User Reviews (16)

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  • Warning: Spoilers
    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.
  • Plot: A young woman sets out to make a documentary about a group of people who spend their weekends pretending to be vampires, only she meets another woman who claims that she actually is a vampire.

    Budget: About $85.00.

    What was so horribly wrong then Smart-Guy? I think I can understand why they thought there might be a movie in this, only they forgot that in real life there is NOTHING cool about people who think that they are really vampires, not for one second. And boy does that show through here with the bunch of dickheads that play the weekend bloodsuckers.

    The lesbian vampire angle (always) shows promise, and there is some T&A, but now two weeks on I battle to recall anything about this flick. It is so lightweight and yawn-worthy in its own indie little way that they forgot to make anything interesting.

    Also, I have two words if you desperately need to see the lesbian bits, p & orn.

    I have actually seen worse than this, but then I absolutely hated those films too, so that is faint praise.

    Final Rating – 4.5 / 10. A bit of T & A can't derail this fast train to Sh*tsville.

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  • The concept is promising. As soon as it begins, the film is not.

    Even putting aside the "found footage" framing, the stylization is frankly obnoxious. This includes the shoddy camerawork, the editing, and the direction; the insistence on extra close-up shots is especially aggravating and comes off as amateurish. Dialogue and characters are at best bland if not outright annoying, and the pace is brusque and rushed. Within the first fifteen minutes we're informed of the death of "Eddie" but are given no reason to care about him, and the beat is forced onto us so quickly that other characters' mourning doesn't even feel real. To be blunt, so it goes for pretty much everything else that is to follow in the next 75 minutes: scenes that should be inspiring or titillating fall flat owing to emphatically poor and overzealous execution. 'Vampire diary' is a broadly unlikable mess.

    Would I like the cast more if I saw them in another feature? Would filmmaker Phil O'Shea, or co-director Mark James, demonstrate their capabilities elsewhere if I looked for other instances of their work? I'd like to think so. This specific movie, however, is irritating on almost every level, in almost every regard. I like the music, at least; though it's a tad overdone, I appreciate the work put in by the hair and makeup artists, and costume design. Yet these are not elements that can remotely begin to carry a picture. There are good ideas scattered throughout the length, but they feel plainly insufficient.

    So what do we have, then, in terms of value? Good ideas that aren't done well, and passable rounding details that are inconsequential in the grand scheme of things? I think I tend to be very generous and open-minded when it comes to cinema, but even I struggle to describe 'Vampire diary' as something more than Rock Bottom. The plot and scene writing somewhat improve as the length progresses, but also feel haphazard at times; in any case, it's not enough to substantively make a difference, and the title is overlong regardless. Whether you're looking for a lesbian romance, a vampire flick, or a found-footage romp, there are many more much better films you can watch, and unless you're desperate, this sadly isn't particularly worth your time. I want to say that I like it more than I do, but style overshadows substance, and the style is awful.
  • Warning: Spoilers
    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.
  • Warning: Spoilers
    Holly is doing a low-budget documentary about the Goth scene in London, UK, and in particular about faux vampires. She meets Vicki, who claims to be a supernatural being, a 'real' vampire.

    On that note, is Vicki just another Goth cosplay enthusiast? If so, this looks like a psychological drama, not horror. If not, then how much of reality are we expected to ignore to embrace the film?

    Someone (who else...) kills Eddie early on. Holly and Vicki record the reactions to his death by substantial exsanguination.

    Holly and Vicki start their lesbian relationship, which is, not surprisingly, neither believable nor interesting nor titillating. It is, however, out of focus, out of frame, low on contrast, low on color saturation. It is rather emblematic of the film as a whole: dreary and non-engaging.

    Brad disappears from the Goth scene; some weak indicators point to Vicki. Vicki shows Holly a tape of her killing Brad. Holly helps Vicki with the problem.

    The discussion of what 'real' vampires are like was boring, over long, and not believable.

    Holly tries to find a way for Vicki to survive without killing people. Surprise. This fails.

    Vicki came to Holly already pregnant by a male vampire. The gestation and the police investigation consume the rest of the film.

    ------Scores------

    Cinematography: 0/10 Hand-held badness in the style of Blair Witch. Almost everything that can be done wrong with a video camera was done in this film. The dueling feeds from two different very-low-quality hand-held cameras (Holly's and Vicki's) was amusing for a good 8 or 9 seconds. After that, it was just one more constant nuisance in this train wreck.

    Sound: 4/10 Mixed bag. Sometimes in sync with visuals, other times not. Horrid incidental music.

    Acting: 4/10 Not too bad on the face of it. Actors hit their marks and read their lines. Still, nothing is memorable about it because no actors were engaging. This is more about delusional idiots posturing for one another, not about character motivation, or exposition of why certain events happened.

    Screenplay: 2/10 Twenty minutes of plot stretched out to 89 minutes. This film has the indie look of keeping whatever footage is recorded, then putting it together in post. A lot of the footage (particularly at club scenes and some party scenes) does nothing to advance the narrative and does nothing toward explaining character actions.
  • Warning: Spoilers
    This is one of the worst movies I've ever seen. First of all It' as about a lesbian vampire. That alone turns me off to watching it. I haven't even seen the entire thing but I can tell you that it's in documentary real video form. This vampire gets pregnant because she gets raped. First of all Vampires are supposed to be non living beings...they aren't supposed to be able to conceive. The acting is terrible and the actresses are so ugly I can barely stand to look at them. Any person who calls this film "brilliant" has issues. Don't waste your time. You will be terribly disappointed. I truly feel sorry for anyone who has had the misfortune to have watched this 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 :)
  • Warning: Spoilers
    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.
  • So, there has been this vampire thing going on for some time. Vampire clubs, vampire clothes, vampire movies, vampire this, vampire that. Largely drawn to by young people apparently between the age of fascination and hero worship. After watching this movie I found it so sad that so much of this seems to be nothing but the product of 90 plus years of intense and evolving entertainment. Radio, books, movies, television... all growing increasingly more sophisticated as the decades pass. Couple that with an era in human history never before experienced, at least as far as the industrialized western world is concerned where wealth, modernization, and more time to entertain ourselves and in almost any way we can imagine has done more to stunt our evolution than help it. People so lost, bored, confused, over-comfortable, and with far more choices of everything imaginable than any generation has ever had.

    How does a phenomenon such as this where people begin to idolize, romanticize and fantasize about being vampires? Worse yet, of all things to be drawn to, the human spirit is drawn to the cruelest and most based creatures. Are they evil, or are they just surviving like any other animal? Does that question even matter? Are we really thinking existentially about the basic necessity of survival on such an animalistic level? As if it is required still? Or is it all the drama, the fantasy of preternaturalism that goes along with it. The anti-superhero fetish.

    Why, after so long the idea of striving to evolve along the paths of compassion, generosity, kindness, etc., do we still romanticize ruthless killing for survival wrapped up in an aura of darkness, evil, cruelty, demons, etc? Why is that so big a draw to people? So much so, that even in this era to try to be kind or compassionate or even sincerely happy is too often seen as weakness, goody two-shoes, or a sign of mental deficiency.

    It really makes me wonder just how much time we have left as a species, so bent on our own destruction that we are taking the whole lot down with us. For all those centuries of philosophical and religious arguing in favor of the idea that the basic nature of man is good... I've come to the conclusion that argument is piffle. Sure, there are those out there who do strive for such things, but just like the wise, they are few and far between. The vast number of us, the whole of humanity is nothing more than barely more than animals, except that animals kill to survive not by choice, we do it entirely by choice. Worse is that we don't have to. Whether it is actual killing, or doing anything to achieve, or gain, or draw to us whatever our cold little hearts desire and doing so in any way possible. Sometimes choosing the cruel ways entirely when it isn't even necessary. Call that mental illness if you need an excuse. Then think about your own actions, who you vote for, your willingness to cut the feet out from someone else if necessary to keep your house, your cars, your clothes, your toys. Then tell me how pious even you are.

    After seeing this ridiculous excuse for what some consider deep, or experimental, I am certain now more than ever than we as a species are indeed no better than a virus. Vampires in our own right, except with out all the glamor, black clothes, and eye liner. And no matter how sophisticated our toys may seem, no matter how they may give us the illusion we are an evolved and evolving species, they're nothing but just that. An illusion. It's all just stuff. With them, we're still animals bent on our own wants and needs over others. Without them, we would revert to killing each-other wantonly for just the basics in a heartbeat.
  • The words "lesbian vampire" bring to mind either the incoherently stylish Jess Franco/Jean Rollin 70's stuff or the modern softcore associated with Misty Mundae, Darian Caine, et al. But it would be unfair to categorize "Vampire Diary" as either, because the sexual orientation of the leads is not the main point of the film, but the intense passion that develops between them, and the lengths a person will go to in order to protect a loved one. Sure, it's not a perfect film (even at eighty-something minutes it drags at some points), but much to my surprise, "Vampire Diary" turned out to be a thoughtful, well-acted drama with supernatural overtones that might go the usual "vampirism as addiction" route we've seen before, but does it with a raw and sincere emotion, intensified by the DIY photography (videography?), that will undoubtedly be compared with the recent wave of mockumentary shot-on-video horror films (from the awesome "Cloverfield" to the genuinely terrifying Spanish flick "REC"). Granted, this pseudo-verité style is not for all tastes, but for those tired of the same direct-to-DVD zombie drivel, "Vampire Diary" will be a welcome relief and a cool breath of fresh air for the genre. I'm an avid fan of direct-to-DVD horror films (for better or for worse), and this is exactly the kind of film that feels like a reward after plowing through release after release of mercenary independent films done without passion or vision, just scraping for some loose change associated with the latest film trend. So, believe me when I tell you that there are _lots_ of worse movies in which you could invest an hour and a half, and not find even a fraction of the artistry, drama or just plain coolness of "Vampire Diary". And, goes without saying, the movie will be especially relevant to those "Goth" kids that take the role playing game "Vampire - The Masquerade" way too seriously.
  • It's true, it's true, this film IS truly remarkable. Rarely can an independantly made film be utterly devoid of original content in every single facet. To make films takes time, care patiance, love and commitmant, and I have no doubt to make this the filmmakers had all these things. Sadly they left talent at the door.

    Cheesy, trite, lacking in pace and drama. I am genuinely struggling to think of any part of this movie that deserves praise- and i have sat through Manos: The Hands Of Fate. I would add this though; I paid to see a preview screening of this film last year. It was at midnight in an independent cinema. Anyone there must love horror films to go so out of their way to see this thing. The audience laughed at the 'serious' moments and coughed at the end rather than applaud.... and all of this whils the director and some of the cast were present. Being English, it really says something when we can't even be bothered to be polite.
  • This film should be very average, it is massively derivative and amateurish - BUT it is in fact excellent as both a Vampire horror and as a Lesbian romance. The rawness of the direction is in fact a huge plus and combines Jose Ramon Larraz's 'Vampyres' and 'The Blair Witch Project' transposed to an urban setting. The conceit of using the documentary-making format is trotted out again so that amateur acting can be passed off as realism. And yet - the energy and enthusiasm of cast and crew carry the film along to its satisfying conclusion. One can only hope that when or if this gets a release in the USA it is not censored out of existence.
  • maxscene-111 February 2008
    Warning: Spoilers
    Just caught Vampire Diary at a friend's house video projected on the garage wall at a party – Its pretty cool! We weren't expecting much more than a lesbian vampire flick but actually it was a bit of a surprise - edgy weird and scary – Don't expect any expensive effects - instead you get the feeling you're with real people in a real situation. Its a bit arty but there are plenty of shocks and blood! It takes a little time to understand quite where it's coming from but if you think Blair Witch with Vampires you won't go too far wrong. Vampire Diary is shot as if by Holly a documentary filmmaker exploring the 'weekend vampire' scene. It's a clever use of POV – or Point of View – just like in Blair Witch and even the new film Cloverfield. It means the films a bit slow in parts – as the camera is just put down and shoots whatever is happening! It works well though and gives the whole film a kind of 'home movie on acid' feel! Its quite spooky in parts too. Holly encounters Vicki - the stunning Anna Walton who is nothing like the other 'week-enders.' In fact she quickly shows disturbing signs that she is a real vampire! Despite this she and Holly fall for each other as Holly's friends start to disappear. Then Vicki has a big surprise for Holly and they go on the run! The ending is pretty out there – but there's lots of great Goth - rock music by bands like Interlock, Fields of the Nephilim, NFD, and others. (Someone should release a soundtrack CD??) With Anna Walton about to appear in Hellboy II and Mutant Chronicles - Vampire Diary is maybe set to be a cult classic!
  • Many people have addictions; food, alcohol, drugs, or other ungainly habits. Welcome to Vicki's world as a vampire and her addiction to blood. When I watched this film, I felt her pain as her addiction to blood may be different than the norm, yet perhaps not too far away from anyone else that suffers from unstoppable urges to do what we shouldn't. Watch this brilliant film and learn how to appreciate being human and have empathy for someone who struggles to do what is right under impossible circumstances. Contains a good mix of chilling, passionate, and humorous scenes from beginning to end with the beautiful Anna Walton leading the way.
  • Vampire Diary is a great movie considering what it is--the story of a group of 'weekend vampires' and a woman with a habit of recording everything who meet a female vampire by pure chance. Prepare for an unexpected love quadrangle, some interesting lore on vampires, and great use of found footage.

    My only complaint lies in a scene towards the end during which one of the weekend vampires' lines were corny (writing) and poorly delivered (acting, directing).

    One thing I especially like about Vampire Diary is that the first thirty minutes make a wonderful short story. I almost wished it ended at the water scene simply because of how great the movie was by that point. So, there you go. Give the first thirty minutes a shot. If you find yourself caring about the characters or interested in seeing what happens next, continue on for the remaining hour.
  • I found this movie to be quite good. Wasn't expecting much from it with some of the other reviews, but I was surprised. It was clever in its filming approach and different in its presentation and perspective. I enjoyed the "documentary" style approach immensely as it kept the characters alive - the ones that lived anyway. It also kept scenes that could have been over the top gory shaded and less intense. The dark soundtrack kept in step with the film as well. Same old story here (in a sense), but done in a completely different fashion. I enjoyed the characters though many reviewers called them, for lack of a better term, wanna-be vampires. Myself, I found their characterizations well done seeing that their fascination with the vampire world was similar to those who might attend Star Trek conventions in costume. If you have any doubts about this movie, I would say to give it a try.