Movies
The Innkeepers (VOD)
“Even though it has some issues, The Innkeepers is a fine film that’s not bad, just kind of disappointing. While not trying to really emulate anything in particular unlike West’s last film, it plods along way too much as it tries to make you identify with its characters and their plight, and ends up spinning its wheels for an hour instead. The performances are great, the comedy and horror work well separately and the payoff is worth the wait, but in the end the whole is not as great as the sum of its parts.”
After entering the horror scene back in 2005 with The Roost, Ti West has been building up his reputation as a master of the slow-burn, finally etching his name into the genre history books with 2009’s House Of The Devil. The film recreates the look and feel of early 80s horror, peppering short intense scenes into the story of a babysitting gig gone wrong that eventually builds to a violent payoff. The Innkeepers, West’s latest film, also focuses on the ordinary, monotonous lives of his characters but this time around, it’s not quite as captivating.
Sara Paxton and Pat Healy star as Claire and Luke, two underachievers stuck in career limbo that work the front desk at The Yankee Pedlar. With the owner on vacation during its final days of operation, the two attendants spend the weekend at the supposedly haunted hotel taking care of the few remaining guests, musing about the good times they’ve shared and searching the building for Madeline O’Malley, the resident spirit. Luke, who spends his free time at the desk watching porn and creating ghost sites, feeds Claire’s imagination with tales of spectral sightings and gets her excited about exploring the building as their last hurrah. Armed with an EVP meter, she picks up voices and piano melodies at first, and is later informed by one of the guests (Leanne Rease-Jones), a television-star-turned-healer, that the basement is where the unfriendly energy is emanating from.
West, who’s not exactly a stranger to horror-comedy (he did direct Cabin Fever 2, even though it ended up not being HIS film), gives Paxton and Healy – the latter of whom is well versed in sketch comedy – some sincerely funny material to work with, creating a very organic relationship between the two. It makes the first half of the film feel like new territory for the director, as it’s definitely the most lighthearted and whimsical film he’s ever made. In that respect, it reminds me a lot of The Hole in that it uses skeptical, innocent characters to explores some very adult issues while presenting itself as something younger viewers can get into, even though that’s really not who it was made for.
The biggest problems with the film emerge when “shit gets real”. Once the tone shifts from light-hearted comedy to balls-to-the-wall horror, it makes the two halves feel like separate films. I can tell what the tone is for both sections, but as a whole it really doesn’t have one; the comedy and horror really don’t flow into each other well. The slow-burn is there to build up sympathy for these everyman and woman characters who are stuck in a terrible economy with no prospects or real ambition to do anything above minimum wage work, but after illustrating the point over and over again for an hour, it’s not particularly interesting. Truthful and accurate? Sure. Completely engaging? Not so much. The final stretch, which is intense due to West’s decision not to show too much, manages to stay creepy and work quite well despite cramming in some common clichés – everyone involved really should’ve known better.
Even though it has some issues, The Innkeepers is a fine film that’s not bad, just kind of disappointing. While not trying to really emulate anything in particular unlike West’s last film, it plods along way too much as it tries to make you identify with its characters and their plight, and ends up spinning its wheels for an hour instead. The performances are great, the comedy and horror work well separately and the payoff is worth the wait, but in the end the whole is not as great as the sum of its parts.
The problem with filming sequels back-to-back is that, unless you can afford expensive reshoots, there’s no easy way to adjust course in between movies if fans react badly to where the story is headed. That’s why it’s important to have a complete narrative thought out well in advance lest you accidentally kill a budding franchise.
However, this isn’t always the case. Every once in a while, it seems like the cinema gods smile upon certain chaotic productions and gift moviegoers with complete franchises that feel like more than the sum of their hastily produced parts. Ted Nicolaou’s Bloodlust: Subspecies III is precisely one of these miraculous pictures, with the raw talents of the artists involved (as well as the continued support from Romania) turning the feature into an effective conclusion for a series that kind of made things up as the filmmakers went along.
That’s why I’d like to invite my fellow readers to join me on this third part of our journey through the Subspecies franchise as we look into Bloodlust and talk about how it remains a surprisingly satisfying finale to the original trilogy.
A Trilogy Planned on the Fly
Released only a year after Bloodstone found plenty of success in rental stores and mail-in VHS catalogues worldwide, 1994’s Bloodlust was produced at the same time as its predecessor in (mostly) the same locations and with the same team. This means that the movie benefited from all the same upgrades as Bloodstone, with the crew now being more experienced with the ins and outs of surviving a low-budget Romanian production and the cast really settling into their characters.
At this point, everything from location scouting to the makeup process had been streamlined, with Wayne Toth and Norman Cabrera, the main duo behind special effects, even switching out time-consuming prosthetics for latex gloves in order to speed up Anders Hove’s monstrous transformation. The titular “subspecies” demons were also once again relegated to a mere cameo appearance due to the laborious puppetry required to bring them to life.
The only real hiccup came from the fact that actress Denice Duff had replaced the first film’s Michelle (Laura Mae Tate) and was immediately expected to portray the character as both an innocent victim in part II and as a secondary villain in part III. According to behind-the-scenes interviews, the hectic production schedule that blended two different movies meant that Duff would often find herself having to alternate between two incredibly different versions of Michelle during the same shooting day – though it’s obvious that she’s having more fun with Bloodlust’s more traditionally vampiric version of her character.
In the finished film, we pick things up immediately where the previous entry left off as Rebecca (Melanie Shatner) is forced to leave her vampire sister Michelle (Duff) behind in the dungeons of Castle Vladislav due to the rising sun. This allows Mummy (Pamela Gordon) to use Michelle’s blood to revive the vicious Radu (Hove) so that he may continue his quest for the coveted Bloodstone – a magical artifact that perpetually drips the Blood of Saints.
Meanwhile, the dreamy US embassy agent Mel (Kevin Blair) agrees to help Rebecca plan a rescue mission, though they’re unaware that Radu has become infatuated with Michelle during his attempts to guide her growing bloodlust. This all culminates in a climactic confrontation meant to tie up all of the series’ loose ends in one of Full Moon Pictures’ most ambitious productions.
The Evolution of Radu
Like its predecessor, Bloodlust: Subspecies III was also warmly received by fans who argued that the series was an even bigger success than Full Moon’s other major horror franchise, Puppet Master. This praise wasn’t unanimous, however, as 1994 had seen the rise of a more modern breed of sexy vampire popularized by Anne Rice, with old-school Nosferatu like Radu being viewed as obsolete when compared to the likes of Lestat and Gary Oldman’s take on Dracula.
In a way, one might argue that Nicolaou’s film is something of a swan song for the classic vampire story, as Bloodlust combines all of the traditional elements we tend to associate with these tales into a single tragic yarn that ties a neat little bow on Radu’s story as well as the old-fashioned monster movies that he represents. The finale remains shocking despite the fact that this is the third time we see Radu get brutally killed onscreen, with the brief tease that he may one day return feeling more like a nod towards the nature of evil rather than sequel bait.
The film dabbles a bit in gothic romance and even explores the inherent power fantasy behind transforming into an immortal creature of the night, but the filmmakers never lose sight of Radu as a demonic force even when he’s willing to betray his beloved Mummy for Michelle’s sake. In fact, his twisted “love” for his fledgling makes him even creepier as we get the feeling that his passion comes from a dark and disturbing place.
Anders Hove is at his absolute best in this film, with the effects department boosting his moments of what the younger generation would call “aura farming” whenever Radu emerges from shadows like a 90s version of Count Orlok. There are even a couple of surprisingly effective jump-scares here, which is why I’d argue that Bloodlust cements Radu as one of the most memorable cinematic vampires of all time despite his humble origins.
Subspecies Saves Its Best For Last
Nicolaou and Vlad Panescu also saved the best for “last” (more on that in a bit) regarding the film’s visuals, with the cinematography and overall atmosphere of Bloodlust absolutely surpassing what we saw in the previous films. Everything feels appropriately climactic this time around (including the wonderful soundtrack that was co-composed alongside an authentic Romanian orchestra), and I appreciate how this is the fastest-paced entry in the trilogy since the film doesn’t need to waste time setting anything up.
Bloodlust still suffers from some of the same low-budget blemishes as its predecessors, but there’s so much creative passion here that no amount of wonky effects work or stilted dialogue can get in the way of appreciating the flick’s gothic grandeur. That’s why it’s not surprising that the movie’s definitive(-ish) ending would later be retconned as fans begged for more Radu.
Of course, the next entry in this series would be a different kind of vampiric endeavor altogether, with the filmmakers attempting to engage with the same trends that ultimately killed Radu and his antiquated kin. That, however, is a story for another time. For now, I’ll merely insist that Bloodlust: Subspecies III remains a highlight of Full Moon’s expansive catalogue and is definitely worth seeking out today.
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