Dracula's Ex-Girlfriend

I had to give the movie a release date here to write this...

Parasocial warning: I have followed Thorn's work for many years now, so as often happens, I have a feeling I know more about her than about most actors or writers, so I can't help but read what I know about her into this short. It doesn't help that this movie covers topics she has covered previously in her work on The Philosophy Tube.

With that in mind, I enjoyed the movie. I am a pessimist by nature, so when the movie was first announced, my initial reaction was somewhat hesitent, since this could have easily been a regurgitation of various clichés, but instead it's actually quite engaging.

The movie is about the meeting of Dracula's girlfriend (Belladonna) and an ex-girlfriend (Fay) she reached out to. Most of the movie is the two of them discussing their lives in a pretty confrontational manner publicly at a restaurant (where they do have a table that is conspicuously far from all other tables).

The pair do feel a little over the top in their antagonism, as they try to... get somewhere in their conversation, but then again, vampires are often depicted as more emotional than humans, so we can maybe assume that's the reason for it.

There are some comedic elements, some of which work better than others, but mostly they are a pretty good way of telling us that Belladonna is hiding her pain from the world and probably from herself as well. Is there anyone who could possibly understand this better than Fay?

Since this is a short, it doesn't cover a lot of ground and basically feels like just an extended scene in a larger story, but that is generally a good way to approach shorts and it definitely works here. There is some character building, but the it also utilizes our expectations of these characters quite nicely. We know what vampires are and we know Dracula, so not that much explanation needed.

This is my favorite of the Nebula originals thusfar and makes even my pessimistic a*s optimistic for their future.

As a years-long fan of Philosophy Tube I of course had to check this out. Basically it is a dinner conversation between Dracula's current girlfriend and one of his exes. Vampirism has long been a metaphor for sexuality and predatory behavior and here it also represents abuse so we see how one might rationalize it during it and only properly recognize it when confronted by someone who already got out. This explores the long-term effects of toxic relationships. It's very rich. There's also some great stuff showing empathy for service workers making fun of fancy restaurants and LA. It gets into some of the pressures felt by young women.

It reminded me somewhat of what little I've seen of Fleabag albeit with dialogue in place of asides. It's incredibly well shot and edited and shows how much you can do with what appears at first to be as simple setup. There are some lgbtq+ themes aided by the the director who also handles other things including visual effects and cinematography being a member of the community and both lead actors being trans individuals. There is a consistent tension on account of the situation and all it represents in more ways than one which is sometimes mined for fear and anxiety and other times comedy. It's not constantly trying to be funny but it succeeds when it is and the several hilarious moments had me laughing uproariously. 8/10.

The metaphor is a little in-your-face, but it works. I appreciated the contrast between the horror elements and the light-hearted humor, which also complements the seriousness of the real issue discussed here.

The little "easter eggs" were enjoyable, the acting was ok, the visuals were beautiful, and the small details were compelling.

It manages to be humorous without falling into making fun of the situation that is so dismal to many real people, and it accomplishes this by breaking tension with the absurdity of the fantasy elements, but without undermining the emotional moments of the characters.

Well done!

Too often characters will be entirely one thing or another to ensure you feel one way about them. Dracula's Ex-Girlfriend lets it's two leads be a bit more complex than that. They're not perfect, they're people - albeit ageless people that hide from the sun and crave the blood of the living. Sometimes they're more sympathetic, sometimes they're not, but they're always engaging. The whole film manages that balance wonderfully. It's funny, it's dramatic, it's suspenseful, it's horrifying. Sometimes it's one of these things, other times it's all of them at once. But it still feels cohesive, and the story is driven by the characters and not just the needs of the plot. At a little under 32 minutes it's the perfect length for it's story, with enough time to allow the occasional quiet moment but not so much that you notice the time.

I like Abigail Thorn's Youtube endeavours. She researches her stuff really well. So I was interested to see this. And oh wow, is the dialogue painful. Don't misunderstand, the content that this film attempts to discuss and deal with is serious, important, and essential in today's age. The writing and dreadful direction interfere with the unlying importance of the material however.

Somewhere beneath the absymal production is a good film dealing with important topics just bursting to get free. Sadly, like the characters it doesn't quite get there. That makes it an incredible shame. You can see what's being attempted. You can see how close they could have gotten. It just doesn't hit the mark.

My opinion, and it is just my opinion is that this is catering to those types of people who don't want to do the thinking. They don't want to do the work to understand the topic being presented to them. It's literally the only theory I could develop about how writing this dreadful ever got given a production budget.