Vampyre Nation

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USA • 2012 • 90m •

• Directed by: Todor Chapkanov. • Starring: Andrew Lee Potts, Heida Reed, Claudia Bassols, Ben Lambert, Neil Jackson, Roark Critchlow, Vlado Mihailov, Jonathon Hargreaves, Iliana Lazarova, Atanas Srebrev, Yana Marinova, Ewan Bailey, Hristo Balabanov. • Music by: Frederik Wiedmann.

Bucharest, Romania. The not-too-distant future, but an entirely different city. The human population is dwindling. The vampire population, meanwhile, is exploding. Having emerged from the shadows a decade earlier, vampires now walk openly amongst the human population, as a precarious peace exists between the two. A peace made possible by the introduction of a synthetic blood substitute, dispensed by the Romanian government, making traditional vampire feeding, and preying on humans, no longer necessary. But even so, it's not a peace that everyone is entirely comfortable with...

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Review:

Interesting idea - it is accepted that vampires live amongst us. As such, they are quarantined to the smoky desolation of 'section 5'. As would probably happen in real life, pro-life protesters proclaim that they are people and are being treated like prisoners when they have a right to life. As a contrast to that, the vampires are also described as 'an affront to God' and deserve to be segregated by other-minded souls. Within the vampire community, comprising of low-lives who make undercover exchanges of synthetic blood substitute for the right price, there is an even bigger danger; something is killing the vampires. To this end, a group of hardened criminals are granted a partial pardon if they make it their mission to destroy this new threat.

The characters presented are exactly the kind of designer-stubbled, black-leather jacket wearing poseurs that I feel has given the vampire concept an image that goes against everything interesting about the original concept. The 'good guys' fair no better, a crew of strutting wise-cracking men or perfectly manicured, improbably attractive females who are strong in determination but always happy to bow to the wishes of the men folk. Impossible to like, everyone postures, smoulders and puckers as much as the screen time will allow them to do. The one exception is the main cop's right hand man, who is from the North of England and is the relentless victim of the team's self-obsessed put-downs.

The good central ideas aside (which apparently are startlingly similar to teen-soap 'True Blood') this well-shot, nicely scored film is a chore to get through. No-one is remotely real, just a collection of glistening catwalk models happy to parade themselves, self-satisfied, through a series of borrowed tension-free set-pieces and the whole enterprise emerges as darkened, elongated day-time soap filler.

Review by Nigel P
from the Internet Movie Database.

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