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Umbrage: The Last Vampire (V)

“The problems with ‘Umbrage’ are legion––from the silly-ass story to the complete lack of scares to the Adam and Eve flashback rape, it’s a movie that seems ill conceived from the very beginning.”

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Boasting a big-breasted vampire seductress, a mush-mouthed Irish cowboy, a shit ton of family drama, a plot rooted in creationism, and a lilting country-western soundtrack that kicks in at the most inappropriate of moments, Umbrage: The First Vampire isn’t a genre mash-up as much as it is a genre clusterfuck.

Beginning with a stylish old-West preface that has a gunslinger taken down by a snarling vamp, Umbrage promptly settles into present day movie-of-week mode after the opening credits, as supposedly teenaged Rachel is sent to live with her ex-stepfather and his pregnant wife in a big house out in the English countryside. The goth-grunge Rachel is petulant, confrontational, and hyper-annoying––in fact, most of the first third of Umbrage consists of screechy family arguments, with poor Doug Bradley (that’s right: Pinhead, himself) trying desperately to match the volume of the two headache-inducing females.

When not focused on grating family melodrama, Umbrage cuts to a couple of male campers, drinking wine and ripping farts out in the woods. A woman approaches their campsite, claiming to be a bird-watcher (?), and one of the campers attempts to seduce her, farts and all. When he’s later found propped against a tree with his chin and genitals ripped off, the remaining camper and the birdwatcher flee to the country house, where they takes refuge with the Bickering Brits. A big fat wad of incoherent mythology follows, a buncha horseshit about obsidian mirrors and flesh-tearing shadows and wiener-ripping mother vampires and ages-old vendettas, all of it interspersed with the occasional slo-mo cowboy montage backed by strains of wailing harmonica.

The problems with Umbrage are legion––from the silly-ass story to the complete lack of scares to the Adam and Eve flashback rape, it’s a movie that seems ill conceived from the very beginning. Writer/director Drew Cunningham certainly has his moments of visual panache, but his best efforts as a cinematic stylist are repeatedly sodomized by his own asinine script.

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Julia Garner Joins Horror Movie ‘Weapons’ from the Director of ‘Barbarian’

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'Apartment 7A' - Filming Wraps on ‘Relic’ Director's Next Starring “Ozark’s” Julia Garner!
Pictured: Julia Garner in 'We Are What We Are'

In addition to Leigh Whannell’s upcoming Universal Monsters movie Wolf Man, Julia Garner (The Royal Hotel) has also joined the cast of Weapons, THR has announced tonight.

Weapons is the new horror movie from New Line Cinema and director Zach Cregger (Barbarian), with Julia Garner joining the previously announced Josh Brolin (Dune 2).

The upcoming Weapons is from writer/director Zach Cregger, who will also produce alongside his Barbarian producing team: Roy Lee of Vertigo and J.D. Lifshitz and Raphael Margules of BoulderLight Pictures. Vertigo’s Miri Yoon also produces.

The Hollywood Reporter teases, “Plot details for Weapons are being kept holstered but it is described as a multi and inter-related story horror epic that tonally is in the vein of Magnolia, the 1999 actor-crammed showcase from filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson.”

Cregger was a founding member and writer for the New York comedy troupe “The Whitest Kids U’Know,” which he started while attending The School of Visual Arts. The award-winning group’s self-titled sketch comedy show ran for five seasons on IFC-TV and Fuse. He was also a series regular on Jimmy Fallon’s NBC series “Guys with Kids” and the TBS hit series “Wrecked,” and was featured in a recurring role on the NBC series “About a Boy.”

Weapons will be distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures.

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