Review of Vampire Journals

Two ancient vampires, one a dour self-loathing hunter of his fellow undead, the other a powerfully suave and charming lord who ruthlessly commands his backstabbing underlings in the casino/brothel that he's also made his lair, and the two of them cross paths when Ash "The music lover" is enchanted by an innocent young talented pianist and begins to claim her as his own, and Zachary the world-weary hunter fights to save her soul before it's too late and, like him, she is forever shrouded in darkness!!! I was always rather taken with this movie, it's apparently a kind of spin-off of the Subspecies series, but that's practically in name only because it's a lot slower and a lot less gorily violent, and the cool collected vampiric schemers of this movie are nothing at all like the awesomely craven subhuman menace of Radu. This is a very sombre-toned and dramatic story, it almost feels like an elaborate stage play at times! It's very slow burning and narration and dialogue heavy, with the main bulk of the 'action' being what I found from the first time I saw it to be very well-written and engagingly spoken weighty monologue exchanges between the characters, which I thought just worked tremendously well and I found it all to be some very absorbing classy wordplay, and I think telling most of the story in that way helped to make up for the fairly obvious budgetary limitations and also helped to fuel the basic imagination of the enchantingly Gothic and doom-laden story, and the dialogue and narration also gives it a nice storytelling edge that plays into the journals aspect of the title. It's a little picture that's clearly designed to be something that very much plays up to that very classical and romantic faded grandeur image of vampires, while still keeping that vital macabre element of them intact, not that there's too much blood to be seen in it.. You can tell it was put together by someone with a real love for the kind of old style lore and pathos of vampires that most modern bloodsucker movies seem to leave out altogether in favour of vapid teen girl crowd pleasing fare.. Some may find it boring, I find it highly intriguing. I think the slow pace works to make the small story feel more well realised and fleshed-out, as well as the characters. And I just plain love and get a big kick out of that atmosphere and tone, which is excellently sustained throughout. So its duels are mainly of sophistication and exchanges of bitter dramatic venom and matched wits, rather than sword to sword, although there is a little of that towards the end! It's visuals are hauntingly beautiful, with all the 'classic' extravagant surroundings you'd expect from a den of the swarthy vampire damned, like marble staircases, red velvet curtains, and candlelit chandeliers, it's very thematically rich and the lavish Gothic surroundings and the characters complement each other, with the beautiful dusky shots of faded light and deep shadows enriching the supernatural nature and dark gravitas of the vampires, even if outwardly they don't differ too much from regular humans. The monologues are often eye-rollingly dramatic, but to me that's part of the charm too, all the actors take everything all super-seriously and play their parts to a tee. David Gunn as Zachary is good but he isn't nearly as magnetic or fun to watch as Jonathan Morris as Ash is. In fact the cadaverous-looking 'saviour' of the movie is actually more menacing and scary than the villain! And Morris to me was the best thing about this movie and was fantastic to watch with his gentlemanly yet commanding manner, and his resonant deep master's voice! His acting was top notch, and he played such a razor sharp likable bad guy that you really didn't want to see lose! Llinca Goia was also rather terrific as the beautiful and vicious little witch who was once Ash's favourite concubine and who yearns to hunt with reckless abandon through the night world over which her kind once reigned supreme! Her jet black hair and sly playfully predatory attitude and wardrobe really make her one of the most perfectly realised little vampire-eses to ever appear in a movie. It's too bad this flick was never expanded on in a sequel whereas Evil Bong vs Gingerdead Man is given the go ahead, because if it had been of this quality then I for one would have been very interested to see what they did next with it. So, probably not a great movie, but to me definitely a great vampire movie, if that makes sense! To me Vampire Journals is definitely one of those more underrated gems from the older Full Moon back catalogue and a much richer and satisfying watch than you may expect and one vampire movie that's very much worth seeing. X