Blood & Donuts

Going in you know it's going to be strange, but is it going to be good strange, bad strange, or just strange strange? The reason "Blood and Donuts" is good strange is it actually has a very clever script. Introducing Boya, a vampire just awakening after being asleep since 1969, and his trials and tribulations dealing with women and gangsters. He not only has an attraction for the donut shop girl, but a love from his past is hot on his trail, looking for revenge. Throw in David Cronenberg as a neighborhood boss, and you have enough to keep the movie going. The characters are likable, with Gordon Currie a standout as the sensitive rat eating vampire. The film is dialog driven, and the photography is creative. I recommend "Blood and Donuts". - MERK

Don't let the lurid cover fool you; this isn't a stupid direct-to-video release with bad dialogue & gratuitous gore. Instead, it's a thoughtful and rather bittersweet movie about a reluctant vampire and his attempts to maintain human contact in the face of insurmountable obstacles.

Returning from a self-imposed exile, Boya lives a marginal existence, eating rats in a flophouse,and mourning human friends gone by. Yet,he is drawn to light and life in the form of a neighborhood donut shop and it's fresh-faced counter girl. He also befriends a good-hearted cabbie who dreams of better things and owes money to the wrong kind of people. (And look for David Cronenberg in a juicy cameo role.)

This film is a breath of fresh air in the recent spate of vampire movies which appear to be nothing but an excuse to snarl insults and spray fake blood. Well-acted, well-written, well-directed....go and rent it. You'll be glad you did.

In 1994, in Toronto, the vampire Boya (Gordon Currie) awakens from his twenty-five years of sleep in a basement hit by a golf ball. He takes a cab to the local cemetery, retrieves his belongings from a grave and lodges in a low budget hotel nearby an all-night donut shop. Boya does not drink human blood anymore but rats and pigeons blood instead. While in the donut shop, Boya befriends and protects the taxi driver Earl (Justin Louis), who is having trouble with two criminals, and falls in love for the waitress Molly (Helene Clarkson). Meanwhile, his former passion of 1969, Rita (Fiona Reid), who misses her lost youth, is trying to locate him.

"Blood & Donuts" is a weird vampire movie, but also with a great potential of cult-movie. The unusual story is completely different from most of the films of vampire; actually it is a tale of loneliness, friendship, love and self-sacrifice. Goya is probably more human than any other character in spite of being a vampire. This is a typical very low budget movie that works, supported by magnificent story, screenplay, direction, performances, cinematography, special effects and music score. Actually the cinematography is top-notch and the music score is fantastic. I noted in IMDb that the excellent and unknown Helene Clarkson apparently interrupted her career in 1996. I regret only the terrible spelling mistakes in the subtitles in Portuguese of the Brazilian DVD released by Lider Distributor. Last but not the least, wait until the very last scene in the end of the credits. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Sangue de Vampiro" ("Vampire's Blood")

It's not every day you see something original and clever done with the vampire genre, but this does it and then some. This is a unique, low-key, low-gore, charming little movie. Gordon Currie is very likable (and *real* easy on the eyes!) as Boya, the vampire who went into hibernation in 1969 and crawls out to face a grimy world of small-time mobsters, cheap donuts and a bitter ex-girlfriend who's waited 25 years for his return. Determined not to prey on people, Boya runs through dozens of rats and pigeons while forming shy friendships with a nervous cabbie and a smart, ironic donut waitress. The character has such fundamental sweetness and sincerity that he's impossible not to like, reticent and embarrassed about his vampirism but quickly bringing his undead powers to bear when his new friends need help, and quietly mourning the short lifespans of humankind (a theme often blared loudly in vampire films but gentle and subtle here). Much more about people, friendship and self-sacrifice than your average vampire film, and a nice change.

If your tired of watching the same-old vampire gore flick, this is for you. This is for the vampire-movie connoisseur. There are no fantastic special effects, no expensive actors, no real gore scenes. There is "Canadian" humour, which may or not work with our American cousins (or even on some Canadians).

Blood & Donuts features not a classy, good-looking, or powerful vampire. Boya Zsekely is a weak, quirky, and emotional vampire. <That's all I'm going to say about the actual film, since I don't want to ruin it for those of you who haven't watched it yet>

Look for our brilliant Canadian director David Cronenberg in ninth acting position. I love this man as a director, as an actor...I love this man as a director <LOL>. Actually, he fits this film like a glove.

This film is not for everyone. <My wife hated it, but she hates most of my 90+ vampire movies> This movie is a great "B" movie.