Vampire Diary

Vampire Diary is a great movie considering what it is--the story of a group of 'weekend vampires' and a woman with a habit of recording everything who meet a female vampire by pure chance. Prepare for an unexpected love quadrangle, some interesting lore on vampires, and great use of found footage.

My only complaint lies in a scene towards the end during which one of the weekend vampires' lines were corny (writing) and poorly delivered (acting, directing).

One thing I especially like about Vampire Diary is that the first thirty minutes make a wonderful short story. I almost wished it ended at the water scene simply because of how great the movie was by that point. So, there you go. Give the first thirty minutes a shot. If you find yourself caring about the characters or interested in seeing what happens next, continue on for the remaining hour.

This film should be very average, it is massively derivative and amateurish - BUT it is in fact excellent as both a Vampire horror and as a Lesbian romance. The rawness of the direction is in fact a huge plus and combines Jose Ramon Larraz's 'Vampyres' and 'The Blair Witch Project' transposed to an urban setting. The conceit of using the documentary-making format is trotted out again so that amateur acting can be passed off as realism. And yet - the energy and enthusiasm of cast and crew carry the film along to its satisfying conclusion. One can only hope that when or if this gets a release in the USA it is not censored out of existence.

This is one of these films where - often - the dialogue is spoken in some kind of breathless whisper, such that one needs the volume turned up to hear what's being said; and then - CRASH - in comes the music at now-deafening volume. This is very irritating.

It also has a "found footage" approach (despite being 8 years after Blair Witch, when I thought we'd all calmed down a bit..) - which is OK but occasionally distracting.

Having said that, it's not awful. The story, acting and cinematography could be worse and there's some nice use of English locations, which adds to the quasi-authentic context.

If you're in the market for modern lesbian vampire fare though, I'd recommend something like "Theresa and Allison" over this.

I usually enjoy anything with vampires and zombies in it - this was the exception. The story is not very interesting, and the central theme about dependency and vampire-human relationships was better explored in Let the Right One in.

It all feels very small which I suppose reflects the fact that one of the main characters is supposed to be making a documentary about weekend vampires. Still, small locations, small cast, small number of ideas.

The acting is not too bad, but there is just too little to work with. For instance, a fairly intense and straight-laced young woman (albeit the product of a troubled youth) suddenly becomes a serial killing accomplice as a result of her passion for a lesbian vampire. Just doesn't work - no soul searching just a total and immediate commitment to murder.

It is sexy though, so if this is a priority for you then you might enjoy it. Not for me though... My copy will be finding a new home :)

The concept is promising. As soon as it begins, the film is not.

Even putting aside the "found footage" framing, the stylization is frankly obnoxious. This includes the shoddy camerawork, the editing, and the direction; the insistence on extra close-up shots is especially aggravating and comes off as amateurish. Dialogue and characters are at best bland if not outright annoying, and the pace is brusque and rushed. Within the first fifteen minutes we're informed of the death of "Eddie" but are given no reason to care about him, and the beat is forced onto us so quickly that other characters' mourning doesn't even feel real. To be blunt, so it goes for pretty much everything else that is to follow in the next 75 minutes: scenes that should be inspiring or titillating fall flat owing to emphatically poor and overzealous execution. 'Vampire diary' is a broadly unlikable mess.

Would I like the cast more if I saw them in another feature? Would filmmaker Phil O'Shea, or co-director Mark James, demonstrate their capabilities elsewhere if I looked for other instances of their work? I'd like to think so. This specific movie, however, is irritating on almost every level, in almost every regard. I like the music, at least; though it's a tad overdone, I appreciate the work put in by the hair and makeup artists, and costume design. Yet these are not elements that can remotely begin to carry a picture. There are good ideas scattered throughout the length, but they feel plainly insufficient.

So what do we have, then, in terms of value? Good ideas that aren't done well, and passable rounding details that are inconsequential in the grand scheme of things? I think I tend to be very generous and open-minded when it comes to cinema, but even I struggle to describe 'Vampire diary' as something more than Rock Bottom. The plot and scene writing somewhat improve as the length progresses, but also feel haphazard at times; in any case, it's not enough to substantively make a difference, and the title is overlong regardless. Whether you're looking for a lesbian romance, a vampire flick, or a found-footage romp, there are many more much better films you can watch, and unless you're desperate, this sadly isn't particularly worth your time. I want to say that I like it more than I do, but style overshadows substance, and the style is awful.