Day 16 - Vampire Diary (2007)
Plaform:
Borrowed from Hoopla.
Quote:
“Look, whoever’s seeing this: Mum, Dad, what happened -- none of this had anything to do with me.”
Synopsis:
Holly is a documentarian making a film about London’s gothic neo-vampire club scene. This group of people wears fake fangs and heavy goth style as they party it up “living” like vampires in the nightclubs of the city. When Holly meets Vicky, she finds herself inexplicably drawn to the mysterious beauty, and her documentary takes a bizarre and twisted turn. Suddenly Holly’s friends and documentary subjects are turning up dead, drained of blood. Could Vicky be a real vampire?
Review:
Let’s start with the style of this movie. They film the entire production as a found footage piece through a combination of the documentary footage that Holly is filming, Vicki’s own camcorder footage (why she is filming is never explained unless it’s just so that Holly will connect with her), and news reports about the murder/suicides. Now, there are some out there who hate on found footage as a general rule of life. And there are some who have this as one of their favorite genres of film. I don’t have strong feelings one way or another, but I will say that when it’s good, it can be incredibly effective. Some good examples would be Paranormal Activity, Hell House, LLC; and the one that really started it all, The Blair Witch Project. Those who hate found footage will still point to these as terrible, but I argue that whether you like the style or not, these films made good use of the concept and told the stories in this format well, even if they don’t hold up on multiple watching because they lose that appeal. However, when found footage is bad, it’s REALLY bad. Clover Field is an example of bad found footage. It could have been very cool, but the camera is so shaky that it’s impossible to take in the scene to experience what it might be like from that POV, which I would argue is the best thing that found footage has going for it. Unfortunately, Vampire Diary falls into the bad found footage category. It starts strong with the documentary aspect, but once they get into the vampire antics it gets ridiculous. Cameras are shooting from angles and at things that make no sense. At one point Holly goes to watch a tape that Vicky gave her of one of Vicky’s victims. So we have in that scene, Vicky’s tape being played, Holly filming the tape being played, and for some reason that makes no sense, Holly has set up a camera to record her reaction to watching Vicky’s tape! When it comes to using this found footage concept, Halloween: Resurrection is a better example than this movie is.
Now as for the story telling, they have a cool concept. Someone researching pretend vampires stumbles across a real vampire could be a lot of fun. But they don’t really pace the mystery very well. I won’t spoil how it turns out incase lesbian vampire found footage film is someone’s thing and they really want to check this out (because if that’s your thing, there’s probably not much out there in your niche). However, I will say that the twist at the end is kind of dumb and would have been better if they kept Holly guessing the whole movie rather than 15 minutes in being dead sure of the truth.
This film was not nearly as cool or fun as it had the potential to be. I have to give it a don’t watch recommendation.
New = 11
Total = 16
Hoopla Breakdown: Hoopla is a digital borrowing service that many Ohio Libraries offer that allows patrons to borrow digital books, audiobooks, graphic novels, single issues of comic books, movies, and episodes of TV shows. You are provided with a set number of borrows each month. The amount varies by the library system. There are some limits on how many borrows that branch allows across its patrons each day, so it's better to try to get your borrows in early the morning of than it is the night before you plan to use them. This can also be an issue if you are looking to check out a TV Series because you have to borrow each episode individually. However, unlike other services, the items are always available. There is no hold system, waiting for other patrons to return their material before you get the title, or waiting for it to be delivered to your local branch for pick up. If you can find it, you can borrow it. Other benefits to this program are that you can stream directly over your data connection or wi-fi, or if you are concerned about saving data, you can download the material for offline access. The Hoopla app also has a casting feature so you can stream the title from your device to a larger screen using devices like Chromecast.
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