Creatures of War #8: Blood Vessel (2019)

Great titles, unhorny vampires, and Hemlock Grove catches strays

Ahoy there!

This section is just me crying about my personal life so feel free to skip down to the actual review.

Anyway, I have completed 2 weeks at my new job in my new city. Yay? I know most people don’t work their dream job, but my last job was literally my dream job. I was making almost no money and commuting 2 hours each way every day, but it was still the happiest I had ever been. I got laid off very suddenly due to uncontrollable circumstances, and I spent months looking for similar positions. Unfortunately, I worked in a very niche creative field so it was just not working out. I now have an office job and while I like it so far, I am fighting the feelings of failure. Most importantly, the local movie theater is a hassle to get to. With some of my most anticipated movies releasing right around the corner (Longlegs!!!!), I’m sad I may have to miss them. I feel complicit in the slow death of movie theaters by always waiting for streaming, but it’s probably going to be my norm now.

Review

A movie about vampires on a boat being called Blood Vessel? Obsessed. Perfect title. No notes.

Near the end of WWII, survivors of a German attack are drifting on a lifeboat. Their salvation comes in the form of a seemingly empty German ship, but there may be something even more dangerous than Nazis on the boat.

To be honest, what I liked most about Blood Vessel was the color saturation. The red glow and blue lights really popped. For a low-budget movie, I thought it looked really good. The cast does a decent job, partially Alyssa Sutherland (who also killed it in the Evil Dead reboot last year). The practical effects were the real star of the film, and while I wasn’t initially a fan of the monster design (see below), I came around to it in the end. This is my first WWII vampire movie, and I gotta say I think we could do with some more. Zombies are getting a little tired, toss some bloodsuckers in there!

My only real issue with Blood Vessel is that despite the fun idea, it’s forgettable. I enjoyed it, but it didn’t really resonate with me. Despite the fangs, it lacked the bite. A mediocre movie to me, but I can see some people really clicking with it. It’s very reminiscent of the haunted ship movies that came before it (Ghost Ship and Death Ship), but Blood Vessel definitely won the name game here.

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Monsterfucker?

Intially I didn’t like the vampire design in Blood Vessel and had a hard time pinpointing why. The practical effects were well done and it was a unique vision, but then it hit me, they weren’t hot. While I didn’t find them scary (honestly they were kinda cute), they were designed to be monstrous, not alluring. I love a really grotesque freak, but I want my vampires to have some sex appeal.

Vampires are often depicted as metaphors for, or in conjunction with, repressed sexuality and lust. Classic works like Dracula and Carmilla, as well as more modern books like Interview with the Vampire and Twilight, all depict vampires as seductive creatures. A true vampire needs desire and fear, but that’s a tricky balance.

Does anyone remember the Netflix Original show Hemlock Grove? Oh boy, I do. I will not get into my deep obsessive hatred of Hemlock Grove and the book it’s based on, but I want to highlight something the author Brian McGreevy said. He wrote a whole essay about how vampires need to be more manly and that modern media has watered them down to be emo pretty boys. McGreevy argues this by comparing vampires to a Mad Men character and his sketchy workplace behavior. With creepy quotes like:

“Men are predators at heart. Any refutation of this is also a refutation of evolution, or the common sense conclusion of observing a typical 3-year-old boy at unstructured play, his wake of destruction the envy of a Visigoth.”

and

“The only thing that has changed is permission to openly admit how unbearably hot his behavior is. Granted, along with the vampire’s emasculation, it’s no secret that this is a silly time to be a man in America.”

It’s clear McGreevy has beef with modern vampires (and HR departments), and that I would not want to be alone in a room with him.

Brian McGreevy also wants a scary but sexy vampire, but he seems to think sexy means rapey. How does he fix this supposed sin of Edward Cullen vampires? He essentially rewrites Twilight except Edward and Jacob are now in love but refuse to just kiss already (this is not how he would describe the book, but it’s certainly how I would). Netflix eventually canceled Hemlock Grove after 3 seasons, kicked it off the service, and now it’s been banished into the void of the internet. Long story short, I think making scary vampires is a hard thing to do, but not because you can’t make them rape women Brian.

You can pry my sexy emo vampires from my cold dead hands, but I appreciate Blood Vessel’s attempt at a strictly scary one.

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Land ho!

Overall, I’d recommend Blood Vessel. You won’t have a great time, but it’s certainly a fun and well-made little film. Don’t expect to be horny though.

Bonus

Instead of double-feature ideas, here are some of my favorite vampire movies¹:

• Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)

• Let the Right One In (2008)

• I Like Bats (1986)

• Vampire’s Kiss (1988)

• Underworld (2003)

• Daybreakers (2009)

• Twilight (2008) don’t—

Extra Bonus

Here are some movies I watched recently that I'd recommend:

• Lake Mungo (2008) very scary, very sad

• Tenebre (1982) the end sold me on it

• Johnny Mnemonic (1995) so cool

1. Out of fear of judgment, I have excluded The Invitation (2022), but I know in my heart it’s a perfect movie