Female vampires once ruled the world. Now they are overlooked for glittering guys with big hair. It's time to point out why the female of the species should be the center of attention.
Dawn is a web series about a vampire named Ava Santiago who is recruited by God to destroy other vampires giving her the name of "Dawn". Basically she's if Blade was an attractive latin women but with magical powers. The story and premise itself is very good and if you're into women with fangs the vampires fangs in this series aren't retractable so they're always out (except episode 7 which is the one episode where Dawn/Ava tries to "blend in with humans" which comes off as a vacation video).
My only complaints of the series are knit picky production issues like the background music drowning out the dialogue at times and the biggest issue being the bulk of the episodes being credits and establishing shots. It's a small production and the episodes are short but for whatever reason you have no less than three different credit sequences that are drawn out because they are full of animation. Basically if an episode is 10 minutes 5 to 6 of it are establishing shots of New York city or one of the three credit sequences. They do get better with this in the later episodes but those first few you will need to use the fast forward button a few times just to get to the actual show.
Dawn/Ava Santiago(Victoria Amber)
A witch in South America long before written history in the Americas she was turned into a vampire where she spent centuries feeding on humans. Eventually she's given a choice to redeem herself and is given vampire hunting abilities. If she succeeds she gets her soul back. As a vampire hunter she's given the name "Dawn". The bulk of the series is her fighting vampires she created.
Kassandra(Anna Morck)
One of the Queens two minions sent to hunt Dawn. She appears sporadically throughout season 1.
Queen Amina(Ufuoma George)
It's somewhat established in the series first episode that Ava is responsible for her being a vampire which is a source of bad blood between the two. The Queen storyline kind of fades away after a few episodes with no real resolution. Her character gets replaced by a male vampire (or werewolf) named Cain as the main antagonist in the later half of the season.
Adrianna(Daasia Abreu)
Introduced in Episode 7 of the series first season she is a former friend of Ava who she turned. The two encounter each other when Adrianna tries to convince Ava to return to the vampire fold one last time before seeking revenge for leaving.
Angelika (Emily Kay)
In Episode 9 Angelika is another of Eva's former victims who seeks revenge on her. They have brief confrontations both in that episode and the season finale.
Princess Kali (Ashley Maharaj)
Probably the only vampire in the series that doesn't seek revenge on Eva for past doings she's introduced in the final episode of season 1 rescuing Eva when she's outnumbered.
Xiu Mei(Wei Wei)
Introduced in episode 10 of season 1 no real background is given to her other than the same "we were friends once and now you've turned on the vampires so I must kill you" shtick that every other vampire introduced in this series has. The teaser for season 2 does feature her prominently so when it does happen I expect we'll learn more about her background.
As of this writing it's been about a year since season 1 ended and the official Youtube page did put out a teaser for season 2...
as well as some of the actresses from the new season putting out various social media posts showing promotional photos for the season..
Still no word on when this new season will launch. Until then this is a definitely a Vampire Beauty Rating of 5 out of 5 series that I highly recommend. Probably the second best urban vampire related film/series I've seen behind the film "Teeth & Blood".
The Gist: The leaders of a group of vampires and werewolves try to work out a truce while their underlings go out of their way to sabotage the peace.
Clarification: Don't let the cover art fool you, this is actually a movie about morality and class and race relations within the black community. There's some action in the movies end but basically the majority of the film is two guys talking about each others lives while their crews down each other for who they are and tell them not to trust the other.
First you have the "Bloodz". They are the vampires of the film. They're the upper class business owning snobs of the bunch that don't think much of the werewolves and don't hide that fact.
Then you have the "Wolvez". They are you uneducated ghetto stereotypes who are extremely primal (yes there's a scene where one of them walks in a circle before taking a dump on the floor like a dog).
Selling Point: Much like it's predecessor "Vampiyaz" the film has some serious undertones but there are some scenes that are just laugh out loud funny though I'm not exactly sure if designed that way (ex. despite the film being about man eating mythical creatures, white people are still the most evil characters in the film).
Female Vampire Factor: There's only 3 in the Bloodz. First you have Jezebel (LaMae) who only is seen sparingly in group scenes.
Then you have the other two who actually get screen time who are Jamila (Kandiss Marie, Left) and her secret lesbian lover Damphira (Jenicia Garcia, right)
As the story goes Jamila is married to the leader of the Bloodz, Asiman (Richard Carroll Jr.) but is a real snob and is 100% against Asiman's campaign to make peace with the wolvez. On top of that she's having an affair with Damphira who is one of her bodyguards. What's odd is they do this in full view of everyone but seemingly no one even acknowledges it till near the end of the film.
Jamila is the only one of the two who fangs out but she doesn't do anything vampiric. As a matter of fact they only seem to come out when she's whining or nagging more than anything.
I assume Damhira would have had fangs if it weren't for the fact that Garcia had braces during the filming of this movie (great casting right?) which is sad because she's pretty hot and this is a MUCH steamier role then the one as a nagging paraplegic in Vampiyaz.
Jenicia Garcia
Garcia is listed as the associate producer of the film so huge brownie points for producing a film where she's making out with a girl for 25% of it (Maybe that should have been the selling point). Anyway that is the one thing that saves the movie from the total disappointment of it not being an action title as the title alludes to. For that I give the film a Vampire Beauty Rating of 3 out of 5.
