Dark Nights Film Festival: Bloodsucker
DARK NIGHTS FILM FESTIVAL presents the international premiere of the vampire spiral into destruction that is Bloodsucker (Blodsuger). The film is the latest from Kaspur Juhl, known for staring straight into the face of human brutality. It’s bold of the director to tackle such a well-known, perhaps overused type of monster, but it turned out to be in his favour. And boy, does he do it!
Viktor (Frederik Carlsen) lives as a vampire, attacking humans to satiate his thirst, whatever that be in the moment. His maker, the outstandingly gorgeous Celeste (Cecilie Häggqvist), has also tasked him with becoming a maker himself and choosing someone to bring into the family. Celeste, however, is hard to please, dismissing his personal Renfield choices. She approves of one, Isabella (Mie Gren), but Viktor may be unable to control her. Oh, and they have a kink for being filmed.
The film begins with a chained-up woman- she is in transformation. which is extremely long and painful in this universe. This is some really cool lore the film’s cooked up. This is mixed with some intense house music. The musical vibe of the film is very Euro club 2000s- apart from two theme tracks by Danish band Vrangvendt. Honestly, the score of BLOODSUCKER is one of the numerous reasons the film stays engaging through its brutality.
As a trigger warning, this film has a lot of abuse against women, including what I would call frequent sexual assault. If you are unsure how this might trigger you, it’s perfectly reasonable to choose another film from Dark Nights Film Fest.
Others may want to flex their muscles forged by the “disturbing movies” style content trend of the mid-2010s. If you’re looking for extreme horror catharsis, then BLOODSUCKER will scratch that itch.
The film is extreme horror but also has an aesthetic perhaps best described as QUEEN OF THE DAMMNED (2002) meets New French extremity film TROUBLE EVERY DAY (2001). It has been a while since vampires have been so violent, but BLOODSUCKER shows them as the monsters we should probably fear: predatory, sadistic, blood-covered and feral, and, of course, extremely fashionable, leather-clad, nu-goth.
The film makes you realise that drinking blood is full-on gory. Messy, slurping and a whole human dying? It was such a great surprise when my desensitised horror brain was affected by some Arterial blood spray. Oh my god, did you realise blood is supposed to be inside a person? Amazing! Do you want to be scared of vampires again? BLOODSUCKER is the film for you.
Great Performances from a cast who had to play a band of irredeemable monsters doing irredeemable things- if they made you hate them, they were obviously great actors. Häggqvist is magnetic, Carlsen is terrifying, and Gren keeps up a manic homicidal state throughout the whole film.
But there’s no being shy about it- BLOODSUCKER wants to be brutal and raw in every way possible. So if you are up for that, you can see it at Dark Nights Film Festival on Saturday, October 12, at Randwick Ritz. Get tickets here.
“Its been a while since vampires have been so violent, i cant think of a recent vampire flick that hasnt been watered down. But BLOODSUCKER shows them as the monsters we should probably fear: predatory, sadistic, blood covered and animalistic,,,,and of course extremely fashionable, leather-clad, nu-goth”
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