Strange Blood

Director - Chad Michael Ward
Starring - Robert Brettenaugh (Dead of Night), Alexandra Bard (Red Ice), and James Adam Lim (The Evil Inside)
Release Date - 2015
Genre - Horror/Sci-Fi
Tagline - "Fear the cure"
Format - DVD (Personal Collection) (Screener)

Rating (out of 5):

     When I was younger I loved a good vampire film.  Being born in 86 was the perfect time to roll into the vampire films of the time.  When I was 7 or so the VHS boom was in full force and I was consistently renting vampire films when I wasn't in the mood for other films.  The movies Fright Night, The Lost Boys, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Children of the Night were some of my favorite films to rent.  Vampires was still a sub-genre I loved until today but that has changed with the change of pace vampire films has went through with the release of the Twilight Saga turning them into another romantic staple.  Recently, I was sent info on the upcoming vampire film titled Strange Blood.  This one really intrigued me so I reached out for a review copy and they were kind enough to send me a review copy.

     The film begins with Detective Song (Lim) as he interrogates the beautiful Gemma (Bard).  He is showing her photos of dismembered bodies  when he starts to ask her some questions.  We then learn that she was an assistant to Henry.  Henry was a scientist who was searching for a cure to end all sickness.  He has created a small creature and injected it with every known disease and ailment as a way to come up with a cure.  What he did not count on was the creature developing a defense mechanism and shooting spikes into his hand when he tried to draw blood from it.  He is fine as first but over time he starts to become sick and craves blood.  He starts killing other people but finally sets his sights on Gemma where he infects her before setting himself on fire.
     I miss the days when vampire films were story rich and depicted the vampires as real monsters and not just blood-thirsty pretty boys.  The best vampire films relied on story and not the vampires themselves.  For most, the vampires were just the icing on the cake.  Strange Blood takes us to a time when the story was the focal point of the film with the vampire/vampires coming in second.  The acting in this one is perfect.  The chemistry between Brettenaugh and Bard is perfect and the film hinged on that.  The two are together almost 90% of the time so any unnatural interactions would have ruined the film.  These two feed well off each other and it would be a damn shame if they do not work together soon.  The story for this one is a rather unique spin on the vampire sub-genre.  The idea of a man creating life only to be portrayed by the creature and turned into a child of the night is pretty fucking poetic.  Sadly, there is several scenes that are not crucial to the plot that just seem to drag on and on.  Originality somewhat took the backseat while dialogue rich scenes stole the show resulting in a film that is slow to watch at times.  This somewhat ruins what could have been an amazing film that is extremely dark and story rich.  Finally, the film does have a few on screen kills but they are nothing that impressive.  With a story like this I would expect some very unique vampire kills but those were not given to us.  Overall, Strange Blood is a very unique film that has the story and cast but lost something during the execution.  This one deserves a watch!