Tags:
Film: Blood & Donuts
Year: 1995
Director: Holly Dale
Writer: Andrew Rai Berzins
Starring: Gordon Currie, Louis Ferreira and Helene Clarkson
Review:
This film begins telling us about the moon landing. We then see a person who is hitting golf balls. One of them goes into an old building and hits a shovel. The shovel then causes the floor above it to collapse. We then see a man emerge from it, played by Gordon Currie. He has long finger nails and he rips them off.
We then see him outside at night and he attacks a homeless man, but stops before he goes too far.
We then meet a cab driver, played by Louis Ferreira, who talks funny. There is also a woman played by Fiona Reid that seems to feel something as we see Currie emerge from the building.
The film then moves to a donut shop. The woman working behind the counter is played by Helene Clarkson. She is visited by two men, played by Frank Moore and Hadley Kay. They are looking for someone, but she tells them that he is not there and she has not seen him on that night.
Ferreira gives Currie a ride and drops him off at a cemetery, where he digs up his belongings. He then goes to a seedy hotel where he rents a room.
Ferreira goes to the donut shop and we see an interaction with Clarkson. She warns him about the mobsters that were looking for him. He flees the place and the gangsters are waiting for him. They force him to drive them to a job. He panics and Reid gets into his vehicle. She wants to go to the same cemetery that Currie did.
Currie goes into the donut shop and he interacts with Clarkson. He is attracted to her beauty and she finds him to be odd.
The mobsters go back to their boss, who is played by David Cronenberg. They are told to take care of Ferreira. They try to, but Currie comes to his aid. That is when we realize that Currie is a vampire. He then goes to bed later that night and we then see that he has a connection with Clarkson. She cannot sleep and they both have an erotic experience.
We learn that Reid was Currie’s former lover and she is upset that he left her. She wanted to become a vampire to have enough time to do everything that she wanted to do. She has gotten older and she is upset. Currie views his affliction as a curse. Reid has also become jealous of Clarkson, because she believes that he loves her now and will leave her as well.
The gangsters are also after Ferreira, but will they get him or will Currie save him? Will Clarkson and Currie be together? Or will Currie leave her the same way that he did with Reid?
I have to say that there are a lot of vampire films out there and it is good to see something different. I do like that Currie is a decent looking guy and I believe that the women would fall in love with him. I also love that he is a little weird and out of touch. He also isn’t over the top like a Dracula. I also loved the cameo of Cronenberg, who is a horror legend. I also felt the most real story in this film was Reid and her anger.
This film had a lot of issues for me though. First, it was supposed to be a comedy, but I didn’t find it funny at all. I found Ferreira to be extremely annoying in how he talked. I felt the gangsters were over the top and not very realistic. I didn’t like how Currie’s face changed when he showed his fangs. The film didn’t really seem to have a point, the love connection between Clarkson and Currie was lacking to me as well.
I wouldn’t recommend this film unless you like artsy vampire films. I felt that the film didn’t have enough direction on where it wanted to go. It wasn’t scary and it was supposed to be a comedy, but I didn’t find it funny. There was some decent acting, along with some really bad acting. Unless this film sounds good, I would avoid it as there are a much better films in this genre.
My Rating: 5 out of 10