By David Dent
Director Sean Cronin is no stranger to the vampire. As an actor he played the titular Count in last year’s ‘Wrath of Dracula’, directed by Steve Lawson, and as well as helming this undead drama also finds time to cast himself as head vampire Madison.
If nothing else ‘Bogieville’ is a fascinating recreation of a 1980s US vamp movie, despite being filmed in the UK, and featuring a British cast (it’s interesting that both IMDb and indeed FrightFest’s own listings describe this as a US flick, such is Cronin’s wish to pass this off as a Stateside movie).
Ham (Arifin Putra) and his girlfriend Jody (Eloise Lovell Anderson) skip town after Ham loses his job at the local garage and they can’t afford to pay their rent. Driving across country they come across a rather empty trailer park, named ‘Bogieville’ to recognise the owner’s obsession with the famous US actor.
Caretaker Crawford (Jonathan Hansler) looks after things, but after a bit of argy bargy offers Ham a job as a handyman, with the specific instructions that the pair should not leave the camp at night, or let anyone into the accommodation provided for them. But Bogieville is less deserted than originally made out; the site owner, Madison, is one of the undead, and with his acquired ‘family’ rises at night to feast on the living.
The vaguely sleazy setup recalls classic Rob Zombie movies, and the ‘all teeth and angst’ nature of the vampires is reminiscent of the undead characters in 2007’s ’30 Days of Night’; there’s also something of 1987’s ‘Near Dark’ in the clandestine nature of the vampires’ existence. And it’s in these examples that is found the biggest problem with ‘Bogieville’; outside of the ‘homage to the US’ look of the film, credible for the most part (although some of the UK cast American accents are more successful than others), this film has very little to offer that is original. At 105 minutes it’s also overlong, particularly as the whole middle section drags before we get to the final reel vamp action.
Cronin is to be congratulated for his attention to detail but he could have paid a little more attention to the story and rather lacklustre script.
Bogieville is on digital now from Reel 2 Reel Films.
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