VAMPIRE JOURNALS (1997)

Starring: Jonathan Morris, David Gunn, Kirsten Cerre, Starr Andreeff, Ilinka Goya, Costica Barbulescu, Mihai Dinvale. Written and Directed by Ted Nicolaou. USA. 92 minutes.

Vampire Journals marks writer/director Ted Nicolaou's fourth vampire film for Charles Band's DTV (direct-to-video) Full Moon label and Romanian producers Vlad and Oana Paunescu, the same team responsible for the Subspecies series (of which the second installment, Subspecies 2: Bloodstone, was an unexpected gem, that occasional diamond-in-the-rough yeilded by the generally weak Full Moon). Journals is set in the same universe and the vampires here obey the same natural laws (for the most part), but are considerably prettier than Anders Hove's Radu of Translyvania (who looks like a Death Rockin' version of Max Schreck in the original Nosferatu) and the story is in the same sympathetic bloodsucker genre as the Anne Rice novels (does the title seem familiar to you?).

Zachery (Gunn) is cut from the Louis de Pointe du Lac mold - a reluctant vampire who deeply regrets his predatory, parasitic nature. Seething with rage over his transformation from a poetry-writing, absinthe-swigging youth into one of the unholy undead centuries earlier, Zach vents his frustrations by systematically hunting down the entire bloodline of the vamp who spawned him and beheading them with a sacred vampire killing sword, the blade of Laertes. "I am God's most desolate creature," he tells us. "A vampire with a mortal heart."

Here his hunt brings him to Romania, where he finds his attention drawn to Ash the Music Lover (Morris), an undead patron of the arts who has his sights set on a pretty pianist named Sophia (Cerre). Ash is determined to turn Sophia into his "fledgling" so that she'll have eternity in which to master her talent under his tutelage, while Zachery is set on saving her soul and seperating Ash's head from his shoulders.

To be certain, this is a simply GREAT looking movie for a low-budget DTV, with awesome lighting (lots of browns, yellows and sepias), spooky make-up, opulent sets and lovely costumes, not to mention the Romanian locations, which are simply fantastic and made good use of. Gunn makes a ghoulishly handsome, Byronic hero, but as much as it has going for it on the technical and talent front, Vampire Journals is rather weak on the narrative score. As much as the lighting, costumes and sets dazzled me, I kept waiting for something to happen! Like its Hamlet-esque hero, Journals simply stands in the same place for too damn long and once the climax rolls around you're hardly left caring how things will turn out.

Still, there are some really neat Hammer-esque touches, like lots of bare-bosomed trollops who have their blood messily sucked out of their veins and regurgitated on their shapely throats. Nicolaou shows great promise as a director, but he could benefit from some help in the screenwriting department. The ending of this one is virtually identical to the finish of the first Subspecies fer chrissakes! If this is the beginning of a new series I can only hope that this will progress the way that Subspecies has. On a closing note, I should say that a second viewing softened my opinion and made me look upon this flick in a slightly kinder light. You certainly could do worse, but I'd still grab the widescreen edition of Dracula Has Risen From the Grave off the video store shelves before bothering with this one.

**1/2 Two and a Half Coffins Full of Maggots

* Dead meat. Ripe n' reeking.
** Moribund, but showing a slight flicker of life.
*** Good n' healthy.
**** Brimming with Vitality.