Blood Ransom

- By @TheBlueTook

Stories of age-old vampires and great, sweeping romances, in all their various formats, are often intertwined. In fact, it’s usually a given these days that every immortal bloodsucker has an unsatisfied bit of crumpet moping about the place. Even some of my favourite films as a kid used ‘The Love Interest‘ to muddy the waters, such as The Lost Boys and Fright Night, without damaging their integrity with the ‘horror camp’, expertly balancing themselves to maintain their appeal – even throwing comedy into the mix for good measure. The key to mastering all of this, in my humble opinion, is the people in charge knowing exactly what audience they want to hit from minute one, otherwise, it may fail to reach any.

BLOOD RANSOM aims to be a more serious vampire flick - seemingly trying to blend Stephenie Meyer’s take on the genre with some of its own unique ideas - about newly be-fanged beauty Crystal (Anne Curtis), tangled in a love triangle with her wicked creator Roman (Caleb Hunt) and mortal heart-throb Jeremiah (Alexander Dreymon). Whether you’re a fan of Twilight or not, it succeeded by marrying together a Dawson’s Creek-style teen drama and a catwalk cast, with the ‘horror’ element merely an undercurrent for the bulk of its runtime – a Taylor Lautner-shaped stake driven right into the hearts and eyes of impressionable, hormonal high-schoolers across the globe! Shite? Maybe. Effective? Most fucking definitely!

Filipino American writer/director Francis dela Torre certainly has potential. His style and colour use here, alongside some excellent cinematography (co-created by Jasmin Kuhn), means BLOOD RANSOM looks beautiful, with certain shots conjuring a Byzantium vibe (which is still pretty fresh in my mind, considering I only watched it on Sunday!). He is ambitious in his attempts to knit several character plots and sub-plots together, and even does his best to switch some of the undead’s most notorious traits around; the pre-credits text explaining how the film’s theories on vampirism are different from what we are frequently told – some work, some don’t – but while this ‘summarising’ technique may be down to budget restraints, it results in promising ideas being mostly lost and almost instantly forgotten about. From this point, we are then thrown straight into the middle of the story, told from the perspective of policeman Oliver (Dion Basco), but without the benefits of character backstories, leaving me feeling somewhat detached before we’ve even begun.

Making her American movie debut, Filipino national sweetheart Anne Curtis doesn’t do herself any harm here, portraying the necessary vulnerability to make her character’s plight believable. Although at times the film seems like merely a vehicle to boost her overseas portfolio, the performances of others don’t seem to suffer, and as a whole, the cast do their best to shrug off glaring stereotypes and remain engaging. Plus, there’s enough eye-candy here to keep you watching, should that be your draw.

In some ways, BLOOD RANSOM is slightly confused by what it wants to be, resulting in a film that occasionally seems misdirected and jumbled, but it gave me enough to keep a keen eye on Francis dela Torre’s future projects. While this particular yarn is caught in the middle ground between several ideas, focussing his talents solely on one genre may see him STAKING his claim for higher praise. (GET IT?!!….. I’ll get my coat)

@TheBlueTook