Movies
‘Kicking Blood’ Trailer Treats a Vampire Like an Alcoholic
Bloody Disgusting has the first trailer and a gorgeous poster for Kicking Blood, a dark vampire comedy that had its premiere at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival and will release on VOD platforms March 31, 2022.
In the film…
“Alanna Bale stars as a modern-day vampire who falls for a charming recovering alcoholic and resolves to quit drinking blood and become human again.”
Luke Bilyk, Vinessa Antoine, Ella Jonas Farlinger, Ben Sutherland and Rosemary Dunsmore also star.
“We wanted to make a meaningful film about the human side of vampires: What do they say about us, about our desires, our appetites, our fears and weaknesses?” director Blaine Thurier told ScreenDaily when announced.
“Vampires suffer through an eternal cycle of murder, getting high off their victims’ blood, and suffering blood hangovers. But for our protagonist, Anna, the emptiness, loneliness, and futility of immortality surfaces after centuries of bloodshed and she starts on a journey to recovery and back to humanity. Kicking Blood approaches this journey with respect while still reflecting the humour in all of it.”
Thurier co-wrote the screenplay to Kicking Blood with Leonard Farlinger.
Now in its second week of release, the Radio Silence-directed Abigail is the third Universal Monsters vampire movie released in the last year, coming along in the wake of period piece The Last Voyage of the Demeter and horror-comedy Renfield. All three films have struggled at the box office, but Abigail at least has some good news to celebrate this week.
Renfield came along first in April 2023, ending its run with $26.4 million, while Last Voyage of the Demeter ended its own run with a mere $21.7 million. The vampire ballerina movie Abigail has already outgrossed both films, hitting $28.5 million at the worldwide box office this week.
The bad news is that Abigail‘s reported production budget was $28 million, so it seems unlikely to make a profit at the box office when you factor in the marketing spend and everything else on top of that figure. And that’s especially a bummer because Abigail is such a crowd-pleasing good time, with most horror fans agreeing that it’s one of this year’s best movies thus far.
The Universal Monsters brand has been struggling in the wake of Leigh Whannell’s hit The Invisible Man back in 2020, with these smaller spinoff movies failing to make their mark at the box office. Maybe it was never a good idea to release three low-key Dracula movies within the span of a single year, or maybe audiences just aren’t into vampires in general right now.
Whatever the case may be, Universal was smart to re-team with Whannell for a reimagining of the Wolf Man, which is howling its way into theaters in 2025. There’s a good chance that movie will blow the box office totals of Demeter, Renfield and Abigail out of the water, especially since it’s been a while since a Hollywood werewolf movie roared its way onto the big screen.
In the meantime, we expect Abigail will be coming home soon. Stay tuned for a date.
In Abigail, “After a group of would-be criminals kidnap the 12-year-old ballerina daughter of a powerful underworld figure, all they have to do to collect a $50 million ransom is watch the girl overnight. In an isolated mansion, the captors start to dwindle, one by one, and they discover, to their mounting horror, that they’re locked inside with no normal little girl.”
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