The classic high school
drama set up is complete with Stanley’s crush, Roxy (Sofia Happonen) who just
happens to be involved romantically with Stanley’s bully Marble (Chris
Petrovski). Unfortunately, the characters do not branch out much further from
these stereotypical roles. There is very little done to characterize anyone
visually, as most of it is done with expositional dialogue. Most characters do
not have much of an arc, and mostly act from a predictable motivation
throughout. Dommer wants revenge on the bullies and attempts to use the vampire
to do so. Stanley is simply trying to not go back to the orphanage, and the
bullies are trying to terrorize and poke fun at the main characters. This doesn’t
change much throughout the film.
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| image courtesy Shudder |
There are also threats that are set up that do not go anywhere. Near the beginning of the movie, Stanley has a run in with Sheriff Dorney (Siobhan Fallon Hogan) and Deputy Haiser (Mu-Shaka Benson). Sheriff Dorney is relatively nice and helpful to Stanley, even saying that he just needs a break, while Deputy Haiser is much more aggressive, telling Stanley that if he steps out of line once, he will put him in jail. It was a surprise then that Deputy Haiser never appears in the movie after this one scene, and Sheriff Dorney becomes much more of a threat to Stanley. Setting up threats that go nowhere gave the movie a looser feeling, as if threads were dropped or forgotten somewhere.
One aspect that I did
appreciate was the emo-punk vibe that certain aspects of the movie brought on.
Stanley’s music choice, apart from the worst cover of House of the Rising
Sun ever, made the movie really feel like an edgy teen was the star. His
room and costumes fit the vibe as well, a smart choice that made the movie feel
more teenage angst driven, rather than vampire driven.
Despite these choices,
there was much more that disappointed me about this film. The horror relied
heavily on jump scares, which after the first several became very dull. The
jump scares were set up in predictable ways as well. There are several dream
sequences marked by a shift in coloration on screen which often ended in a jump
scare, and some dream sequences were layered to get two scares out of the same
scene. An over reliance on jump scares that do not advance the plot forward
have always come across as lazy, and typically have diminishing returns on
fear. After the first several you start to expect it and listen for the audio
or visual cues that one is coming, spoiling the effect.
This may be a miss, but
it could serve as an easy watch during these 31 days of hell.
-Patrick Bernas
