By David Dent
A couple of years ago Chris Schwab made the vampire actioner Fangs Out: Blood Apocalypse. Two years on and he returns to his theme, but with a very different approach.
Ostensibly an adaptation of Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’, Schwab brings the story to modern day America and condenses it into a 70 minute feature. Eric Toms is Dr. John Seward, a psychologist at Purfleet hospital (one of a number of casual references to Stoker’s source text in the movie) specialising in mental health trauma; one of his patients is a raving guy, keen on eating flies, called…Renfield (Spencer Weitzel); “It’s coming!”, the lunatic shouts.
Seward is a rather down on his luck character (“Just remember, who else is going to hire you?” remarks his boss), who lives alone, and forms a friendship with his neighbour Mina (Marlene Mc’Cohen) after he finds her daughter Lucy (Raelan Mackiewicz) wandering alone in the apartment car park.
But outside of their lives, pressing ever closer to Seward, is an evil presence, a vampire who hypnotises and preys on young women, finally closing in on Lucy. Seward slowly learns the nature of the vampiric threat and traces the undead to his lair, a coffin located in the city’s sewer system.
DtNAU is a pretty bold venture; shot on what looks like degraded film stock, this is far from the straightforward Stoker adaption it might seem. Schwab has done some character shifting; Seward also contains elements of the novel’s Jonathan Harker, and the director has made Mina and Lucy mother and daughter. Most of the cast are Schwab’s friends, which makes the production feel intimate, and there’s a great sotto voce score which thankfully doesn’t over intrude.
Stoker’s novel, written at a time when Britain feared the foreigner (oh how times have changed!) comes through in Schwab’s portrayal of Dracula as a dark skinned Nosferatu like figure whose influence literally decays the society in which he operates; Seward’s final explosion of violence is a direct response to evil having won the day, rendering him far less powerful than the book’s equivalent. This is a complex film which initially feels slight, shot quickly but competently and maintaining a dreamlike haze throughout. Excellent.
Bloody Flicks 