Theresa & Allison

The opening of this was quite amazing. Some great imagery, great acting choices, interesting tone. Thought it was going to become a vampire allegory ala The Addiction, but with a more modern slant. A tribute to what you can do on a micro budget.

Then upon the introduction of the second titular character every scene becomes monologues of characters talking about far more interesting things than what they had the budget to film and how those things informed who they are, breaking a primary rule of filmmaking, show don't tell. We don't need to know what a character will do if we never see them act and their actions have nothing to do with the movie. That's just a writer sacrificing story and characters for the sake of world building.

Which is dumb, because the world they built was rife with cliche after cliche. The smaller more interesting story of Theresa seemed on the verge of saying something original about the modern world with its juxtaposition of horror imagery, graphic nudity, and disassociated longing for something else.

Ariella Hope is good though. In the first half she is in fact quite excellent. You feel her desire, her pain. You care even though she's just been introduced. She conveys empathy as naturally as Jake Gyllenhaal. Then later she tries her hardest to make it seem like every new character that comes in and talks for ten minutes is providing something relevant to her journey, even if they don't. Not even remotely. You believe her conflict even though it all just centers around someone she met that day. She has a lot of talent and I really wish they had used that ability to tell the story I thought they were going for: vampirism as a metaphor for mistaking sex as intimacy, the dangers of projection, confusing longing for a connection.

Instead, they talked for an hour and a half about a world they never showed us for a bunch of sequels they aren't likely to make, starring all the characters I didn't care about.

This could have been a really good movie, but I don't think they knew what to do with it. Theresa gets turned (into a vampire) and winds up at a registration place. It seems that vampires are known, and there are rules to follow, and then they are left alone simply as just one more predator in society. She is told to forget about what she saw in the movies about vampires. As far as the victim's bodies "we have people who handle that." She is told she is now forever 17, and will never age. She meets Allison, who becomes her guide to help her adjust to her new experience. "Don't feel bad, it is what we are." Her sense of smell and taste will be heightened. Children are extremely delicious, but that was more in the past as we are now in the time of Amber alerts and Nancy Glass. Theresa's first kills are told in flashbacks until she got registered. The story telling just turns into a mess and things are thrown in that really detract from the story. And a lot of that is that the movie is simply too long for what they had, so it got padded. It should have been more about the rules they needed to follow to live among the others, instead of throwing in the party scenes and the 'Mother". That would have been a chance for a fish out of water type of humor.

I had no idea this was a vampire movie. It has been a long time since I have seen a good vampire movie (2o years +) but this was pretty good. Acting was great and the story line kept me intrigued the whole time

6.9

Just couldn't get into this. Interesting premise and yet another new take on the vampire genre (see Byzantium which is far superior albeit on a much bigger budget) but ultimately badly acted by supporting cast (the characters of Paisley, Tony and the Russian mother were at best wooden). Some interesting ideas though around government complicity, family and survival. Ultimately undone by the supporting cast.

I watched this because it had a 7.7 IMDB score on Amazon Prime. But obviously, it is just the average score, sample size also matters! How could I know that the 63 people who voted were probably cast's close friends and family!

2 hours of my life wasted. Don't make the same mistake. This is a pointless very boring low-cost production.