THE V WORD

Kerry and Justin are two teenage friends who, one evening, bored of shooting monsters in "Doom 3", decide to test their courage and head to a mortuary, where Justin's cousin works, to look at the corpse of a friend who died in an accident. Upon arriving at the location, the two boys find the door open and the premises deserted, only when they catch a glimpse of the guard's corpse do they realize they are in trouble: a vampire has sneaked into the morgue in search of blood! Kerry is attacked, Justin manages to escape, but the night is still very long and eventful. "Masters of Horror" is a singular project born from the mind of Mick Garris, a director known in the horror realm mainly for the adaptations of Stephen King's novels. Garris thought of bringing together the most representative horror film directors in a project destined for cable TV Showtime and home video, the result is "Masters of Horror", a series of 13 half-hour films of 60 minutes each, each directed by a big name in genre cinema; each episode has a budget of 1.8 million dollars, the location fixed in the Canadian city of Vancouver and total creative freedom was granted to each director. The names involved in the second season of this project are: Tobe Hooper, Dario Argento, Stuart Gordon, Joe Dante, John Carpenter, John Landis, Ernest Dickerson, Brand Anderson, Tom Holland, Peter Medak, Rob Schmidt, Norio Tsuruta and Mick Garris himself. It seemed a bit strange that the "Masters of Horror" series had not yet tackled the theme of vampirism, and yet, with a bit of delay on the priority importance of the blood-sucking monster, in the third episode of the second season appear the much-loved children of the night. To bring them to the screen is Ernest Dickerson, one of the great "intruders" of this second season, a director that defining a master of horror seems frankly risky. In his directing career, Dickerson has only touched the horror genre once with the fun "Tales from the Crypt – The Knight of Evil", otherwise he has mainly worked in the world of television, directing several episodes for cult series like "E.R.", "Heroes", "C.S.I.: Miami", "Dexter". Curiously, it is from the name of a TV series that he explored that the title of this foray into "Masters of Horror" derives, namely "The L Word", a TV series similar to "Sex and the City" that provided inspiration, playing with words, to the title of this vampire episode, which in the original is "The V Word" (even if the Italian distribution deemed it appropriate to modify the title mimicking the film "V for Vendetta", while remaining consistent with the original title). With "V of Vampire" you wallow in mediocrity from all points of view, from the story to the production, without exception. The script, work of Mick Garris, has a starting point that is very close to the boisterous and simplistic atmosphere of some comics from the old E.C. comics and, consequently, to some episodes of "Tales from the Crypt", but along the way it loses that air of genuineness and attempts to explore for the umpteenth time the torment of a vampire who must fight against his nature, as if "Dracula's Daughter", "Martin", "Lost Boys", "Interview with the Vampire" and so many others had never existed. And on with the usual clichés of the rejection of human blood, the conflicted affection for family members, the search for who started the contagion, and rights on these already explored paths. The same film seems quite engaging during the first 15-20 minutes, when the director plays with simplicity and effectiveness with the atmosphere and suspense, which, although telegraphed, remains effective. Then the same story loses steam, falls into some excesses of banality, partially recovering in the finale; but overall it leaves a bitter taste. Some explicit references to the great classics of vampire cinema, such as "Nosferatu" and Browning's "Dracula", as well as some forays into splatter placed at the right moment. The two main characters of the film are played by the least interesting faces of the cast, the inexpressive Branden Nadon ("Agent Cody Banks") and Arjay Smith ("Be Kind Rewind"; "Vacancy 2 – The Beginning"), but also appear Michael Ironside ("Atto di Forza"; "Starship Troopers"), in the role of the vampire, Lynda Boyd ("The Spies"; "Final Destination 2"), in the role of Justin's mother, and Jodelle Ferland ("Silent Hill"; "Tideland"), now trapped in the role of the scream child, here in the role of Justin's sister. In short, "V of Vampire" is a little film, nothing exceptional but not that horrible episode that is often read around. Maybe changing the approach to the vampire theme and looking for something more original, something better could have been done.