By David Dent
Struggling horror author Olivia Romo (Dennice Cisneros) is spending Christmas in a Lake Tahoe cabin, left to her by her mother following mum’s death. In truth Olivia broke and with her ‘Twilight’ style undead novel ‘Touched by a Vampire’ not setting the publishing world alight, she’s left to spend the holidays alone while the book’s rejection letters stack up.
When a bat flies into the window of a cabin one night, Olivia is minded to rescue the thing from the snow and restore it to health. Leaving it overnight in the garage, the following morning she is surprised but more than a little delighted to see that the bat, which was actually of the vampire variety, has changed back to naked male vampire form in the rather buff shape of Luke (Nico Bellamy).
But when Julius King (Vernon Wells), a private investigator turns up at the cabin, he’s in search of three vicious vampires, or which Luke is the most dangerous. Olivia finds it hard to reconcile the rather friendly guy she has in her garage with the concept of a murderous bloodsucker, but when Luke’s friends Jackie (Laura Kennon) and Brock (Alan Silva), turn up, she sees a different side of the vampire she thought was going to be useful in helping fine-tune the details of her novel.
‘Red Snow’ is a comedy that raises smiles rather than belly laughs, and if you don’t warm to the kooky Olivia you may find it hard work. But it’s well cast and the snowy scenery is a bonus. There are some great lines (Luke describes the movie ‘Nosferatu’ as the ‘Birth of a Nation’ for his kind and describes the pig’s blood procured for him, rather than human plasma he requires, as the difference between “craft beer and warm piss”): it’s also surprisingly gory and the effects are good for something that was probably pretty small budget-wise. And Timothy Lynch’s soundtrack does a lovely job of sinistering up some Christmas standards; honestly, you’ve never heard ‘the Coventry Carol’ sound more chilling.
Bloody Flicks 