Review: Black Water Vampire / Cert: 15 / Director: Evan Tramel / Screenplay: Evan Tramel / Starring: Danielle Lozeau, Andrea Monier, Anthony Fanelli, Bill Oberst, Jr / Release Date: March 24th
“The following footage was found a year later.” Oh joy. Found footage features have come a long way since Blair Witch – some might say too far – but Black Water Vampire manages to not only go back to the Blair Witch well but it also breaks some unexpectedly new ground. Here, ladies and gentlemen, is the world’s first found footage vampire movie. It makes a refreshing change from haunted houses, churches and Costa Coffees and is at least a sort of claim to fame for this otherwise derivative and largely unimaginative meander through a movie genre we’re surely all utterly sick and tired of by now.
You know the score. A bunch of amateur movie-makers set off to explore a local mystery; across the last forty years a woman has been murdered every ten years (not the same woman, that’d be ridiculous) in the woods near Black Water. A handy weirdo (Oberst) has been arrested and is due to fry. But Danielle (Lozeau) isn’t sure they’ve got the right man and decides to explore the woods with her chums to try to discover if rumours of vampires in the woods are true.
Inevitably, our heroes do what the heroes of found footage films do every time. They get lost, blunder about in the dark, they scream a lot and run around gasping and they always remember to film absolutely everything no matter how terrified they are. Needless to say, there is something nasty in the woods and, surprisingly, it is quite gruesome, if reminiscent of the cave-dwelling boogies of Neil Marshall’s The Descent. If you’re of a nervous disposition it might actually be quite scary in the right light…
To be fair, we’ve seen worse FF films than Black Water Vampire. The vampire angle is a decent USP, the crisp, snowy locations have a pleasing unearthliness about them and the cinematography is a bit more accomplished than a throwaway movie of this type might normally deserve. Utterly stupid ending aside, Black Water Vampire isn’t too shabby even if it’s just the same old story but with a vampire instead of an invisible ghost.
Extras: None
