Bloodthirst is a post-apocalyptic vampire western horror that reminded me a lot of Stake Land in quite a few ways, albeit a more indie version of that classic. Directed by Michael Su (Night of the Tommyknockers, Bridge of the Doomed), this may not win too many points for originality, but it does score them for how much of an entertaining time it was watching this.
This takes place in a post-apocalyptic world in which humans struggle to survive, Whether it was caused by them or not it is never established, but vampires have benefitted by this breakdown in law and order and now rule the wastelands of America. Costas Mandylor (Death Count, the Saw series) stars as John Shepard, a vampire hunter who is on a driven mission to defeat the evil Master (Robert LaSardo - Amber Road, Attack of the Unknown), believing with the death of this evil leader of the vampires, that peace will come to the wastelands.
It is always good to see LaSardo in film roles as he rarely disappoints, here as the antagonist he was on fine form, though him and his inner circle spend much of the film hanging out and feeding on weak humans rather than doing anything too evil. The vampires of Bloodthirst in some ways are familiar, in others slightly different. Garlic is shown to only affect the recently turned for instance, while crucifixes only work if the wielder truly believes in God, something that is increasingly rare in the bleak post-apocalypse world. Sunlight also appears to be an inconvenience rather than something deadly, vampires can go out during the day, though have to wear thick goggles and cloaks to protect against the sun's rays. With their distinctive bone white look, the vampires stood out, with many featured in the movie, including Tara Reid (Art of the Dead, Bus Party to Hell) as the vampire queen. These villains are monstrously evil, seeing humans as undeserving of pity, but even they seem aware that there is a finite amount of humans left in the world, with them always thirsty for blood (you could say they have quite the Bloodthirst). My only real problem with these characters was the distorted voice effect used on them, I found LaSardo's altered voice in particular to sometimes be hard to understand.
On the human side of the cast, there was a good amount of characters, both with the people who join Shepard on his quest, and a sizeable number of militia men who are hired to help the hunter locate the master. Johnny Huang (Fear the Walking Dead uncredited, Attack of the Unknown) played comic relief Charlie, Rich R. Rendon (Bridge of the Doomed, Attack of the Unknown) played the honourable biker Rico , with Sarah French (Bermuda Island, Death Count) and Elissa Dowling (Don't Kill It, Whispers) as two vengeful sisters.
There was plenty of action throughout, with several battles against the undead, including a chaotic three way battle towards the film's conclusion. Being vampires, normal gunfire doesn't have much effect on them, with gunfire not even damaging the clothing, something that was probably ignored to save on budget. At times there was a feeling of Mad Max to these encounters, especially one mid-film scene that had Rico and one of the sisters encountering the blood suckers out on a dusty road. There were many scenes of vampires biting down on people's necks, and fake blood wasn't skimped on, often leaving the vampires faces covered in the stuff. I thought that the crossbow bolts that Shepard fired could have been bigger, as often it was hard to spot the tiny bolts once they had been fired into people.
While not the most original of films, I found Bloodthirst to be ambitious with the plain story it was telling, and more importantly it was fun, with action never too far around the corner. When the end credits came up and it confidently announces that John Shepard would return in Bloodthirst 2, I found myself excited to see the further adventures of this somewhat stereotypical vampire hunter. Bloodthirst released October 31st on VOD/DVD via Lionsgate.
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