Vampiress Review: Hollyblood

The Gist: A guy with a crush on a girl at his school finds out she has an obsession with finding a real life vampire and pretends to be one in an attempt to get her to fall for him. Unfortunately for him the vampire she is looking for does exist and isn't too happy with his act nor is a bully who also has eyes for the girl. 

Clarification: Nickelodeon came out with a similar flick called "Liar, Liar, Vampire" in 2015 with the same story of a guy pretending to be a vampire in an effort to impress a girl at his school who is obsessed with them.  This is a bit of an upgrade from that considering the twist of vampires actually being real with the last twenty minutes of the film being a supernatural action/horror film. 

Female Vampire Factor: In the major twist ending of the film we find out that the vampire that started the whole thing by turning the student who is actually one is their teacher, a catholic school nun. 

While she's not much to look at initially, once the odds are against her with the group of kids started to get the one up on her she transforms herself into basically a Selma Hayak in From Dusk Till Dawn type stripper which does briefly distract all the horny high school kids.  

In another twist all the female characters in the film briefly turn.   

When the group of kids realize that they are outmatched by the vampire nun they devise a plan in which they ingest the blood of who they thought was the bad vampire, a kid named Azreal which turns all (but the vampire hunter kid who turns it down) into vampires.  This condition reverses when they kill the nun which turns Azreal back to normal as well as anyone he turned. 

Final Thoughts: This is one of those films that would be really good if it would have just gotten to the point but instead it just drags on and on till it's pretty much unwatchable then gets good in the last 15-20 minutes. The parts that are good (the comedic parts) are very good such as their parody of Twilight and the overall theme at the end that nearly everyone in the film was lying to the main girl to get next to her including her best friend who you find out during the ending vampire fight was a lesbian who was faking a physical disability because it made the girl talk to her the whole time.  I give it a Vampire Beauty Rating of 2 out of 5.  It tried to redeem itself at the end but it was way too late at that point.

Vampiress Review: The Invitation

The Gist:  An American girl struggling her way though life is found by a distant cousin who asks her to come to a family reunion in England where she finds her family there lives an upscale life but eventually finds out that that life comes at a price. 

Clarification: This film is your stereotypical "rich people are elite because they're actually monsters who kill the poor" storyline.  If you've ever seen the 1979 vampire film "Thirst" then basically this is a modern take on that.  In this case Evie the main character in the film learns that her family in England all work for a young English Lord who she falls for.

Just to then find out that he is a vampire and it is her birthright to be one of his three vampire brides after the previous third bride from her bloodline (Her great grandmother who looked exactly like her) had recently committed suicide and as the Dracula rule states there must always be three. 

Female Vampire Factor:  As mentioned above the purpose of Evie is to complete a trio of brides which then leaves the other two. 

Lucy (Alana Boden)

Lucy is the younger and nicer of the two who just wants them all to get along.  She tries her best to make Evie comfortable but kind of hard to do when the thing you're talking about in a sweet and loving way is eating people.  

Viktoria (Stephanie Corneliussen)

Victoria is the stereotypical mean girl of the two.  She's also revealed to be the monstery figure that haunts the manor and is offing the help in the shadows in the early parts of the movie.  She's really into being the murdering monster and it comes off as she just deals with the whole "being one of three brides" thing because it's a requirement for the vampire powers but otherwise would rather not deal with her more humane sisters. 

They end up dying after Lucy comes to Evie's aid when Viktoria attempts to kill her.  Lucy gets tired of Viktoria and ends up plunging both her and Viktoria through a sharp object that vampires probalby shouldn't have in their homes if sharp objects through the heart kill them. 

Evie (Nathalie Emmanuelle)

By the films end Evie decides with the help of some knowledge from Lucy that the best way to handle the situation is from the inside.  She agrees to marry the Lord and as soon as she drinks his blood to get the vampire powers she sets fire to the place and uses those powers to fight both Vicktoria (who still ends up proving to be way above her skill level requiring Lucy to save her) but eventually taking out both Renfield the head servant and the Lord himself resulting in her reverting back to human as she never drank from a human preventing her from going full vampire (as in the folklore of this film if the head vampire dies all vampires he turns dies with them).   

I'll give it a solid Vampire Beauty Rating of 3 out of 5.  Nothing vampiric actually happens other than the 4 vampires in the film do have conversations with their fangs out once the big reveal happens an hour or so in but the only attacking and blood drinking done in the film is the murders Viktoria does off camera before you learn of the vampires and a scene of Renfield extracting it by slitting a maids throat.  With the exception of the supernatural fight scenes at the end the whole movie could have been done without the vampire twist and it wouldn't have made much of a difference.