Movies
[Review] ‘Drifter’ is One You Can Just Let Drift By
Indie horror films can be such a mixed bag. And when I say indie I mean the stuff that is essentially made for no budget. If there is a budge I’m looking at things $10k and less. Drifter was the only movie I was able to catch and the inaugural Living Dead Horror Convention in Portland and I’m assuming it was made on a budget of under $10k. At least I really hope that was the case.
Before getting too much into the movie I think it’s important to point out that I don’t believe all movies can be treated equally. To some degree you have to grade on a curve. A good movie is a good movie regardless of budget, but given certain budgetary restraints I’m willing to give a pass on certain things. This is usually on the production side of things when considering effects and locations and so forth. Acting and story should basically never been impacted by the budget. Even if you’re working with an empty bank account, acting and story are two things you can perfect. You may have to change your story, but you can do it.
Now let’s talk about Drifter and see where it falls exactly.
The film is about a realtor trying to sell a house known as “the Blood House.” We hear different reasons as to why it’s called that. The realtor says the family that used to live there had the last name Blood. Other people in the town say it’s because the house is cursed and anyone that lives there ends up dying mysteriously. As you can imagine this makes the house a bit tricky to sell. Who wants to buy a house that will kill you? Not me, that’s for sure!
This realtor is determined though. He’s got a guy painting it up in an effort to get it nice and spiffy. Unfortunately, Blood House strikes again! The painter decides to sneak in one night with his girlfriend and another friend for some drinking and uncomfortable sex. And seriously, this is a very uncomfortable and awkward sex scene. I think it’s supposed to be funny. I didn’t hear anybody laughing. Anyway, the girlfriend’s ex catches wind of this and shows up. He kills all three and then himself.
The next day after the police finish cleaning up the crime scene a drifter slips into the house. He basically begins to squat there, getting cozy upstairs and taking a nap. The realtor, still determined to sell the house, sends over a new painter and a repair man. Unfortunately they run into the drifter who kills them. The drifter then proceeds to kill everyone that enters the house.
In between the drifter’s killing we get another incredibly awkward sex scene. I think this is important. The movie is about 70 minutes and there are two awkward sex scenes. Impressive.
Back to the drifter. Why is he killing everyone? What is his motive? For most of the movie we don’t know, but then in the last 10 minutes or so out of nowhere comes this vampire-like creature. She crawls out of, I don’t know, some tunnel that is for some reason in the house, and she seems to have complete control over the drifter. It’s almost as if she puts him in a trance to do her killing. Being the vampire-like creature she is, she bites the drifter’s most recent victim.
Now the movie never says this, but I’m assuming that the audience is supposed to come to the conclusion that all the mysterious deaths to occur at the Blood House are a result of this creature. Ok I guess I could by that, but it brings with it a lot of questions. If the creature is ultimately responsible for the killings how come every victim isn’t found with bite marks? I would think that she’d be doing all this killing to drink their blood, at least that’s what appeared to have been implied in her one scene.
The bigger question for me, however, is what about the current owner of the house? The realtor is trying to sell the home for the current owner who grew up there. His mom recently passed away and so he no longer needs it. This guy lived there most of his life with the rest of his family. How come nothing happened to them? Everyone before them died and then the house took a break while they lived there? That seems…odd. This seems like a pretty big loose end that is never touched on.
The issues go far beyond the plot as well. The acting is not good. There is no other way to put it. In these super low budget horror productions you often encounter some atrocious acting, so I didn’t come in with high expectations in that department, but this is rough. I’m sure some of that blame can be attributed to the dialogue and poor script, but I can’t completely let the actors off the hook. Speaking of the script there seemed to be a lot of forced humor and forced nudity. The jokes didn’t land and the nudity was just there so they could say, “Hey, we’ve got boobs in our movie!”
Drifter feels like it wants to be a Troma movie but doesn’t fully understand what it is that makes the best Troma movies stand out. It’s not just about having juvenile humor, a little gore and naked chicks. You need heart and charm and Drifter lacks in both those areas. Kudos to writer/director Joe Sherlock and crew for completing a feature film. That’s no easy task. Unfortunately it’s not a good one and I can’t recommend it.
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.
You must be logged in to post a comment.