Theresa & Allison

I saw this movie only because I was watching a horror movie on Amazon and got busy and this one started up next. It is the story of a young woman named Theresa that gets quite drunk one night and falls victim to a female vampire. The vampire gets drunk, yes drunk, from the alcohol in Theresa's blood and ends up turning her so she does not die. Theresa ends up struggling with being a once pacifist to now having to take lives for sustenance. Enter Allison, a woman born in the seventies and turned when she was 20 something, who tries to educate Theresa.

OK, first of all, Allison kept saying that she would be an old grandma in a nursing home instead of young and beautiful has she not been turned. Both of these statements are factually incorrect. Being in your 40s does not relegate someone to a nursing home, clearly whoever wrote this was terrible at math. Also, the actress playing Allison was not what I would call beautiful, but that is of course in the eye of the beholder.

All of the interactions between Theresa and the other vampires she encounters seem forced, not organic. There was absolutely no reason for Allison to seek her out, nor was there any reason for Allison's ex-boyfriend to also seek Theresa out. There is also a lot of pro gay/lesbian thematic elements here and the movie treats straight men like they are monsters that do not care who the woman is, they automatically want to sleep with them.

The writing was terrible and the acting was not much better, especially from the supporting cast. Anyone rating this film higher than a 5 must be associated with the movie or a friend of someone that was. Do not believe them. If you are looking for a good erotic horror, this is not it. If you are looking for a movie with plenty of nudity then this is that film, but do not expect it to be very arousing as even the sex scenes were shot without any artistic lens or believably.

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.

Obviously low budget, dreadful acting, poor dialogue. Trust the reviews of 4/10 and less. This is garbage at best, almost 2 hours of my life, I won't get back. Do not watch, find something better to do.

Please sue your "film school" for malpractice instead of subjecting your audience to another awful film where you managed to omit having a narrative. And keep that barista job.

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.