Friday, September 30, 2016

Vampiress Review: "Blood + Roses"

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1207924/

The Gist:  A woman who is having marriage issues is bitten and turned by a vampire.

Clarification:  Basically this is vampire cliche 101.  If it exists, it's in this film.   The biggest issue with this film that prevents it from really being enjoyable is that it is one of those films that tries way too hard to have a dramatic sub plot which becomes extremely annoying.  Basically the woman who is turned in the film has a douche bag for a husband.  The problem is the guy is always a douchebag in the film so the big reveal later that he has been drugging her and letting guys screw her for money which results in her accepting her new vampire abilities means little to nothing whereas if he wasn't a complete lunatic in the film her loyalty to him prior to that reveal would actually make sense.  In essence this is one of those Lifetime network "abused wife who goes from being the victim that doesn't stand up for herself to being the aggressor" films.

Selling Point:  For the brief period that it is a vampire film it's ok.  But the word brief is an understatement.

Female Vampire Factor:  The film begins with a vampire louring a woman into a hotel room where she goes topless and his female accomplice comes in.  He tells her to drink and she doesn't.  In disappointment he snaps her neck and kills her.
The vampire portion of the film goes on an extended hiatus after this scene as the bulk of the film from this point on is the woman Jane being yelled at a lot by her husband Martin and her perclaming her love for him despite really not wanting to be around him that much.
One night she goes out to take a walk and witnesses the vampire from the films beginning attacking a woman.  He ends up biting her and she goes through the whole "what's wrong with me" cliche as she can't stand sunlight and wants to eat but doesn't know what she wants until she finds some bloody meet in the fridge that she drinks the blood from.  She then goes to almost attack some lady who's running from a rapist prior to being confronted by the vampire that turned her.
Anyway the only time she does anything vampiric is after the reviel of what her husband was doing which is the brief point she fangs out.
I can't express how close this film came to being great as vampire Jane was a pretty awesome character.  Unfortunately she only exists very briefly thanks to the film concentrating way too much on her husband being a moody jerk which was a plot device that really wasn't needed considering what eventually happened between them. I give the film a Vampire Beauty Rating of 3 out of 5

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