Intense, gripping, stylish and poignant

Dreadfully Boring

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

I usually enjoy anything with vampires and zombies in it - this was the exception. The story is not very interesting, and the central theme about dependency and vampire-human relationships was better explored in Let the Right One in.It all feels very small which I suppose reflects the fact that one of the main characters is supposed to be making a documentary about weekend vampires. Still, small locations, small cast, small number of ideas.The acting is not too bad, but there is just too little to work with. For instance, a fairly intense and straight-laced young woman (albeit the product of a troubled youth) suddenly becomes a serial killing accomplice as a result of her passion for a lesbian vampire. Just doesn't work - no soul searching just a total and immediate commitment to murder.It is sexy though, so if this is a priority for you then you might enjoy it. Not for me though... My copy will be finding a new home :)

When I got this movie around 2 years ago, I took a peak, and after seeing how cheap it was filmed, I needed 2 years to finally give it a chance, and watch it. And I have to say, I expected even worse by how low budget this must have been. They got out a lot of their cheap equipment. Some pictures have been really nice (a lot haven't been though). I might have enjoyed this movie, if only the story would have made any sense, if actors would have been better, if the characters would have been interesting, etc., etc.. **** Spoiler-alert****:The worst for me has been the idea of a vampire being pregnant and having a vampire baby. Alone this idea ridiculed the whole movie for me. The absolute climax of ridiculousness was, when one of the girls cuts open both of her writs and kills herself, to spend blood for the vampire baby. Because she is a wannabe vampire, and a newly born vampire is something absolutely special.... I needed to laugh in pain. And by remembering this idea, I have the urge to rate the movie with 1 point. I leave it at 3 points for the nice atmosphere and because this is an independent movie and it deserves some respect for that.

This is a decent piece of entertainment that manages to overcome moral idiocy and painfully clichéd "real video" film-making through brevity, hot sex scenes and creative implied violence.Holly (Morven Macbeth) is a young woman making a documentary about the so-called "weekend vampire" subculture in England. Her work consists of taking a single camera and following 4 goth friends around as they dress up and play at being technomusic bloodsuckers. The story sets up these 4 friends as important but then almost completely disregards them as Holly meets a mysterious young woman named Vicki (Anne Walton). Vicky has her own video camera and films Holly just as Holly films everyone else. Holly lets this attractive stranger stay at her apartment when she has no where else to go and the two of them end up in some spicy girl-on-girl action. Their attraction turns out to be more than physical and Holly starts to worry about where Vicki goes when she leaves the apartment in the middle of the night. It turns out Holly is worried about the wrong person getting hurt, because Vicky is a real vampire. She doesn't turn into a bat and isn't afraid of garlic or sunlight, but Vicki does need blood to survive. Holly helps her get that blood, even after she finds out that Vicki had killed two of the goth friends from the start of the film. But when Vicki announces she's pregnant with a vampire baby and her bloodlust is increasing because of it, our lovers are forced into more and more extreme acts.Let me start off with the significant negatives of Vampire Diary. This movie is done "real video" style with everything being either by Holly's camera or Vicki's camera and it gets annoying in very short order. Beyond the fact that "real video" pseudodocumentaries have been done to death, this movie doesn't even use the technique for any particular purpose. The pretenses of the documentary are abandoned early on and it just becomes two young women who film each other for no reasonable purpose. But after it stops being a documentary, the movie throws in a bunch of stuff like news reports, montages and even flashbacks that make no sense if it's just two people with cameras recording themselves. And then at the end of the film they just throw all the "real video" rules out the window and the camera starts zooming in when no one's operating it and other impossible things. Vampire Diary would have been much better if it had just been shot like a normal movie. These filmmakers clearly have the talent and skill to do that and it would have spared the audience all of the contrived crap.The other problem with Vampire Diary is that it never seems to quite understand why killing people is bad. There are a few moments when Holly feebly objects to Vicki's slaughter, but there are no lasting emotional or moral consequences to the murders. By downplaying that, though, the film undercuts all the tension and suspense that's supposed to be generated by the killing. Instead of it being a case where Holly's resistance to Vicki's nature is gradually broken down over time, she just switches from being bothered by murder to being okay with murder whenever it suits the Almighty Plot Hammer.Most films with two such flaws would suck fairly hard. Vampire Diary manages to still be watchable thanks to three main factors. It's very fast paced, Anne Walton and Morven Macbeth are good actresses who look really good naked and filmmakers Mark Jones and Phil O'Shea have some genuine talent. Once you get past the "real video" contrivances, they come up with some nice imagery and scenes that are well staged and well paced.If Vampire Diary had dispensed with the "real video" nonsense and included some sort of moral center, it would be a very good film. As it is, Vampire Diary is a problematic film that's several steps above most low budget cinema. If you're a vampire fan, particularly a fan of lesbian bloodsuckers, you'll probably like it. If that's not your cup of tea, you might still enjoy it as a promising bit of film-making.

I saw this movie at the NFT in London. It was packed. It is set among the young people of the neo vampire Goth scene of London. They listen to Fields of the Nephilim, wear fangs and heavy make up, it's all deliciously decadent and trendy. Some of them exchange blood. It's all good except that among the crowd, lives a real vampire. She seduces a girl of the gang and uses her blood to feed the baby vampire she is expecting. Rosemary's baby is a vampire... But the vampire's fresh blood needs exceed what her poor exhausted human Goth lover can provide... The vampire has to go out on the streets hunting for human preys. She uses a butcher gun to slaughter her victims and soon becomes the most sought after serial killer in the UK... The film introduces a modern day Vampirella, in hiding among the humans, where no one can spot her: within the Goth crowd. A clever concept, a solid story, well shot. Pretty girls, lots of blood. Instant cult.