credits roll: a statue of a chicken from which blood slowly oozes (top). Stojan holds the shot for more than a minute and a half. This was long enough for me to check whether there had been a problem with playback, and Plex had stalled. If you wonder how to go wrong with such a title… Here you are.
I’ll give a synopsis, because none is clear from the movie, and I desperately need the word-count. “In a city ruled by the underworld, a religious fanatic teenager is worried about the recent rumors of demonic gangs and cults. She takes a trip to the cemetary to take flowers in remorse for the car accident her friend recently had, unaware the cemetary is territory of a female gang faction known as the Vampire Nymphets whos adored leader is a male vampire. With their supernatural powers they lead her into falling for their spells and she ends up being kidnapped by them and taken to their safe house which is hours away from the city in a cursed land habited by witches, demons and werewolves where the gang operates an underground brothel.”
Pro-tip. If you’re going to locate part of your story in a graveyard, be able to spell it. Elsewhere, it’s clear that Stojan is completely uninterested in conventional elements like “a story,” and has instead chosen to create a mood piece. It worked for me, providing the mood for which he was aiming was “bored and irritated.” From the first shot – a lengthy close-up of fly-blown meat – to the chicken statue, everything lasted far longer than it needed to. The only impact to be found beyond boredom came from various mondo footage watched by the characters. I think I spotted some from Traces of Death, and the mechanized slaughterhouse footage was also vaguely unsettling.
This is the kind of film where I wish the director has been sitting next to me. Partly so that he could answer my questions, even if these would have alternated between “What the fuck were you thinking?”, “Why?” and “Really?” But mostly so that I could enthusiastically suffocate him with a pillow, in order to show him the error of his ways, and save the world from further David Stojan projects. Casting himself as the “adored leader” tells you all you need to know. This may not be the worst vampire movie of all time – I use the word “movie” loosely. Not in a universe where Dracula: A Vampyre in Beijing exists. But it certainly deserves a dishonourable mention in the category.