Dr. Seward (Eric Toms), who works at an institution for the criminally insane, finds Lucy (Raelan Mackiewicz), the little daughter of his neighbour Mina (Marlene Mc'Cohen) sleepwalking out on the street one night, and brings her home to her mother, who in turn invites him over to hers for dinner the next evening, and seems the three of them get along rather nicely. To his surprise, the next day Renfield (Spencer Weitzel), one of Seward's patients, knows about Mina and Lucy, and he really has no way of knowing - but he mentions his master. What's more unsettling though is that Lucy goes sleepwalking again, this time on a very busy road, and it's only thanks to Mina that she doesn't walki into traffic. Thing is, Mina thinks she has seen the girl with a stranger (Brenton Jones), and when Seward later examines her, he notices bitemarks on her neck. He stays with Mina and Lucy the next night, but passes out in front of the TV, while the stranger enters the apartment and proves to be a vampire who wants to drain Lucy, but Mina begs him to take her instead. Nevertheless, the next day, Lucy ands up dead and Mina seems to have lost her mind. as she constantly talks about Lucy visiting her. This greatly distresses Seward, who has taken to Mina - however what's even more distressing is that one evening he sees Lucy walking about himself, even if her burial was just that morning ...

Of course, the names in this onw will sound familiar to any old schoot horror fan, and the title is also a dead give away: This is a pretty radical re-interpretation of the Dracula-myth (even if the vampire's name is never mentioned), moving it out of its familiar gothic settings and right into the realm of psychological horror. That this at all works is thanks to a clever screenplay that doesn't try to turn around its source material at all cost but actually examines Bram Stoker's novel for the key elements for the approach. And a directorial effort that doesn't shy away from going abstract at times instead of going for genre tropes, and a solid cast only help making this a highly unusual but very worthwhile horror trip.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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