Black Female Horror Directors – Part I

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Representation is important, in front of and behind the camera. While I’m not one to say that films should never be made about certain communities by those who are not from those communities (a White, British guy can make a great movie centered on an African American neighborhood – see Candyman (1992)), I do think it is important that people be given the opportunity to tell their own stories. This isn’t only a matter of parity, of the fairness of self-representation; it’s good for the art. When members of under-represented groups tell their own tales, there may be different points of focus, new perspectives, the camera may be pointed in places someone from without may not have thought to point it, and we all benefit from a wider range of life experience being committed to film.

With that in mind, February is “Black History Month” (at least in America, where I’m from) and until quite recently, it was also “Women in Horror Month” (though as of 2022, the organizers have opted for a more year-long approach). Therefore, I thought it might be a good project to try some horror films, all new for me, made by Black female directors. I will say though, as sometimes occurs when seeking to fill a representational gap, an initial search has not turned up so many to choose from (echoes of the other week when I had trouble finding a “Lesbian Vampire film” made by an LGBT+, female identifying director, or a vampire for that matter). But I have found some, so let’s check a couple out.

As I haven’t seen these before and don’t know how much there will be to discuss, it’s possible that these will be shorter reviews and therefore, I’ll endeavor to keep them spoiler free.

Eve’s Bayou (1997)

Right off the bat, before any reader objects – ok, I do have some trouble counting this as a horror film. It’s got rich, steamy Louisiana atmosphere. It’s got some death. Psychic elements. Maybe ghosts. Hoodoo death curses. But the mood is overwhelmingly that of a period drama rather than horror – it feels like an adaptation of some worthy historical novel. Still, it was listed as “horror” on IMDB and I remember it being discussed in the excellent Horror Noir (2019) documentary, detailing Black representation in Horror films, so here it is; and I do think it has value worth discussing, even if it’s a stretch to include it in the genre.

While her feature directorial debut may only tangentially relate to horror, as an actor, Kasi Lemmons had already held key roles in the genre (fulfilling the trope of Black best friend to the White female lead in Silence of the Lambs and Candyman). Just a few years later, she wrote and directed this deeply personal film which Roger Ebert (not always a friend to Horror) named the best of the year (it was also the most profitable independent film of 1997).

A 60s period piece set in the small town of Eve’s Bayou, outside of New Orleans, the film centers on a ten year old girl named Eve, whom we know from the opening narration by the end of the summer will kill her father, that threat of violence hanging over the rest of the proceedings. Eve’s father is a successful doctor and their family is local royalty of sorts, descended from a Famous French general and the freed slave woman to whom he’d dedicated the town. Her father, Louis Batiste (Samuel L. Jackson), is also a notorious philanderer and this is the source of no small amount of family drama. Jackson brings so much easy charm to the role, and you can see how women would be drawn to him, as well as how easily he could manipulate his wife and family. It’s refreshing to see him play a character with so little bluster, so much warmth, and such deep dysfunction under the surface. It’s no wonder that he came on the project as a producer – it’s a great part.

Eve’s aunt (Louis’s sister) has psychic premonitions, which it seems Eve shares, and works as a kind of spiritual therapist, assisting townspeople with their own traumas, while suffering greatly herself, cursed as she is to always outlive her husbands (so far, she’s been through three). And rounding out the spiritual cast, there is the local Hoodoo woman who tells fortunes that aren’t always so nice and has no qualms about dealing with darker magics if the price is right. Otherwise, the film focuses on the relationships between Eve, her mother, her older sister, and her younger brother, as they navigate the personal betrayals, the hazy visions of something tragic looming in their future, and the crazy-making emotions and impulses of childhood and adolescence. Much of the film is borne by the young performers and while they may not hit every beat, they do an admirable job of carrying a great deal of emotional weight.

I can’t say that I was totally captivated at every turn by the story (though there were surely strong moments and elements), but I did appreciate the representational project. Inspired by family trips to Louisiana in her childhood, Lemmons gives so much attention to small details of this community, its people, its spirituality and superstitions, and its aspirations – and it is noteworthy that this is a different kind of small, rural, southern Black populace than is usually portrayed on film. This is a fairly well-to-do middle class society, in which the Batistes stand out for their money and position. This isn’t a story about poverty, the ghosts of slavery, or the struggle for Civil Rights – this is a thriving population full of its own characters and stories and dramas, with no need to look further afield for greater significance. Notably, there doesn’t seem to be a single White person in the cast (plenty of films might feature an all-White cast without drawing notice). The story is self-contained – about Eve and her family and their troubles – we look through their eyes and not those of some outside perspective intended to purportedly help a mainstream White audience connect.

By the end of the film, her father is indeed dead – but did she actually kill him? That is in doubt. There have been dark revelations, but those revelations have also been cast into doubt. All is subjective and nothing is very certain. To paraphrase the closing narration, the past and the future can both be seen, but both change depending on the light. Lemmons succeeded in bringing a similarly personal emotionality to it all, focusing her lens on a time and a place, on nuances of character and society that another filmmaker might not have been so drawn to. I still have trouble calling it “Horror” per se, but it is a work of value and I’m glad to have given it a chance.

Master (2022)

Mariama Diallo’s directorial feature debut, which she also wrote, does clearly situate itself more firmly in the genre, though by the end it’s thrown into question whether anything has actually been supernatural or if this has all really been more of a psycho-social, allegorical drama. Regardless, it does feel like a horror movie, particularly through its first two acts, and that’s enough for me. Past that, it is a very different piece than the preceding film. Whereas Eve’s Bayou stood out for its focus on the nuances of life within its geographically and culturally specific Louisiana Black community, Master directly sets its crosshairs on the current experience of being Black in America writ large, particularly when navigating contexts historically dominated by rich White people, in this case, Academia.

 I will say, before going into full detail, that the film is really rich in ideas, lived experiences, and an entirely unsettling, oppressive sense of dread and discomfort. That said, sometimes there is just so much going on in terms of a possible ghost story, the echoes of a witch hanging, the specter of slavery and/or Black servitude, and the contemporary ‘micro-aggressions’ and mendacity both encountered and perpetrated by our protagonists that I have difficulty pulling the threads together. Are these the failings of an over-ambitiously messy first feature, or is the intention to make an evocative, disturbing mélange of a film rather than telling a totally straightforward story? If the former, it is still such an overall success that it’s easy to forgive the ways it doesn’t quite gel by the end. If the latter, it is quite effective in its goal, though it does suffer somewhat for having created initial expectations of, let’s say, typical genre-based narrative coherence which it seems to lose interest in during the final stretch.

We follow two Black women at a prestigious New England University which is notably homogeneous. Jasmine, a freshman housed in a dorm room which may be haunted, in which the school’s first Black student had hanged herself years ago, is one of perhaps 8 or 9 Black students on campus. Gail is one of the only Black members of the faculty, and has just been made the “Master” of the students’ house that Jasmine lives in. Being a Master is prestigious and Gail is the first Black professor to hold such a position. Almost immediately, both of them begin to experience spooky stuff. Portraits of the school’s founder suddenly appear skeletal, maggots seem to spontaneously generate in surprising places, dreams are haunted by ghostly premonitions, spindly clawed hands reach out from beneath beds, and mysterious cloaked figures loom in the night.

All of these typical Horror trappings are seamlessly interwoven with similarly discomforting socio-racial dynamics. Jasmine sees an older Black cafeteria worker warmly coddling all of the White students only to get the cold shoulder when she approaches. Gail finds countless racist artifacts in her new “Master” chambers, such as a “Mammy” cookie jar or remnants of Black servants’ quarters. Jasmine tries to fit in with her roommate’s rich friends, but they all (barely) subtly treat her more like the help than like a peer. Gail suspects that her rise in status is thanks more to optics than respect, and that her colleagues mainly want her in the position to clean up the school’s historical image. And most dramatically, Jasmine suffers direct harassment, with racist images and nooses hung on her dorm room door.

It is the primary strength of the film that all of these elements seem to carry equal weight as the intimations of supernatural threat. I think this is mutually beneficial – the horror movie tropes are given greater emotional weight by being linked with the real world issues and the examination of socio-racial discomfort benefits from being accurately framed as “horror.” All of it is dreadful. All of it is scary. All of it communicates the message that “you are not welcome here – you are not wanted – leave while you can,” and at the same time, both women are justified in wanting to stick it out, to not give up, to not let it all get to them. They want to be stronger than that and not be defeated by this ugliness. Ultimately though, the ugly, the danger, the ghosts of the past are really quite a force to be reckoned with.

The clawed figure that haunts Jasmine’s dreams and pushes her towards the window from which past students have jumped is scary, but is it scarier than when she finds herself the only Black person at a party, surrounded by White students aggressively shouting along to a rap song, gleefully screaming the N-word at her and making gorilla sounds? This is filmed as a horror scene, and rightly so. Gail is largely aware of what Jasmine is going through, having been there before herself, but she can’t look through her eyes, can’t always be there to push back against the social weight. And she is pulled in other directions, navigating her own issues in the school, particularly the racial overtones surrounding the possible advancement of the school’s only other Black, female professor. There’s only so much she can do.

By the end, the supernatural element fades to the background or is even consciously abandoned – either it was always metaphoric, or it just can’t compete with the human social forces that make life for the two of them at this school, which they’ve both worked so hard to get to, so very unbearable. Shortly before this, perhaps putting a cap on the possible ghost story, Gail tells Jasmine, “It’s not ghosts. It’s not supernatural. It’s America, and it’s everywhere.” It’s a bleak turn – it would be so much easier if there was just a scary ghost to appease, or even if that weren’t possible, to know that it could only haunt so many, only hurt so many. But nope – Gail knows that what Jasmine’s experiencing can’t be run away from; it is just the world that they inhabit.

In the end, though, both characters do leave the university in their ways, but as Gail walks off campus for the last time (after being stopped by campus security and asked to show her faculty ID), we see the night alive with service workers – garbage men, landscapers – all of them Black, just doing their jobs – maintaining a beautiful environment for (primarily) privileged White kids. She may leave, but nothing has changed. Perhaps nothing will change. And really, where is there to go? As I said, it’s a dark ending.

—

From one angle, these are two totally disparate films – one only tangentially connected to the supernatural and one steeped in horror conventions – one entirely set within a Black community and one focused on the tension of being Black in a “White space” – one a cohesive family drama and one a thematically broad hodgepodge of racism, literal hauntings, and social anxiety. However, the similarities are just as striking. Both were first feature films written and directed by a Black woman, and both clearly shed light on specific experiences of being a Black woman in America in a concrete time and place – these are not generalizations, but feel distinct and individualized. What a pleasure and what a value.

Sadly however, these will be the only films considered for now. This is a busy week for me outside of the blog, so this is as far as I’m going today. But February isn’t over yet and I plan to continue in this vein next time.

A Lot to Love in My Bloody Valentine

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When something like Valentine’s Day rolls around, it just feels like it sets the agenda. Sometimes I have trouble deciding what to write about on a given week, but in this case, it’s simple – just do something for the holiday (as with, for example, Christmas). But then what to do? Of course, there is the most obvious route, but maybe I should instead focus on some other romantic horror movie – like Return of the Living Dead Part III. I mean, if I discuss that most obvious choice, what new do I have to add? It’s a classic for a reason, and it’s not like no one’s ever written about it before. But sometimes, I can go easy on myself and do the obvious thing, right? And I sure do love My Bloody Valentine, so even if it’s already been much written about, in honor of this holiday all about love, let’s get into how much there is to love in this gory early-80s slasher classic.

I’ll avoid spoiling the big reveal at the end, but if you’ve never seen it before and have a soft spot for slashers, maybe just go check it out. It seems readily available on many streamers (though I’m not sure which version you’ll find).

My Bloody Valentine (1981)

First off, it should be said (because I expect much of this text may seem to contradict this) that George Mihalka really made a solid horror film.  I don’t remember if I found it scary per se on first viewing (and now I’ve seen it enough that scares are hard to come by), but it maintains a great spooky atmosphere both in and out of the mines, it features a lot of creatively conceived and brilliantly executed kill scenes as a killer in a miner outfit hunts down and murders loads of horny young people (among others), and it successfully taps into a great scary campfire tale/old murder ballad vibe that is just such a cool horror mood in which to dwell. It had the misfortune of being released amidst a backlash against violent movies and many of its grisliest moments were left on the cutting room floor, but over the years, much of that footage has been restored and it really is so well done – shocking and gross and just brutal. But really, even the most edited version I’ve seen still feels rough and mean when it comes to the killing. All in all, it is a really well-made, by-the-numbers slasher.

But that isn’t why I like it as much as I do. What raises it above so much of its competition is how much heart it has (in addition to how many hearts it rips out). I believe in the life of this small town of Valentine Bluffs. And I believe in and kinda love its residents. The work of the mine is hard and dark and dirty, and the world surrounding it is grey, dingy, smoggy, and run down. There is a natural impulse to rebel against this, to try to escape; and that is what one of the main characters, T.J., has tried to do. A Bruce Springsteen song made flesh, he’d had big dreams in some mythical ‘out west,’ and had escaped from his provincial hometown where he knew he was doomed to follow his father into the mining business and live a life of quiet desperation. But having escaped, he just failed hard and has come crawling back – to the town, to the mine, to Sarah, the girl he’d left behind. Of course, callously dropped by him when he ran away, chasing after something better, she’s moved on with T.J.’s buddy, Axel. You can’t go home again.

I will say that I have trouble caring much about this central love triangle, but I appreciate it in counterpoint to the relationships we see among so many of the other denizens of Valentine Bluffs. Sure, there are a few others who hope to one day blow town (such as the kid who gets drowned in boiling hotdog water before getting decapitated and having his heart boiled with the wieners – it is still a slasher flick), but so many of the other people we meet here have found something to hold onto in this small town life. And for a movie that features a head shoved onto a shower spigot till the water runs bloody out of the mouth, a pickaxe slammed up through someone’s chin till it knocks out an eyeball, and a nail gun being repeatedly discharged into someone’s cranium, the feeling I overwhelmingly take away from it all is just sweetness.  

We meet a number of other couples, or potential couples, and they seem genuinely happy. Early on, after finishing a hard day in the mines and goofing around in the showers, all of the guys race out to the parking lot like giddy schoolboys, not even fully dressed, their jeans around their ankles, tearing into town, so desperate to see their girlfriends and plan what they’re going to do for the upcoming Valentine’s Day dance at the union hall. When they burst in, six-packs in hand, there is a spark of joy. I believe how happy Hollis and Patty are to see each other, how excited Silvia and John are to be close, to touch, to get some private time together. Somehow, in this mean little slasher, I believe, and I actually like the romances of these secondary characters more than in most films that would actually be labeled ‘romantic.’

Relatedly, I really appreciate the film’s tactile sensuality. Though there is no nudity (a woman is in her bra at one point and the guys are all in the shower together, but they’re filmed from the waist up), there is often a sense of intimacy between characters that rings true as physical, as chemical. The film even opens with a surprisingly kinky moment as the killer has snuck a woman into the mine shafts. I don’t read this as premeditated murder – they seem like two young people who have spirited away here for some hard to find privacy (or just because it would be sexy to do it in the mine).

After taking off her coveralls, and eventually her gas mask, she goes to remove his, but he doesn’t want her to. So she strokes the mask and breathing tube, softly, tenderly, more sexually than what might be seen in another 80s slasher where girls are always taking off their tops. They’re just both really into the mask. Sadly, he then becomes aware of the heart tattoo on her breast and, hands trembling, impales her on a pick axe. But for all that it ends in murder, first there is a real feeling of (fairly fetishistic) sexuality and desire between them.

And it’s not just the young. Probably the sweetest relationship in the film is the tentative, shy, middle-aged flirtation between Police Chief Newby and Mabel, the proprietor of the local laundromat, thanks to whose decorating efforts, the town will hold its first Valentine’s Dance since the bloody unpleasantness twenty years earlier, and the whole otherwise depressed locale is covered head to toe in pink crepe paper and hearts. The state of their relationship is never quite defined, but I feel there’s more than affection and it’s not yet been acted on. I really feel for the poor guy when he finds her, heart ripped out, tumbling in one of her dryers.  

And that is something else that the film takes time for, which I always appreciate in my horror. There is actual grief – sometimes totally debilitating grief, which feels more realistic than many slashers where death comes cheap and the main feeling is the thrill of suspense. Chief Newby is so clearly hurt, but he has to do his job, and isn’t allowed to break down. However, some of the young lovers aren’t so steady. I just love how when John finds his girlfriend Silvia murdered in the mine’s showers, he just seems to totally snap. He doesn’t scream at first; nor does he cry. He just stops, and something inside him dies.

Later, he is useless – a blubbering mess of snot and sobs who has to be held up. It feels like this poor young man will never recover. And isn’t that what horror is supposed to be? Shouldn’t it be that devastating? Similarly, when the lovable Patty finds her even more endearing big teddy bear of a boyfriend, Hollis with nails sticking out of his face, she doesn’t have it in her to ‘be strong,’ to ‘be a survivor.’ She doesn’t want to leave his body behind, and she becomes a huge liability for the others – and I love it. Shouldn’t this be what death is like? It matters. Hollis mattered.

The murder scenes are all bravura sequences of filmic terror and really excellent practical effects, but the reactions to all of the murders are really heartbreaking, especially in light of the warm feelings that had preceded them. And somehow these two extremes support and reinforce each other in counterpoint rather than cancelling each other out.

Early on, the mayor is given a surprise box of Valentine’s chocolates, and he is so tickled. He wants to know who left the box for him and everyone is so coy in denying involvement. Soon after, in Chief Newby’s car, he giddily unwraps the box, saying, “if there’s one thing I like better than Christmas candy, it’s Valentine’s candy!” and it could be so silly, so cheesy, but he is really, really ecstatic about these sweets, and it just makes my heart grow. Of course then he gets it open and finds a bloody human heart inside along with a rhymed couplet warning him not to allow the dance to go on, and after his childlike excitement, his shock, revulsion, and sinking dread are all the more profound – it’s happening again.

Which brings us to the campfire tale. Like the story actually told by firelight at the start of The Fog, or Crazy Ralph’s ravings in Friday the 13th, here we have a local legend, based on historical fact, but which has grown in stature and weight over the years. As recounted by Happy, the grumpy old bartender who has to be one of the best ‘harbinger’ characters of horror cinema, the town of Valentine Bluffs used to have an annual Valentine’s dance and it was the biggest event of the year – something that the local residents could really look forward to and take pride in.

But twenty years ago, that all ended when the mine supervisors left some miners to go enjoy the party and the inevitable collapse doomed the only survivor, Harry Warden to madness and cannibalism, before he returned the next year to take his bloody revenge. But years go by, history becomes legend, and finally there are plans to bring the tradition back. Harry Warden’s been in an insane asylum for years – what could go wrong?

When people start having their hearts ripped out, it kicks off a thread of investigation and whodunit. Is Warden still locked up? Is he even still alive? Does anyone keep any kinds of records? Is he actually behind these slayings or has someone else taken up his mantle? The film plays with maintaining the possibility that any number of characters could be the killer and there is a solid red herring pretty close to the end. However, sadly, I will say that when the truth is finally revealed, I find it pretty underwhelming and the reason for it all feels more than a bit arbitrary. Whenever I have enough time between viewings, I always forget who the killer is because it just seems unjustified and inconsequential – but I suppose that means the suspense of wondering who it is will always be there… But more significantly, I feel the film just isn’t that interested in the killer’s story. It loves the folk tale, the murder ballad that looms over this small community. And it loves its characters, these people who have found life and love in this dismal setting, and who are murdered for it.

And that is one more way that this works as a Valentine’s Day movie. On one side, it is peopled with young (and old) lovers – and their attraction and the enjoyment they take in one another is palpable. But then there is a killer, whoever he is – whether a product of folklore or just some bitter guy – who, like many a lonely soul this time of year, just hates Valentine’s Day. When you don’t feel wanted, it is pretty harsh to be surrounded with such public displays of love and affection. How many single people counter program this occasion with horror marathons? And in the miner/killer, we have an embodiment of this sentiment – a person who is so triggered by a heart tattoo that he has to kill the girl he was about to have sex with, a person who is driven to madness by all the genuinely loving behavior around him, a person who even has to kill poor sweet Mabel, who just wanted to put on a nice dance, and maybe have a moment alone with the chief. The bitterness has metastasized and created a monster. It doesn’t matter who it is, or why, or how facile his reasons are. And in this I appreciate how the film doesn’t trade in the typical Reagan-era morality of sex = death. People aren’t punished for wanting sex – they are killed because some bitter person can’t abide to see their happiness.

And then the credits roll over an original folk song written for the film, the haunting “The Ballad of Harry Warden.” And as it plays, I already start forgetting who the killer was and I just linger a few minutes longer in the dark folk tale of it all. I look back on poor Mabel and Hollis and Patty and Silvia and John. I remember that this sad little town has a store called “OK Ladies Wear” – not ‘good,’ mind you, but ‘ok.’ I am struck by how lovely it was that a Valentine’s dance could be so important to these people and that for a brief, beautiful moment, before they were killed for it, there was love in this darkness.

Catching Up With Shudder – International Voices

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As is true of many people, I carry more subscriptions than are probably necessary. Summing it all up, it doesn’t break the bank and I don’t exactly feel like I’m wasting my money, but how on earth could I ever watch all of the stuff on all of these different services? But each has something I want and that keeps me paying every month. One that I never regret is my subscription to Shudder, a streamer specializing in Horror (and thrillers – there’s a great collection of Gialli). I know that there are other ways to have access to a great amount of content (Tubi is free with commercials, for example), but I just feel some kind of loyalty to this one – it feels smaller; it doesn’t have an endless selection, and sometimes they can’t afford the biggest films, but it is curated by people rather than algorithms and I like that personal touch. And they do release a lot of exclusive films – some of which they produce and some of which they simply distribute.

But as I’ve often written, I have trouble keeping up with new stuff, so this week, as I’m a teacher and it’s winter holiday where I live (so I have some extra time), I’d like to catch up on some Shudder originals from last year, particularly some international releases and/or films bringing a different cultural perspective. Sometimes I see fans complain about how Hollywood has run out of ideas and is just endlessly milking properties that should have been allowed to die gracefully (but, to be fair, this is Horror – no one dies gracefully), but in recent years, streaming has really opened up the international market, and I feel that there are so many fresh voices worth exploring. So that’s the plan. Let’s see how much I can get through by the end of the week.

These will be shorter reviews – just giving some first impressions – and I’ll try to keep these spoiler free…

Saloum (2022) (Senegal)

A Senegalese genre mash-up, written and directed by Jean Luc Herbulot from Congo, this is a wild, entertaining ride, steeped in cultural references and recent history that I respectively had no previous connection to and was woefully ignorant of. Set in 2003, directly after a coup in Guinea-Bissau, the movie blends elements of a Dirty Dozen-esque Western, a slick Guy Ritchie crime flick, and African Folk Horror, while also digging into very real and raw emotional territory growing out the hellish conditions of child soldiers, the constant specter of colonialism, and cycles of abuse – personal, economic, sexual, and political. But for all of the weight of those themes, it is chiefly just a lot of fun.

We follow a trio of legendary mercenaries on an adventure as they escort a Mexican cartel member out of the coup, along with a great deal of stolen gold. After crash landing in the remote region of Sine-Saloum (in Senegal), they find their way to a kind of liminal outpost where apparently good works are done and volunteers live in communal harmony, but in fact, dark secrets run deep, the sand is soaked with blood, personal ghosts await vengeance, and literal spirits haunt the blasted land.

I enjoyed all of the characters and loved how varied they were allowed to be. Our trio of outlaws seem initially so hard, so dangerous – they can easily be read as militaristic thugs. But as we get to know them, they are so worldly and cultured. They speak many languages (including sign, which will become important). They may be “very bad men” (and they probably are) but they may also be “mythic heroes.” They are even surprisingly well-versed in spiritual matters, with one of them being some kind of cleric who can help navigate the magical threat they’ll face. Though they begin as a blend of archetypes, we come to know them as quite specific and anything but typical.

I will say that the Western and Crime elements landed better for me than the Horror. When something supernatural does turn up, even though there’s plenty of threat and blood and death, it somehow doesn’t fully tap into a horror vibe. However, the supernatural storyline is still fascinating, especially as it’s so tied to what I assume must be local folk beliefs, superstitions, and stories. The fact that I don’t know anything about this folklore made it all feel so rich and intriguing – and I appreciate that the film doesn’t seem to feel the need to really slow down and make sure that we’ve all got it all – it flies by at a clip and if you don’t immediately get something, I feel Herbulot assumes you’ve caught enough to work with, and keeps the story moving.

And beyond the action, it is also quite emotional. Balancing real world horrors and genre thrills, characters are given room to breathe and feel and change, and their personal histories come to bear in sometimes surprising, even tragic ways. This was a fascinating, high-paced, rewarding watch and while the “scary” parts weren’t very scary, the way it grounds the characters’ experiences in realistic trauma carries weight and brings the horror in a different way.

The Sadness (2021) (Taiwan)

A Taiwanese production with a Canadian director (who has lived there since 2008), The Sadness is gory, disturbing, intense, stressful, triggering, mean-spirited, and a pretty fun ride if you’re up for that sort of thing. Rob Jabbaz’s feature debut, filmed during the early days of the Covid pandemic (apparently Taiwan did pretty well at the beginning (8 deaths in 2020), so filming was actually possible), concerns a viral outbreak which transforms ‘normal’ people into vicious, sex-crazed sadists. I’d thought it was going to be a zombie movie, but is actually more akin to contagion films like Romero’s The Crazies (1973). Ostensibly, we follow a young couple as they try to find each other across a Taipei transformed in a matter of hours into a blood-soaked hell-scape filled with roaming bands of humans at their most monstrous. But I think that structure largely exists to allow Jabbaz to create scene after scene of mostly unrelated violence and depravity. But what violence and depravity! I spent probably 65% of this movie constantly cringing and recoiling at its sudden acts of extreme brutality.

It’s a really tense watch, but for all that it puts on display some truly awful stuff, it can also be a blast. It is a thrilling rollercoaster that raised my heartrate and put me on edge for the majority of its run time. And the practical effects work (from IF SFX Art Maker) is really extraordinary: fleshily realistic, but operatically explosive, they paint Taipei red by the end of the film. Faces are fried with hot oil and pulled apart, arterial geysers shoot up from torn necks, noses are bitten off, heads blow up, limbs are snapped, eyes are gouged, fingers are cleaved, and things are done which I’m not even going to put into words – it’s a lot, and it is all pulled off so well – disgusting, scary, and wild – and so creatively conceived of and masterfully executed.

At this point, I don’t know how much I need to watch a film about a viral pandemic – it can be a bit tiring. But this is such a high octane experience that it balances the weight of its metaphor, which is basically the classic zombie movie observation that disasters bring out the worst in us and that it takes so little for the thin veneer of society to be stripped away as we turn on each other. This is tackled in two ways: how the infected are portrayed and how we see everyone else respond. Of course, the infected are terrible, but the way they are terrible feels kind of novel.

These are not mindless zombies or rage filled marauders (ala 28 Days Later). They are fully cognizant of what they are doing and who they are – but the virus has amplified any of their inherent cruelty and crossed wires in their brains such that they derive overwhelming sexual pleasure from causing harm (and the wires cross the other way too, so  be warned that there’s sexual violence as well). They are crazy and dangerous, but they have the ability to be calculating; and they are as intelligent as they’d been before infection – it makes for a really unsettling situation – almost like a mass possession, ‘evil’ spreading through the population.

But it’s not only the infected. Of course, in classic fashion, we see healthy characters take immediate steps to protect themselves to the detriment of those around them. Doors are closed in people’s faces as they run from assailants, someone who could help a woman being assaulted, hides just feet away and does nothing, too concerned with his own safety, those who have yet to be exposed to a viral load lash out at each other. Typical for a genre like this, the film holds a dim view of humanity, but hey, after the last few years, it’s kinda hard not to.

Dark Glasses (2022) (Italy)

When I heard that Dario Argento had a new film coming out, his first since Dracula 3D (2012) (about which, the less said, the better), I was, let’s say, relieved. I can’t go so far as to say ‘excited’ as I didn’t want to get my hopes up – it had been a while since he’d made a film I had particularly liked, let alone loved as I did his work in the 70s and 80s. But it was a relief that no matter what this new film was, Dracula now wouldn’t be his swan song. Well, Shudder picked up his latest and released it back in October, so now I’ve finally checked it out and I can say…it is a film.

Honestly, I generally avoid negativity here, because really, what’s the point? (and the internet is so full of it) I mostly just want to focus on work that interests me, and not to criticize films that fall short, but I can’t find very much to praise in this case – which is depressing. It’s not terrible by any means. I’m not offended by it on some deep artistic level. It isn’t a total failure. But it also isn’t particularly noteworthy either – I think if Argento’s name weren’t attached, it would come and go, maybe end up on some streamer without any fanfare, and horror bloggers such as myself would probably never end up writing about it.

Essentially, it is a straightforward thriller: a serial killer has been targeting prostitutes in Rome. One such sex worker, Diana, is attacked, but survives, though in escaping her assailant, she has a car accident and loses her sight. Then, having befriended a young boy who was orphaned in the crash, the two of them are hunted by the tenacious killer until the final showdown and identity reveal. There are chase scenes and bloody murders (the gore seems to be practically executed and is quite well done), periodic jump scares (one effective bit with water snakes), and lots of screaming too loudly when one should be silently hiding. It’s…fine.

But where it is disappointing is that, though it is capably filmed, there’s no flash, and also little substance. It’s impossible not to compare this to Argento’s earlier work and imagine what a younger artist would have done with it. Blindness might be an artistic theme, a visual metaphor – it might resonate with some psychological trait of the killer or it might make visible something about the protagonist. Here, Diana simply can’t see and bumps into things and falls down – it’s a complication, but it doesn’t bear thematic fruit, and her experience doesn’t seem to especially change her. Similarly, the blindness isn’t used to create any particularly suspenseful set pieces, playing with who can watch and who is seen. As a sex worker who makes a living out of exploiting her visual appearance and interacting with clients in a sensory fashion, it feels like there is a lot of untapped potential here – playing with objectification, with being a subject and the power, and even violence, inherent in looking (ala Opera).

Finally, and crucially, there just not much style on display. Young Argento could be stylish to a fault, sometimes putting the narrative in service of creating an enrapturing look and a feel. In Dark Glasses, the camera never finds that perfect angle, the editing never makes the heart catch. The score is fine, but it is never paired with the imagery to make something indelible. At the end of the day, all of this criticism feels a bit unfair. This is its own film and Argento doesn’t owe me anything. As artists age, they shouldn’t feel behooved to constantly recreate the work of their youth. But when an artist has done such spectacular work early in their career, it’s hard not to compare.

Speak No Evil (2022) (Denmark)

I was actually hesitant to pull the trigger on this one. It made a splash when it came out last year (which meant that I saw loads of people praising it on social media and probably more complaining about it – that’s the internet for you), and my impression was that it would be really uncomfortable and heavy. And, to be fair, Christian Tafdrup’s film is indeed uncomfortable – a kind of social horror rooted in the deep and familiar awkwardness of feeling trapped in an interaction wherein you have to do things you don’t want to or risk coming off as some kind of rude jerk, but for all of that discomfort (and some pretty unpleasant places it goes once it turns to full-on horror), I wasn’t weighed down by it. Rather, I was mostly elated by just how very good it was.

In short, a Danish family (Bjørn and Louise, and their daughter Agnes), while on holiday in Italy, hit it off with Dutch family (Patrick and Karen, and their son Abel), who invite them to visit for a long weekend. Though they’d had such a good time together before, as soon as they arrive, the Danish family is immediately made to feel uncomfortable at every turn. Louise is a vegetarian, but Patrick insists she try the wild boar he’s prepared. The Dutch parents are much rougher with their son than Bjørn and Louise would ever be. When “invited” out to a restaurant (where again, they only order meat), Bjørn and Louise are first put off by Patrick and Karen grinding on the dance floor, before then being surprised that they are expected to cover the full cost of the rather expensive meal.

Time after time, Patrick and Karen do things (sometimes small irritations and sometimes quite significant violations of privacy) that seem to push Bjørn and Louise into accepting uncomfortable situations. But at the same time, it often just feels like a case of cultural or family difference. I don’t know enough about social mores in Holland and Denmark, but I can assume there are some different assumptions about “appropriate” behavior when it comes to issues of personal space, money, directness, private life, and risk aversion, among other things. And beyond national habits, each family can simply be different.

Time after time, Bjørn and Louise almost take their daughter and go, but one thing or another holds them back until they find themselves in the embarrassing position of having insulted their hosts, who are always quite open and charming, and when Bjørn and Louise try to explain what upset them, it always sounds unreasonable (even though while watching these things take place, red flags go off for the viewer non-stop). Tafdrup crafts an atmosphere of almost unbearable tension and dread and maintains it for over an hour (of a film that’s just a bit over 1 ½ hours long) before anything happens that feels like a horror movie per se. Of course though, when the penny finally drops, it’s clear that everything we’ve seen has been deliberate. Also, while for that first hour, nothing clues in the Danish family to the fact that this other couple is anything worse than unpleasantly inappropriate, this is a horror film from start to finish. The work of the camera and especially the soundtrack is just so doom-laden that it couldn’t be anything else.

Now, I will say that once some revelations were made, while still generally well handled, I wasn’t quite as thrilled with the final act. I think that I had just been so enjoying the ominous awkwardness, and had been so keyed-up, wanting the Danish couple to just get the hell out of there, that once the masks came off, the film lost some sparkle. It still follows through on the promise of its threats, but I wasn’t quite as spellbound as I had been. But never mind the destination – the journey was one of the best I’ve gone on in a good while. And while the filmmaking is strong, so much of this comes down to the performances. A Horror of Manners, this is an actor’s piece and everyone is spectacular. I particularly enjoyed Morten Burian (who plays Bjørn) – seduced by this open, wild couple who are so unlike him and his wife, stifled by the burden of polite behavior, he is finally pushed into a corner where his moral sense is challenged and he needs to break through his own socialization to try to do the right thing. It’s an emotional tightrope. And that’s before he discovers anything at all scary.  I really liked this one.

Slash/Back (2022) (Canadian Inuit)

Her feature debut, Nyla Innuksuk’s teen horror/sci-fi adventure is a unique and worthy effort even if it isn’t totally successful as a genre piece. Wearing its influences on its sleeve (early on, one character recounts the whole story of John Carpenter’s The Thing to her friends), the film charms more for how it spotlights an underrepresented population than for the novelty of its plot.

In short, a small group of teen Inuit girls in the tiny hamlet of Pangnirtung (about 30 miles south of the Arctic Circle, pop. approx. 1,500) discover and alone fend off an invasion of weird, shape shifting, body wearing, identity stealing aliens, saving their home town, and by extension, the planet. Along the way, they navigate their own interpersonal teenage conflicts (boys and school and parents who just don’t understand) and their own relationships to their home and culture. Innuksuk filmed on location in “Pang” (as the protagonists call it) and cast the film almost entirely with local, indigenous inhabitants, few if any of whom had worked before as actors.

Thus, there is an amateur quality to the performances; but in a way, that’s actually a strength of the film. I can’t say that the young leads manage particularly realistic performances (that’s hard), but the extent to which their own personalities shine through is honestly lovely. There is a precocious, brash quality to their portrayals which is essential to the project. Past the acting, much of the film is gorgeous, the local landscape offering overwhelming vistas to explore, and Innuksuk makes good use of them, while also digging into aspects of local small town life. The film is full of specific local details and character. And the periodic inclusion of the Inuk throat singing of Tanya Tagaq (who, like Innuksuk, is also from the region) adds such a cool, characteristic drive to it all. As for the scary horror/sci-fi alien invasion movie, it’s…fine. There’s some cool creature design and the CGI and practical effects do a solid job while obviously working within a budget, but the film never quite kicks into gear when it comes to the action or tension. Still, I think it’s so important that this is a genre piece. While it may not be amazing Sci-Fi or Horror, the sci-fi and horror give Innuksuk a rich space in which to tell a significant, meaningful story.

At its heart, we have 4 young girls torn between cultures. They have grown up in this hamlet and there is a degree of local, cultural pride (for some more than others), but for the rest, the world beyond holds so much more allure and they can’t wait to escape, to get out of this little village they view as poor or embarrassing, to go to some big city (one girl dreams of Winnipeg). In responding to this invasion, which so directly threatens their homes, families, and environment, they all tap into the cultural knowledge that has been instilled in them – the traditional tools of hunting and trapping their parents have passed on, and as they triumph over this colonizing presence, they repair their relationship to where they are from. It’s hard not to cheer when they rip what have come to be decorative, traditional gear off the walls, apply what I read as a kind of war paint (plus, one girl puts on a jacket with the slogan, “No Justice on Stolen Land” – which crystalizes the metaphor for anyone who hadn’t gotten it yet) and march off to hunt down the invading force, pushed on by the rallying cry of, “you don’t fuck with the girls from Pang!” I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to tearing up.

The aliens are kinda creepy and have a cool design – tendrils writhing beneath loosely worn, stolen flesh, but the scares never really come. However, I really think that’s ok. This ‘kids on bikes’ movie, full of real people who are participating in telling a story of their land, their civilization, their struggles, all through the lens of this monster movie is really stirring in its own right. It might not be much of a “horror movie,” but it is a valuable film, while also being just a fun Kids vs Monsters flick. I’m glad it has a chance to be seen (at least by the pretty niche audience of Shudder viewers).

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And so there we have a little international sampling of Shudder in 2022. There was a good deal more, but I only have so many hours to work with here. Someday, I’ll catch up on the rest. I will say that it’s refreshing to take in such a wide range of work in one week. I generally don’t know enough about these countries to judge how accurately Senegalese, Taiwanese, Italian, Danish, Dutch, or Inuit cultural concerns have been presented, but I feel it’s been so worth taking the time to at least get a taste.

Lesbian Vampires Part III – More Modern Examples

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So here’s a little look behind-the-scenes on ye old blog. Since starting this thing, I’ve been compulsively checking Google Analytics to see if anyone is reading it.  Most weeks I get about 15-30 visits. On a low week it can hit single digits and on my best ever, I managed 77. And so I have some sense of what visitors seem to respond to. One other interesting metric I check is how often different posts have been viewed over time. It’s here that I came upon something interesting the other day. Back in August, I did two posts on the often artsy, sometimes exploitative, always beloved subgenre of the “Lesbian Vampire” film. Far and away, “Lesbian Vampires – part II” has somehow gotten more action than anything else I’ve written (far more, for some reason, than part I).

Well, as all the films I covered in those two posts were from the seventies or earlier, and I had long been planning on returning to check out some more contemporary fare, I’m going to follow what seems to be the will of the people and dig into a few more Lesbian Vampire movies – this time, all from the 1990s or later. These will all be first time watches for me, so I’m curious about a few things. Something I love about the films previously discussed is how they take place at what I think Stacie Ponder (of the blog, Final Girl, and the podcast, Gaylords of Darkness) termed the ‘intersection of arthouse and grindhouse’) – at once gorgeous, deeply felt art pieces and trashy b-movies peddling flesh and blood. Does that enticing aesthetic still carry into future endeavors? Most of the older work clearly falls within the bounds of ‘exploitation cinema’ and however much those films may (and I think they often do) carry out a progressive/feminist/emancipatory project, they were all clearly made by men for the titillation of a presumably straight male viewership. In more recent times, does the work still maintain that typical perspective of a ‘male gaze?’ Does it somehow upend it? Can you actually find a good Lesbian Vampire movie written/directed by at least one LGBT+ female-identifying person (I want to cast as wide a net as possible), and if so, beyond it being good for people to be given the room to tell their own stories, does it change anything in how those stories are told?

So, let’s find out…and, as always, there will probably be some spoilers, so be forewarned…

Nadja (1994)

This one had been on my radar for quite a while and I’m glad to have finally checked it out. But I’m also relieved I didn’t do it before last summer when I wrote about Dracula’s Daughter as it is a direct remake. Really, it’s an interesting case in terms of looking at film history, and specifically this subgenre. Written and directed by Michael Almereyda (and with David Lynch tellingly signed on as an executive producer – he also has a small cameo), this is a surprisingly faithful retelling of a film from the 30s, which embraces the dreamy qualities of a subgenre from the 70s, but is so much a product of its time – an early 90s black and white arthouse picture, frequently talky and surreal, some of it shot on a lo-res toy camcorder (when not really striking high contrast cinematography), alternatingly dwelling in genuine existential angst and cool ironic detachment. It is groovy and surreal, philosophical and pretentious, dreary, dreamy, and often quite funny. It’s a little bit of everything.

And generally, I’ve got to say it works, though in the beginning, I wasn’t quite sure what to think. Especially the first time there was an ultra low-res sequence (they seem to coincide with moments when a character is under vampiric influence), I wondered if I had it in me to get through the whole thing. But somehow it is really very watchable, even captivating – striking a delicate balance between its circuitous but deeply felt philosophizing and its offbeat sense of humor. It’s atmosphere is just as rich as any of the beautiful seventies pictures that come to mind when I think of Lesbian Vampires, but it is a different kind of richness: more a heroin chic fugue state, the mind impossibly trying to muddle its way through essential questions of death and love and hate and attraction, trailing off and staring into the middle distance for a time, before sardonically joking it off and lighting another cigarette.

In terms of plot, it is very similar to its source, but there are some modernizations, some additions, and some subversions along the way. Among other things, the attraction between Nadja (the titular daughter of Dracula) and Lucy is able to be explicitly acted on in a way that would not have been possible in 1936 (the MPAA rated it R for “bizarre vampire sexuality”). Lucy is married to Jim, the nephew of Van Helsing, who (as in the original) starts the film having just been arrested for driving a stake through the heart of this seemingly harmless immigrant from Transylvania (using public domain shots of Lugosi from White Zombie).

Lucy also describes how she has lost all contact with her family as they didn’t “approve of her lifestyle” but now she’s married so they should be ok with her. She and Jim, especially under the heightened emotions of hunting and being hunted by the undead, repeatedly declare their love and need for each other, but their marriage feels barren and empty. In one night of real attraction (if not passion), she gets bound, physiologically and emotionally, to the magnetic, soft spoken Nadja, striking beneath her cowl, who happens to be into a bit of menstrual blood play. Not entirely happily (no one in this film is ever really “happy” – it’s not that kind of picture), Lucy falls under her spell.

And the film as a whole casts a mesmerizing spell as well, especially in terms of its look and sound and feel. It can be just so sumptuous sometimes, inky blacks and ivory whites cast into stark relief. Visually, it harkens back to its 1936 progenitor while also prefiguring A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (maybe I’m overstating it and it’s just that all three are b/w movies about a vampire girl in a cowl). But also, the toy camera sequences which had initially distanced me can be very effective, creating a hazy, deeply pixelated effect, which is ugly and modern, but produces a visual fog familiar for a contemporary viewer. It’s utilized in moments when a character is not in control of their mind, of their perception, and it successfully pulls the viewer into that muddled, frustrated headspace. It’s not “pretty,” but it is effective.

Returning to comparison with the 1936 film, though more explicit, this feels less focused on the element of sexuality. In that film, Countess Zaleska was driven by her relationship to (and abhorrence of) her vampirism, and her blood lust was clearly a metaphor for other desires that might have been deemed ‘unnatural’ at the time. The implication of her attraction for the fairer sex dominated the film – both forbidden and alluring – never directly spoken of, but so, so present, and her whole focus was freeing herself from her ‘curse.’

In this more recent outing, Nadja goes home with this woman who probably never should have married a man and their relationship doesn’t need to be coded. Even though Lucy speaks of past trouble with her family, in the eyes of the film, the sexuality of their encounter feels more commonplace and therefore less significant, less dominating. When her father dies, Nadja speaks of being able to make a fresh start, but I never really get the sense that she wants to stop being a vampire – or to stop being attracted to women. It’s nice that she doesn’t have to be a tragic closeted person, desperate not to be herself, but there is an erotic charge missing – being tempted by the forbidden. I wonder if in our more enlightened times it is still as possible to generate the allure of the taboo. In Nadja, we rather dig into the allure of ironic cool and poetic ennui. Ultimately, Nadja perhaps gets a better ending than Zaleska – she at least lives, but in the body of her brother’s lover, her identity now subsumed into that other woman’s. Maybe continuance is worth it, and maybe it would have been better to be murdered by her familiar and die as herself.

Ultimately, I don’t know that this moody, poetic piece really caused me to plumb the depths of our modern listless existence, but I did rather appreciate the viewing experience. Just as much a reflection of the time and place in which it was produced as Vampyros Lesbos or The Vampire Lovers, this is both a solid 90s experimental film and a surprisingly fun little vampire flick.

Blood of the Tribades (2016)

This ultra-low budget feature (approx. 20,000 USD) from Sophia Cacciola and Michael J. Epstein took me a bit by surprise. Clearly an homage to the work of Jean Rollin, Jess Franco, and Hammer Studios, it is a crowdfunded labor of love, full of crumbling stone edifices, diaphanous gowns,  bloody breasts, and gendered violence. It may not succeed on every level, but its love for the source material is obvious and the filmmakers do a lot with what they have. As described on their Kickstarter page, the intention was to embrace the style and atmosphere of the early 70s subgenre, while including explicit socio-political messaging. Generally it is successful on both counts. It is also one of the very few examples I’ve been able to find of a Lesbian Vampire flick (co-)directed by a woman.

The film’s premise is that 2000 years ago, the vampire Bathor established a small town of vampires as a kind of utopia and then went off to conquer the continent. Since then, the undead residents have lost their way, dividing along gender lines and seemingly having purged the village of racial others. A group of men (who all drink from a fountain of Bathor’s blood, which seems to actually be making them sick) have started hunting down the women for causing their illness, being irreligious harlots, tempting them with their flesh, and not giving them sufficient offspring. For their part, the council of women’s leaders underplay the threat and try to keep the peace, though their members keep getting crossbow bolts in their hearts whenever they disrobe. Finally, two women escape the carnage with some outcasts (who I believe had been excluded based on race), and we learn that one of them can actually read the ancient words of Bathor and return the community to its founding values (if she doesn’t get staked first).

Socio-politically, it’s not subtle (men, and at least one woman, motivated by religious zealotry, attacking women for their sexuality, murdering them for making them feel inadequate – a (white) women’s movement, which fails to include women of color and pushes for a kind of moderate incrementalism, thus enabling the men’s violence – religion being corrupted and weaponized to subjugate minority populations and punish sexual/gender expression), but it more or less works. One thing I would take issue with though is the implication that the political element is a novel addition. I think the filmmakers behind the classic 70s Lesbian Vampire films may not have brought very intentional messaging to their films, but regardless, the films themselves were deeply infused with politics, often expressing feminist sentiments, even if a given director was just trying to make something lurid to sell tickets, or simply indulging in his own personal peccadillos. For example, the climax here is directly political in its language, but at the same time, it seems to directly recreate the blood ritual of The Blood Spattered Bride, a film whose politics may have been ambivalent, but no less urgent – the politics was always there.

The question this prompts for me is how much weight should be given to intent. If Franco or Kümel created something just because they wanted it to be beautiful or sexy and along the way it happened to communicate emancipatory feminist ideals, is that less valuable than a work where that was the intention from the get go? Or is art more ‘pure’ when made without seeking to make a statement (even though a statement can so freely be read therein)? I honestly don’t know.

If anything, the film’s body politics is given increased parity. For example, while there are plenty of bosoms on display, there is easily as much male nudity. The vampiric men’s rights activists have a tendency of assailing one of their own for being insufficiently fervent in his misogyny, stripping him down, strapping him to a large bondage X and whipping him bloody with roses. It all has a vibe of repressed desire being redirected into a kind of homoerotic sado-masochism, and along the way, there are rather a lot of penises (one even flies through the air, impaled on a crossbow bolt).  On the other hand, until the final, more bloody, sexual, and tragic-romantic ritual between the two remaining ladies, while the women are often nude, there was surprisingly little suggestion of eroticism (the “tribades” of the title being an archaic word used before the inhabitants of Lesbos became unanimous with the idea of female same-sex attraction) – rather, there is a lot of child-like frolicking about. Now, did this circumvent a male gaze, freeing the female vampires from objectification (though when in this state, there are usually leering male figures, waiting to kill them) or does it infantilize the women, robbing them of sexual agency? I’m not sure, but it is a change, one which many critics focused on, stating that the film ‘subverted the sexist tropes’ of its progenitors.

One other difference is the lack of seduction. A recurring trope of the earlier films is the older Lesbian Vampire (often Carmilla) luring the young ingénue to the dark side of both vampirism and sapphism, along the way, turning her against the (often abusive) man in her life. While seductive and freeing, this could also be read as presenting an older, predatory lesbian, preying on and turning younger women. That element is wholly lacking in this case, particularly as every character in the film is already undead. There is perhaps a political merit to this, but I regretted the absence of temptation.

I came to rather like this one, but I think it’s important for a viewer to comprehend its budget in advance and therefore temper expectations. I was initially put off by what I’d deemed the “cheap” look of the film – there is some exterior photography that’s quite attractive, aided by the available locations, but the interiors suffer, particularly the men’s headquarters in which the walls are just covered with sheets, masking whatever modern space they had to work in. Past that, reading the performer’s bios, it seems that most came out of the local Boston art community, specifically, the burlesque scene, and that few had much previous film acting experience. However, knowing more about the project, I appreciate its successes more and can more easily overlook its failures. To be fair, many of the early 70s films also had quite low budgets, but benefitted from working in Europe, where there’s a desolate castle around every corner, and shooting on grainy film, which can cover shortcomings in an artful haze. It’s harder to pull off this kind of picture in the States on high def digital.

The only criticism, I would really make is that there is rather a lot of world building (the whole history of the vampire village, its founder, the religion, etc.) and I think a strength of the originals was their disinterest in logically explaining anything, instead dwelling in a space of Eros-Thanatos psycho-sexual tension. While this film commits to its inspiration’s vibe, often succeeding far better than the toy crossbows might suggest, I think the exposition undercuts some of its potential power.

Still, this was a charming watch – doing so much with limited resources, and evincing an understanding and love of what made those 70s films so special. The passion that went into the project feels somehow more palpable than with many more polished, higher budget creations.

Bit (2020)

Brad Michael Elmore’s film is just tremendous fun. If I was missing the element of seduction in the previous film, this one has it in spades. However, it is less about the allure of some mysterious woman (though there’s a bit of that), than it is that of vampirism, of power, of ‘the night’ – and the night life. Temporarily leaving aside the “Lesbian” part of the equation, something I always appreciate in my “Vampire” content is fun. I remember slogging through Interview with the Vampire, irritated with Louis’s constant moaning, only to then pick up the second book, The Vampire Lestat and feel such a breath of fresh air – Lestat loved being a vampire – it’s sexy and powerful and a really good time and he wasn’t complaining about having those things. Elmore’s movie takes a similar tack, also bringing to mind such films as The Lost Boys and The Craft.

As in those two examples, the film centers around a young person, Laurel (Nicole Maines), who comes to a new city and falls in with a gang of exciting, young supernatural types (in this case, a group of radical, feminist, lesbian vampires who (mostly) hunt predatory and/or irritating men). We understand that Laurel has been through a hard time, particularly during her just completed, final year of high school. But it’s never exactly stated what that hard time was. I’d assumed coming out, but having read later that the actress is trans, I suppose it could have been transitioning. Either way, it’s clear that leading up to this, things had been emotionally and psychologically hard and that, unsure of the direction she wants to go in her life, she needs to take some time (in this case, crashing with her older brother in LA) to find her way.

When Laurel finds herself a vampire, and further, in a like-minded community, it is thrilling and empowering – it’s also just fun. Sure – she’s a protagonist of a teen vampire movie, so she’s reluctant to kill people and comes slowly to the whole blood drinking thing, but being a part of this group just feels so good. There’s a lovely scene where after some bad stuff has gone down and Laurel has had her first kill, thus completing her transformation, she’s on the roof with the leader of the group, Duke. After filling Laurel in on some personal history (and essential exposition for the narrative), Duke offers to show her one more thing. Laurel declines, saying she can’t handle any more changes tonight, but Duke insists, saying something like, “you’ll like this – everyone likes this.” And then she shows her how to fly. And it is so sweet. It’s Lois and Superman. It’s Peter Parker swinging around the city for the first time. It is a young person who’s been through such difficulties feeling lifted and free and strong.

And before this, I have to say, I actually loved the exposition (not a sentence I often write), which was all presented in a kind of disco dance sequence as we learn of Vlad, Duke’s sire. An ancient vampire, he’d held her, and a bevy of other ‘wives,’ in his thrall for decades before she was finally able to overcome him and free herself. I loved how lame he seemed. We keep cutting to Vlad on the dance floor, surrounded by his collection of sexy ladies who have been magically made to love him, with their costumes changing periodically over the years, and he just never looks cool. There is no way he could be surrounded by women without magic. On one level, it’s just funny, but on the other, it underlines the domination, the slavery at work – which is at the heart of Duke’s socio-political drive. She’s learned the hard way that power is not safe in the hands of men.

Of course, there needs to be a story, so as in The Lost Boys and The Craft, our protagonist has to be thrust into conflict with the leader of the pack, in this case, Duke. I would rather that hadn’t been necessary, but where the story goes is still enjoyable, so ok – I’ll take it. And I appreciate how the arc of the vampire storyline is rooted in emotional character issues. Laurel struggles to balance her need to find and live her truth and fulfill her responsibilities. We learn of past suicide attempts and know that she’s had a support system of family and at least one close friend. But there is a tragic inability to do right by those that have stood by her if she is to go off and become her own complete person.

Caught up in the joys of her new un-life, she irreparably fails a dear friend. Reluctant to give into her newfound bloodlust (not letting herself fully be herself), she tries to repress it and accidentally strikes out at those she wouldn’t have normally chosen, ultimately hurting a member of her family. In refusing to hunt as Duke and the others do (going after, e.g., rapists, right wing internet trolls who tweet at young girls to kill themselves, and pretentious faux ‘allies’ who talk a big feminist game for cultural cache), Laurel inadvertently ends up breaking the key rule of ‘bite club’ and turning a man (the biggest no-no for Duke – who has a nice line about how nice it would be ‘to make every woman a vampire and let men be scared to jog at night’), which pushes the story into its final act conflict. While I would have loved to stay in the space of joyful power and sexy discovery, I do like that this turn really grew out of the character in emotionally significant ways.

Another aspect I really enjoyed is that though efforts were made to film the women and their relationships and attractions without a lecherous ‘male gaze,’ the film does not feel neutered. There is still an element of desire and sexuality. Elmore is able to establish and dwell in a space of sexual tension, playing out the flirtation and seduction without it feeling like the camera is leering. It’s a tightrope walk and I think he’s quite successful.

This is a crowd-pleasing (for the right crowd) take-back-the-night party, and it does as well by its vampirism as it does by its diverse LGBT+ characters. It’s also striking the extent to which it manages to wear its socio-political viewpoint on its sleeve without ever feeling preachy or propagandistic. Balancing the emotional truth of its protagonist, the dictates of its narrative, and its progressive perspective, it successfully delivers an equally entertaining and moving, contemporary Lesbian Vampire picture.

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So, there we have a few ‘modern’ examples of the genre. To answer my question from earlier in this post, I didn’t really find any made by a female and LGBT+ identifying person, which is a shame, but I’m glad I did watch these three. Still, I know I’ve skipped a great deal and there is still more homework to do. There is a huge gap between 1994 and 2016. I have the impression though that the Lesbian Vampire kind of disappeared into a general late night Cinemax “sexy vampire” for a stretch of the 90s and early 2000s (and many of those flicks just don’t look that interesting/good); however, she’s somewhat resurfaced of late. Also, recently, between social advancements opening doors for more people to tell their own stories, and the extent to which digital has made filmmaking so much more affordable, leading to a boom of micro-budget independent work, there is so much more explicitly ‘queer horror’ (though, for whatever reason, still vanishingly few “Lesbian Vampire” movies made by out-queer women). I wonder if this sub-genre, with one foot forever in 70s exploitation cinema, has much of a place in the current filmmaking landscape, or is it only approachable as something to either subvert or homage? I don’t know, but there are still a few other examples from the last 15 years I’d like to check out. But I’ve also watched very little Jean Rollin, and life is so short…