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so if you watch horror on tubitv you're probably aware of this movie. it's just 70 minutes, it's a vampire movie, it's gay, it's TV-MA, i gave it a shot this week.
so. if you don't know me, hi, i'm sol, i like women and vampires. i watch and write about lesbian vampire movies (mostly 70s sexploitation) as a hobby.
https://solflo.neocities.org/lesbianvampires.html
now, i recognize i'm kinda comparing apples and oranges here, but hey, they're both fruits!
tl;dr: all bad parts of a porno and none of the good ones
plot summary: caleb (looks like the platonic ideal of early 2010s fictional twink) moves to california for uni. jasin is a vampire nearing his 100th year, and he and his coven will die if he doesn't find "the one" and transform them into a vampire soon. well luckily it all works out for everyone. that's it that's the movie.
so the plot is flimsy. i'm kinda used to it. how does it fare on the most important departments of all — sex and violence?
well, bad. there's no sex (or even more than torso nudity. although there is a lot of torso nudity. put some hair on those beasts), and maybe two or three brief violent scenes. there's enough blood to fill perhaps a regular glass. i don't bregrudge small budgets at all, but there's vampire up there in the title. we only get the boys. and they're not even fucking or anything.
so why the mature rating? what sets it apart from "twilight"? well, there's a somewhat random scene where a woman, her boyfriend and a mutual friend are like. in a random field. and she says like "well let's have a threesome but you two have to strip and make out first", and we see their flaccid dicks for a sec. and then they get killed by the vampires.
i bring this up not only because i care about sex in vampire movies, but because this scene i think perhaps sums up who i thought this movie was for: cishet girls who read yaoi fanfic in 8th grade. except then i found out the director is a guy. but like. it's so sexless, the men so bland (it's not just me being a dyke i prommy). so my second explanation is putting the blame on the year being 2011.
the movie has an art direction. i can only describe it as "twilight (2008) in the major scale". "twilight" is aggressively blue and cold (complimentary!), "vampire boys" is bright and yellowish. some scenes have a lot of bloom, which i've been digging recently. but paired with the ken doll looking men, lack of chemistry, boring locations, and what feels like a general disinterest in framing / making aesthetic choices... it just looks like someone went ham in post. it's so different from the 70s movies i'm used to.
i think part of it can be blamed on the nature of digital filmmaking, part on the fact that europe just has a lot more scenic locations like castles and shit. i do hold it against the movie though, because it means there's nothing redeeming it in my eyes lmao
uh so looking at the movie on imdb, there seems to be a bunch of trash gay horror from this dark era of aesthetic culture? they seem to be going for the same kind of ken looking smooth hairless guys too. so i wonder, is this a whole thing. i guess people found this hot even? much to think about. i won't be digging into them because they sound pretty unappealing, but i am rather curious. the figure of the vampire is such an established sex symbol that making it sexless and sterile like that while pretending it's sexy should be harder than just making it seductive. and yet.